Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to k MET fourteen ninety AM ABC News Radio
in the Southern California Business Report with the Vettwalker, a
show dedicated to highlighting successful Southern California businesses and the
people behind them.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome and thank you for joining Southern California Business Report
on ABC News and Talks k MET fourteen ninety AM,
ninety eight point one FM and km ET TV. I'm
e Vettwalker, live blasting our signal from the center of
Southern California, serving a population of over twenty five million.
Get us crystal clear and on demand by downloading the
(00:39):
free live streaming app on Google Play and the app
lap Store. As always, a huge shout out to the
team Mitch, Bill and Sean I love you guys, and
to our special advisory committee that can be found at
www dot scbr talk dot com forward Slash Advisory Committee.
(01:01):
Click on the link and learn about the incredible leaders
doing the work. And as you know, my goal and
my mission is to always introduce remarkable leaders, and today
I'm absolutely thrilled to introduce Tom Gump, a visionary leader
whose rotary journey radiates service, innovation, and friendship. As a
(01:22):
proud member of the Adena Morningside Rotary Club in Minnesota.
Tom's commitment to growing Rotary's reach is unwavering. He chairs
Rotary International's Membership Growth Committee and has served as aid
to the Rotary International President soon to be director for
Zones twenty five, B and twenty nine. Tom is also
(01:43):
shaping the future through the Zone Realignment Committee for the
Americas and as co chair of the twenty twenty eight
Rotary International Convention in Minneapolis. Together with his wife Catherine,
secretary of the Adena Noon Club, and their son Andrew,
president of the twins Port Roaderact Club. Tom's family exemplifies
(02:05):
Rotary values, having hosted seven youth Exchange students. For Tom,
the heart of Rotary is the friendships forged and lives changed.
Let's join him in building a more connected, compassionate world. Tom,
thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Well, thank you so much for having me here today.
I am honored.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Well, you know, thank you for taking time. It's dinner
for you in Minneapolis, and instead of enjoying dinner with
your beautiful family, you're here with us today, and so
thank you so much for that. And as you know,
my first question to each of my guests is to
tell us what inspired you, how were you first introduced
to Rotary, and what called you to be involved.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Well, when I look back, when I first tried to
join Rotary, it was the service that I saw the
good that was being done in the world. It's that simple,
but it's interesting. My journey road wasn't typical, or at
least isn't typical today. I hope you know I was.
Back in nineteen ninety six. I was an assistant district
attorney in Gainesville, Georgia's just north of Atlanta, about forty
(03:13):
minutes and I wanted to join Rotary back then, but
they had a rule that there could only be one
classification for each spot open in their club, and so
I was an assistant district attorney and my boss she
had the law enforcement classification. So I didn't join Rotary
for seventeen years after that point. And the reason I
(03:37):
joined is because the gentleman who's my neighbor lives across
the street. We work out together a few times a week,
and he kept asking me, and he must have asked
two dozen times before I actually just said yes, just
so it'd stopped asking. And I went to the club
and just enjoyed all the people there, like minded people
who wanted to do good in the world, and so
(03:58):
it taught me a lesson though, of it taught me
that you need to be persistent because sometimes when you're
trying to go rotary, it might not work or fit
in somebody's schedule. So you don't need to give up
on them. You just need to find a club that
fits for them. So I'm glad it happened that way.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Well, it sounds like it was a long journey, you know,
having waited seventeen years because of the classification barrier. But
then also you know, kind of being revisited by a
persistent rotarian. Right, as rotarians, that's what we're supposed to do. Right,
when we see a quality person and we know that
they have what it takes to be a contributing member,
(04:34):
they have the skills and the intellect and the heart
of service, this is the perfect place for you. Tom.
What was your first experience as a rotary member and
how did it shape your journey?
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Well, you know, I think there are so many whys,
and there's so many things that inspire you to be
a part of something. And I'll tell you one short story.
If you don't mind, and that would be part of
the youth exchange. And I use that story because you
brought it up, and that is important. You know, we,
like you said, at seven long term youth exchange students
who lived with us anywhere from three months to a year.
(05:10):
And we had one wonderful boy named Paco. And Paco
came to live with us when he was sixteen years
of age. And it was great because we only have
one son and he has host daughters and sisters, sisters
and brothers around the world. When Paco came to live
with us, he was happy. He was always smiling. He
came from Valencia, Spain, where he was on the national
(05:32):
soccer team for his age, so he was the star
of the high school team. Was always helping out, always
asking to help with the dishes or yardwork or whatever.
So a few weeks after he had been staying with us,
I came down and saw him in our son room
and he was just sobbing uncontrollably. He could not stop crying,
and he couldn't tell me why. So I picked up
(05:53):
the phone and called his mother Anna, and she had
told me that Paco's father had died. Yes, it was
so heartbreaking. So I said, don't worry, Catherine, Andrew and
I will get on a plane with Poco and fly
him home. She said, no, he's to stay with you
for the entire year. And this all has a point.
(06:13):
So we flew Anna over here with Paco's younger brother,
then eight years old, and yet younger sister, Sarah, who
was six years old, to our home so they could
all be together. And Paco's mother brought my wife, Catherine
and I to the side of the room and let
us know that Pac and Paco knew this. Paco's father
had died via suicide. Yes, and you know our teenagers,
(06:37):
you have them, I have one. They see the world
egocentrically that their actions affect everything around them. So it
was easy for a teenager to blame his father's death
on himself because he had moved away. So that taught
me an interesting story. Because Paco's family was Catholic, our
(07:00):
family's Catholic, and they could not have a ceremony in
Spain for them, So we had a ceremony at our church.
And I'll tell you the night I opened those doors
and saw three hundred people from all the districts of
Rotory all around I realized that Rotor is not just
a club, it's a family. So that's my experience on
(07:20):
how I started Rotary, and I'll never forget that.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Wow, that is such a moving, heartbreaking but also beautiful
story and is a Catholic myself, you know, it resonates
with me that although the church didn't allow that ceremony,
Rotary rallied and supported this family in their darkest hour.
My god, what a beautiful showing of Rotary makes me
so proud to be a Rotarian. And you know, I mean,
(07:49):
how do I even move on from that response? But
you know, when we first met Tom, it was at
the Rotary Rose Parade decoration of the float out in
Baldwin Park here in California. And in our conversation you
mentioned that you were part of the organization there in Chicago,
(08:14):
which is the home of Rotary, where Paul Harris first
established the first group of professionals to start Rotary. How
does this location influence the organization's global vision.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Well, you know, we do headquarters in Evanston. So Rotary
the organization that is the operating entity is a Illinois
nonprofit corporation and then the foundation is a five oh
one C three tax exempt entity and being part of
(08:52):
that location, it does anchor you in certain ideas that
do reflect the work that you do. But our mission
statement of it is, we call it our vision statement
is together we see a world where people unite to
take action to create lasting change across the globe, in
(09:13):
our communities and in ourselves. And when we do those things,
it doesn't matter if we're doing a water project in Honduras,
it doesn't matter if we're picking up trash along the highway.
We are making the world, either right here or across
the world, a better place. And we're making ourselves better
by interacting with those people and learning the things that
(09:35):
we do.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Absolutely, and just the story that you mentioned about Paco
and his mother Anna and the travesty of the father's loss.
How is Paco and how are Anna doing today?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
You know they're doing great. And it wasn't just that
one day. They actually supported us those rotarias throughout the
whole year. There's three things that Paco wanted to do.
He wanted to learn how to play piano, learn how
to snowboard, and he wanted to box. So all of
those things were able to be done with the help
of Rotarians, and they took them. They took Paco to
(10:11):
sporting events, they took them on their vacation. There was
actually a gentleman who was about my age whose father
had died via suicide also, so Paco was able to
share stories with him that he understood that we didn't like.
If he would look out the window and think he
saw his father there, something I wouldn't understand as well
as my friend John did. But you know, people bring
(10:33):
over their dogs because Paco missed his dog. So it's
that kind of relationship that makes ROA to be different
than other clubs and other organizations, and it really does.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And you know, as a rotarian myself, I've been a
Rotarian for about ten years now, and that camaraderie, right,
that support that you have, and that second family right,
and being in an environment where people actually care and
hearing that story is it's so beautiful. It's not surprising,
but it is so impactful, and it's just such a
(11:08):
beautiful illustration of how rotary responds not only to local needs,
but to global needs as well. And you mentioned earlier
that you were previously an assistant DA and throughout our
conversations you also said that you kind of switched gears
and are now in real estate, which is interesting, right,
(11:31):
because as a Rotarian we bring our skills to complement
the projects that we focus on in the goals for
the mission. How have you found that your skills in
real estate complement your responsibilities in Rotary today.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Well, thank you for the question. You know, having a
legal background really helps you out a lot, even in
a volunteer capacity. So there's certain things I have to do,
especially in my director role. As a director elect, I'm
organizing three institutes. So our next institute in twenty twenty
six will be in Cancun. We'll have people from New York, Canada,
(12:09):
all the way down through the middle of the US, Chicago, Texas,
and Central and some of South America. Well, when you
have to negotiate a facility's use agreement in that way,
or in my position as the chair of the twenty
twenty eight Roader International Host Operations Committee, which is the
local folks who do the international convention, we'll have seventeen
(12:30):
thousand people from around the Rotary world come to our city.
And as part of that, we need to raise funds
for the work we need to do, and things like that,
so I draft assessment agreements between some of the districts
who want to help contribute to the cost of the
post operations committee. So it comes in handy a lot. Also,
(12:52):
I grow from being in Rotary, I mean being in
these different committees and meeting other business type people. If
people want to join Rotor to rub shoulders of people's
significance in their industry, especially younger people, it's a great
place to go. You know, people don't start off being
public speakers and being comfortable being interviewed, but Rodari gives
you those type of skills.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
That's very lucky to be in it, yes, right, and
then great mentorship opportunities as you mentioned, especially when you're
looking at the next generation like the interact and road directors.
And we'll come to that in a little bit. But
how has your experience as an assistant district governor influenced
your leadership in Rotary.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
You know, Rotary is a great place to develop and
that position, along with being governor and other positions, really
has helped me develop. But I think what position Rotary
prepared me the boast for being a director is being
aide to the Rotary International President. So for the last
two and a half years, I've been the person who is,
for lack of a better term, a chief of staff
(13:57):
or an advisor to the president of course, and always
makes the decisions, but I'm there to bounce things off of.
And why that was so important for my development was
I was able to audit the various committees in Rotary.
You know, we have various committees, finance, audit membership and
actually seeing as a director you may sit on one
(14:18):
or two committees, but I was able to audit many
committee meetings and that gave me a look under the
hood to see how it all works. So that really
prepared me well for my next position, which is a
Rotary International director starting in July.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
My goodness, that is remarkable. So tell us a little
bit about what that assistant to the International president was like,
you know, the travel, the commitments, the day to day
and how do you balance that all with you know,
having a family.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Well, it was it was an amazing experience, and it
was really a two and a half year experience. So
during her nominee year, which was a half a year
by the time she was selected, it was a lot
of of orientation meetings, meeting with different staff, to learn
how Roady works. You know, we had media relations training.
For example. The second year, during the president elect year,
(15:12):
she has to appoint her committees, and of course she
gets lots of recommendations from staff and others, and her
committee chairs and the people who are going to train
the governors at are International Assembly, and she's got to
do a lot of planning. We had a Council and Legislation,
which is once every three years. It's our parliament that
we hold in downtown Chicago. She had an international convention
(15:34):
to prepare for and those are large events. So the
second year is a lot of planning, and you have
to live in Evanston if you are in the president's
line international presiden's line. So I had lots of meetings
that year. During her president year, there was a lot
more travel, so she would travel around the world and
(15:55):
sometimes I was fortunate enough to go with her. So
if we go to Africa, we'd go to five different countries.
If we go to Europe, we'd go to several different countries.
And then one of my big jobs was appointing president's representatives.
So we have five hundred and thirty five districts and
they each have a district conference and the President gets
(16:16):
to represent someone to go somewhere to speak on her
behalf because obviously she can't go to every single one
because there's only so many trips she can have. So
of our five hundred and twenty two, there's about half
of them who want President's rep So I would recommend
to the President who to send to the Philippines to
represent the president or who descend to Japan. So it
(16:37):
was an amazing experience, but I'll tell you ave the
best part were the people that you meet, quality people
like you all over the world. Doesn't matter if you
go to Asia, you go to Africa, you go to Europe.
There are great people doing great things that just make
you feel good about the world.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
And of all of these wonderful experiences and locations, is
there one exchanges, there one moment that really resonated with
you and really made an impact on you as the
Assistant Rotary International President.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
You know, it's a very good question because there are
so many good things going on. But if you know
and you know about Rotary. But for your audience, our
number one internal priority is growing membership, but our number
one external programmatic priority is ending polio eradicating polio from
the face of the earth. It'll be only the second
disease that has ever been eradicated. So, you know, you
(17:33):
talked to different epidemiologists and they'll tell you, well, it
may be difficult to eradicate polio because there's you know,
fights that are going on. It's only endemic in two
countries right now, and that's basically the border between Afghanistan
and Pakistan. Well, going to Pakistan change my opinion from
(17:53):
being a doubting Thomas no pun intended that can we
ever get it done, to a believe that we will
get it done. And it was meeting those frontline workers.
You know, eighty five percent of them are women, and
they are putting their lives on the line. We've had
forty two people martyred while they were giving polio drafts.
But they put their lives on line, and you talk
(18:15):
to them. They are mothers and they don't want their
children crippled. And then you go to the National Emergency
Center in Pakistan where they're tracking all this and doing
the samples, and you talk to those chemists and those
scientists and they are excited because it used to take
them five weeks to track where the disease started. Now
it takes them five days. Seeing those people doing those
(18:37):
jobs makes me realize that we will eventually reach our
goal of eradicating polio.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Wow, that is just awful to hear forty two martyrs
on the mission to eradicate polio. My goodness. And with that,
you know, we also know that Rotari has a very
strong presence in the Pasadena Tournament of Roses, which is
a historic and beautiful event that takes place every year
(19:03):
on New Year's Day with the exception of Sundays, and
Rotary is going to have a float again this year.
Talk about how that impacts and how that assists in
spreading the message of the goals of Rotary today.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Well, Rodory does so many good things. But you know,
my job in Rotary is head of the committee for
Roady International Membership committee is to grow Rotary. But we
always have to ask ourselves of that, why do we
want to grow Rotary and why we want to grow Rotaries?
We want to have more hands and hearts to do
more good things, more service in the world. So when
you go to the Pasadena Rose bul Parade and you
(19:39):
know the numbers better than I do, almost as high
as your subscribership the twenty five million. But it's just
a great way to let people know what Rotary does.
And we want people to know what Rotary does so
they come and join us like minded people who will
go with us to Honduras and do those wells, who
will help us feed the hungry. You know, it's funny
(20:01):
because when you go, when you worship at various places,
you know they'll tell you this is what you need
to do well. In Rotary, we actually go out and
do it. So I love the balance of those two.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Absolutely, Rotary gives you the platform to live those values
and with the impeccable infrastructure and fiduciary duty and oversight
to do so with confidence and transparency. It's wonderful and
so touching back on the Rose Parade float, I just
(20:33):
want to hear a little bit about your experience because
you had just a once in a lifetime experience to
ride alongside your wife on the float. I mean, unless
you're the Rose Parayede Queen or somebody else on another float,
I mean, these experiences are few and far between. As
I mentioned, once in a lifetime. Please share what that
(20:54):
experience was like for you.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Well, it was definitely a bucket list item. And the
first time I did it, I actually rode the float twice,
the second time with my wife, the first time by myself.
The float is built by a committee of Rotary volunteers,
so Rotary contributes a small portion, you know, ten percent
maybe of the whole float costs, but the volunteers raise
(21:19):
money to build the float by people paying to ride
on the float or walk next to it. So the
first time I rode the float was with Jennifer Jones,
who was the first woman female president, and I thought
it was important to support her because that is so
important to grow Rotary. We need that diversity. And I
was proud of Rodory when they elected that person and
(21:40):
I rode the float with her. Then this past year,
the last Rose Boat Parade, was our second female president
who I was working for. I was her aid, and
my wife and I both were honored to ride the
float with her. But you know, you don't have to
pay to you know, ride the float. You can actually
enter into an auction as an ambassador for the Rotary
(22:01):
float and you can be chosen that way. And then
the first time I went was not either one of
those two. We actually just took a group of friends
from our district to go and decorate the float and
we had the best time. But it is an amazing experience,
especially writing down that television alley and going around the
corner just seeing all the people get so excited.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Absolutely, Now did the early mornings come even come close
to the mornings in Minneapolis.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
You know, it's never as cold in Pasadena as it
is in Appleis in January. But it's just wonderful. And
we have a friend who lives just a block off
the parade route, so one year we actually stayed with
her and that was fun. But getting up at four
o'clock in the morning when it's dark to get there,
it's all worth it. Your arm's a little bit tired
(22:49):
because it's about six hours by the time you get
on the float and by the time you end, but
it's just wonderful, and every inch along the way there's
kids that are smiling and happy. It's just there's nothing
like it. It's like the best Fourth of July parade
in your town, but on steroids.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Absolutely, it's such a beautiful tradition. And we're coming close
to the day just a few weeks away when the
rotary float is going to be, you know, coming down
Colorado Boulevard and making that turn. But for now we're
going to be heading out on and break Tom, So
hold on everybody listening. Ivette Walker with ABC News and
Talks Southern California Business Report Here today with Tom Gump,
(23:30):
visionary rotary Leader, Director elect for zones twenty five B
and twenty nine, Membership Growth Chair and global connector with
wife Catherine and son Andrew. Tom's family lives rotary values,
hosting youth, serving communities, and fostering friendships. He leads innovation,
inspires service, and unites people worldwide. When we return.
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Speaker 2 (27:27):
Welcome back everyone. Evett Walker with ABC News and Talks
Southern California Business Report. Here with Tom Gump, Visionary Rotary Leader,
Director elect zones twenty five B and twenty nine Membership
Growth Chair and Global connector with wife Katherine and son Andrew.
Tom's family lives rotary values, hosting youth, serving communities, and
(27:48):
fostering friendships. He leads innovation, inspire service, and unites people worldwide.
Thank you so much for being with us.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Today, Tom, Thank you for having me here.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Wonderful. So prior to the break, we were speaking a
little bit about the Pasadena Tournament of Roses and how
even a four am morning in Pasadena doesn't come close
to a four am morning in Minneapolis. I think we
can all agree to that. Yes, well, I just love that.
And so I'm just curious because your son is also
(28:23):
involved in this. Is your son also considering a career
as an attorney following in your footsteps?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
You know he's not. He has actually designed his own major,
which is storytelling using GIS. So a recent project he
did was to take GIS data from census data and
overlay it with Internet usage to show that in lower
social economic status neighborhoods, they use less internet, So this
(28:51):
information could be used for doing good in the world,
or it could be used for making profit for companies.
So I don't know what he'll do with it. He's
excited about it.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I love that. And so for those that may not
be familiar with GIS technology, it basically translates to global
imaging satellites that take pictures that track everything from weather
patterns to traffic patterns and data usage tides, ocean tides.
I mean, anything and everything we want to know about
(29:21):
the Earth is being measured and tracked by these global
imaging systems. And sure enough, for those that may be
interested or may already know, Ezri is basically the founder
of this technology, and they're based here in San Bernandino
County in Redlands, California, right in our backyard. So just
a little bit of trivia I wanted to throw out there,
(29:42):
But that is so fascinating. What turned him on to
this innovation and to these questions.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
You know, he's always been a kind spirit. He always
wants to help people. He's worked on different political campaigns
for individuals he thought could make a difference in the world.
And he wants to use his knowledge to help others
do good in the world as well.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I love that. I love that. So how does your family,
including your son, participate in events like the International Assembly.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Well, you know, it's interesting because my family is into
rotary as much as I am. My wife is going
to be president of her club in four years, so
she's always going to her club foundation meetings and her
regular meetings. And Andrew has been involved more so in
our international conventions, and he actually has had a job
(30:36):
with the last couple of international conventions doing things like that.
But what he's doing at university's second year at his university,
and what he's doing is he actually restarted the Rotoraq
Club that had gone away at his university and now
they have a satellite Roadoraq Club. Road Act is a
younger rotary for people who are under thirty. Usually there's
(30:59):
no age limit. That's typically who is involved. So they
have thirty five members. And when he first started, they
were doing service projects, but would be going to the
local zoo and that kind of thing. And he decided,
and you were talking about measuring things, he decided that
we need to have impact if we're going to do
more good in the world. So he's trying to do
larger projects. So he and my wife went to a
(31:22):
TED next in Atlanta a few weeks ago, so he
can be qualified to host a TED talk in his
city where his university is, Duluth, Minnesota. It's even further
north than me, even colder than Minneapolis. So they're planning
an event for five hundred people, and the volunteers for
that event will be local rotarians and local road directors.
(31:44):
So again, rotary does good in the community, but it
does good in ourselves. And he's developing through that nonprofit experience.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
That is absolutely remarkable. I mean, rotary in itself is
such a wonderful catalyst for growth and service. To be
able to do it is a family, I mean, that
is just so remarkable. I love that you're all able
to engage in something so meaningful together. What other opportunities
do you see for families to engage together in roadary activities,
(32:15):
either together or apart, or just you know, sporadically, because
you know, maybe people think, oh, we all have to
work on the same project, or can we work on
different projects? How what is that dynamic? How can that
dynamic look?
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Well? Thank you for asking that question, because you know,
every time on book comes out on membership or show
comes out of membership, I read it because I love
Rotary so much. I want to share that experience with
everyone else. And it's interesting to me because if you
look as at Rotary has it developed over the last
one hundred and twenty five years. It started out as
a business networking group, and then it came into service projects.
(32:52):
What a lot of times people see Rotary as owners
of business. Some see it as rich older white men
who own their own business, and they get together to
listen to speakers and eat lunch. What I have decided was,
you know, we do an all member survey, we do
a leadership survey, and what excites people is engagement. So
(33:15):
instead of just inviting, I would tell all our Rotarians,
you can invite someone to a meeting, but invite them
to a service project. You know, we just got done
doing Thanksgiving baskets, which is I'm in the morning club
in my town. It meets on Tuesday mornings and my
wife meets on Thursday afternoons. We got together and we
made hundreds of meals, packed turkeys and gloves and hats
(33:36):
and apple pies and you know, all the fixings, and
then we delivered them to the less fortunate folks around town.
And the thank you notes we got back and the
excitement when they smell that turkey and the cranberries and
all that. You know, again doing good in the world,
but you know, helping ourselves, those are the kind of
(33:56):
activities we need to engage family members. So if I
was just doing Rotary by myself, when I was going
to a beating every night and my wife, you know,
actually my wife is out at a food shelter tonight
with her club doing that and then they're going to
do a social after. So Rotary's not only doing service,
it's having fun. But I love it when the whole
family does it because then you're not taking someone away,
(34:18):
they're all doing it together. So's it's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Absolutely, And it's funny that you brought up the turkey
and the giving of these meals because as a one
time recipient of a box full of food and turkeys
for Thanksgiving it a time when our cupboards were barren
and our fridge was empty. That was a transformative moment
and that was the first time I ever made contact
(34:42):
with Rotary and fast forward thirty five years later, I discovered, Wow,
that was rotary, you know, and so I can attest
to the fact that it is truly transformative from both aspects,
right from the giver and from the receiver. You're the
chair of the host committee for the Rotary International Summit
in Minneapolis, and I know we just kind of touched
(35:04):
on it and it's really early to talk about, but
can you just talk about broadstroke goals for the event?
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Well, you know, of course we have a financial obligation
to break even. But what it is is it's interesting
because it's a combination greatest show on Earth. I mean,
our next one is going to be in Taipei. They're
usually in May or June, and Minneapolis will be in
May in twenty twenty eight. After that, it's going to
be in twenty twenty seven, it's going to be in
Dubai and then it's coming to Minneapolis. It's a way
(35:33):
for you know, all these friendships we make in Rotary
doing projects wherever we do them in the world, we
can meet up with all those Rotarians at an international
convention and depending where it is. In Dubai, they're expecting
fifteen thousand Minneapolis, we're expecting seventeen thousand. But we have
a combination of learning events, then we have wonderful entertainment.
(35:55):
We have signature events, whatever is local to that culture.
But one of the coolest things we do is we
have these home host hospitality events where you can go
to a rotarian's home and have dinner. So if you
go to Seoul, Korea, and we actually had an exchange
student from Seoul and she was finishing up her studies
(36:16):
right when we were going to the Soul Convention, so
we took her back with us and we got to
meet her mom and dad and do all these fun restaurants.
And they have like an American Idol TV show where
they have singers and we got to go on stage
with them, you know, just do all this fun stuff.
So that's what rotary. It opens up these opportunities for
you that other organizations just don't have, and that international
(36:39):
aspect of it really makes it fun.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Absolutely. That's the other great part of rotary is wherever
you are in the world, you can basically reach out
to the local rotary club and say, hey, I'm a rotarian,
can I join your meeting? And nine times out of
ten or maybe even ten times out of ten they'll
say absolutely and welcome you with open arms.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
No matter what time of the day it is. Event
somewhere around the world, somebody is doing good in Rotary
doing a project of some sort. It's amazing to think about,
it really is.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
And so as Director of Rotary International, you cover two
zones including Central Canada, Chicago and Minneapolis. What are the
unique challenges and opportunities in these zones and they're quite large.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
There's about fifty thousand in a zone currently, And what
are primary We are from a zone and we represent
that zone, but our primary fiduciary obligation since you brought
that up, is to Rotary International as a whole. So
I typically in a meeting I was in one today,
you represent what your people say. But when you come
(37:48):
to voting on things, because they're seventeen directors, along with
the President elect and president, they make the policies that
Rotary International follows and the strategies. So you have to
do that balancing act. But it's great to be a
director because you learn so much and it's important business
(38:08):
because you have to vote on where the next international
convention is going to be and various other things right
in order to be in the.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Position absolutely, and I understand that you also work on
zoning realignment, which occurs every eight years. Can you take
us into what that means and how that impacts the
landscape of rotary.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Thank you for the question. So Rotary, if you divide
it up into three worlds, three areas of the world,
you have the Americas, you have Europe and Africa, and
you have Asia. There's certain parts of the world and
Rotary that are growing and there's certain areas that are declining.
So overall gross generalization, the northern hemisphere is declining in membership,
(38:55):
with a few exceptions. Southern hemisphere is growing. So we
do redistricting and are actually rezoning. We try to balance
out those numbers. Right now, we have one point two
million rotarians. You divide that by thirty four zones, you
get thirty three thousand and seventy eight and you try
to get as close as you can, but as last
(39:16):
and you try to keep the areas geographically kind of
contiguous so they can do projects and have events and
summits and things together. But at our last council legislation,
which is our parliament, that happens once every three years.
We added an enactment that says you have to take
culture into consideration, so you want to make sure if
there's language or history or practices where zones go together,
(39:40):
you want to try to keep them together. So it's
an important job. But I don't want your audience to
think it's like what you hear on the radio when
it comes to redistricting for political purposes, because in those
situations you have a group that's trying to a gerrymander
a situation so that they have more power. International As
(40:00):
the directors, we try to make things fair. You know.
We have this as you know about the four way test,
and the last test isn't beneficial to all concern so
it's not exactly like it is in the political situation.
We're doing it for fairness, but we don't. When I
was in that meeting this morning, I was not jockeying
for his own twenty nine or twenty five b. I
(40:22):
presented what they thought about things, and of course I
wanted to, you know, not lose too many spots or anything.
But you think about RODA International as a whole, and
that's an important thing for a director to realize.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
So, in addition to developing and cultivating new members, how
does Rotary work to develop the next generation of Rotarians,
especially with the rise of interest and AI focused clubs.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
You know, it's interesting, this was the first year that
in our all member survey we talked about age and
we asked that question, and it's interesting. The areas of
the world that have the oldest members are actually declining
the quickest, and the areas that are growing have the
youngest members. And I know that's a gross over generalization.
(41:10):
We're pretty much down the line. So it is important.
But the most important thing is not to go out
and grab a young member and bring them into your club.
We have to make our clubs. We have to make
their culture accepting to younger people. So if there's a
young person who's interested in joining, I would say get
(41:31):
her him to get several friends and bring them in
as a class so they have something, because if you
don't give them what they need. And it's not that
there's not a lot of value on both sides, but
we need to get clubs that fit with the culture.
And if we don't have a club that they fit in,
we can start their own club that fits where they are.
(41:53):
You know, I am totally happy in my club. We
do a lot of service projects, like we pick up
trash along on the high way, We make sandwiches for
the hungry, we rake people's yards. Well, if I went
to my son and say come join us and pick
up trash, he would, but he wants to focus on
the environment and he wants to have a lot of
impact in that one area. So we can start a
(42:15):
club of young people just to focus on the environment.
And this is one of my big things in Rotary
that I push for, is the forming of new clubs
because we want to reach out to those potential people
of action and bring them in and have a club
for them. But we need to have it that meets
their schedule, their time for what they want to do.
I meet at a country club seven thirty am on
(42:37):
a Tuesday morning. Well that's great for me, but a
lot of my friends, if they have kids, they're taking
to the bus stop that happens a lot in North America,
or they're with a publicly traded company and they have
to be at work at that time. It doesn't work.
But maybe a younger group of professionals would like to
meet at a bar at night and decide whether or
not they wanted to pay for a fixed cost meal
(42:57):
or if they want to do a social and you know,
we need to survey our members and give them what
they want.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
I love that. So, what techniques are proving most effective
in attracting younger generations to Rotary in addition to you know,
trying to seek these different dynamics that appeal to a
broader range of age groups.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
I've seen this happen in many places around the world,
and what seems to be working the best is to
have what we call a satellite club. So if you
have a traditional club that's the host club, but then
you have a smaller club that meets at a different time,
at a different place what the young people want and
they the young people actually refer their parents and other
(43:42):
people to the traditional and the traditional club the host
club refer as their you know, people they know who
are younger professionals together and then they both grow together.
What doesn't work is to require people, you know, to
do what they don't want to do. We need to
be flexible, you know, we had all these rules. Remember
(44:03):
I couldn't join Rotary for seventeen years because I was.
I was the second person. The classification we've done away with,
you know, classifications, we've done a way for attendance. Now
some clubs, if they want to keep those things, that's fine,
but we need to find you know, we have one
point two million just think of it, how many we
could have tens of millions if we had clubs that
(44:26):
fit everyone's needs. And we can do that. It's not
hard to do, and there's a lot of people out
there to help.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
You absolutely to create a more dynamic environment. When I
came on board, it was very strict. You had to
have your attendance and as you mentioned the classifications, thankfully
that's relaxed a little bit. So it makes it easier
to engage and participate and really, you know, roll up
your sleeves and do the work that we all want
to do to serve our communities, both locally and abroad.
(44:53):
So what are some ways that rotary clubs can engage
current members and grow their membership.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
You know, you brought up a good point about that service.
What we're seeing work at a lot of these clubs
is what we call service impact club. So there's some
members like me, I like to come four times a month.
I like to go to the business meetings here, the speakers,
but there's some people just want to do service projects.
So if you have a satellite club that's focused on
doing service and maybe they just meet twice a month
(45:24):
and they go out for beer and pizza after, that's
a good way to do it. But what we really
need to do is we need to ask our members
what they want. You know, we started seeing in my
club a couple of years back then some of our
members stopped coming to meetings. So we did a survey
and we asked them what kind of socials do you want?
What kind of service projects do you want? And what
(45:46):
they said is we want to do work that helps refugees,
our new neighbors to our country. So we started a
rotary community Corps, which is the people who you're serving
get together with their chair and do they do things together. So,
you know, we had at that time, we're having a
bunch of Afghan refugees, thousands of them coming to Minnesota.
(46:08):
So we opened up the community center. We brought five
clubs together and every other Saturday we'd meet there and
the rotarians would bring pizza at one meeting, and then
the Afghans would bring a traditional Afghany meal, chicken, rice,
that kind of thing, and we asked them what did
they need, And you know, it's amazing what they said,
because what they really wanted was they wanted cars. They
(46:31):
wanted to learn how to drive so they can get
jobs so they can support themselves and send money home. Well,
and it didn't cost us a lot of money if
we wanted to. Okay, the driver's license manual in the
state of Minnesota wasn't translated into Pashtunandari and Google Translate
didn't do that. But I had just brought a friend
of mine into the club. He worked for a hedge fund.
They had software, so he translated the driver's manual along
(46:54):
with the help of some of the Afghan refugees who
knew who used to work for the US Army and
they were very good English speakers. So long story short,
you saw these people get their driver's license, they got jobs.
One man who is a translator is now the head
of product placement for Toro, saying which kind of yard
maintenance equipments goes to where in the world that kind
(47:16):
of thing. But you know, that doesn't cost any money,
and we can do it. But the point is we
had to ask people what they wanted. They wanted to
do something different, so we give them what they want.
There's buying from them. They feel like they belong, so
then they stay and they bring in their friends and family.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
I love that example. So, Tom, can we expect to
see you as a Rotary International President?
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Well, I don't know about that. I'm focused on being
the best person I can be as a chairperson of
the Membership Growth Committee. Then I'll focus on being director,
focus on getting through the twenty twenty eight writer in
national mention. I would always love to work for Rotary.
If they have a spot for me to do, I
would do whatever they need me to do. I'm not
(48:00):
thinking about that right now.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
So let's think about this. What message do you have
for those considering exploring service through Rotary, either through their
local clubs, to serve locally abroad and to explore the
vast opportunities that truly exist.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
They should give it a try, no matter what your
interest is. If you like bicycling, we don't have to
have a club that eats meals and listens to do
you have a mountain bike club that grooms the trails?
If you want to work on the environment, you can
do that. We started the first ever club in the
world in our district to serve veterans, and now there's
(48:40):
other clubs like that around the world. We started the
first club in our district to end human trafficking and
now there's over a dozen clubs doing that. So, however
you want to do it, however you want to serve,
it's nice to serve with people with like minded ideals.
So give Rotary a try, and if you don't find
a club you like, then we'll help you start one.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
The club for everybody, and we're only limited by our imagination.
In fact, I know that in southern California and Orange
County there is a surfing Rotary Club.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Wonderful.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Yes, So I mean there's something for everybody. So Tom,
thank you so much for your time, thank you for
your dedication, thank you for your heart of service. And
before we go, can we just can you please share
the four way test with our audience today.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Absolutely, we have a four way test that says, of
the things we think, say and do do First, is
it the truth? Second? Is it fair to all concerned? Third?
Will it build goodwill and better friendship? And fourth, will
it be beneficial to all concerned. So if we do
those things, if we don't know what to do, we
use that as our guiding model and it takes us
(49:50):
to the right direction.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
I love it. It's a great compass in life in
Rotary and beyond. Thank you again, Tom, and to your
entire family for your service through Rotary.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
Thank you so much for having me all right.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
For everybody listening, don't forget to find us on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn,
and Instagram. Check us out on SCBR talk dot com.
Don't miss my conversation with Christine Ferrera, founder of the
Polished Message Etiquette method. She is a celebrated coach and trainer,
renowned for empowering leaders to exude confidence and poise. Her
(50:26):
acclaimed workshops, international judging and award winning expertise inspire transformation,
proving etiquette is more than knife and fork, it's the
art of thriving in every setting. Next week. From English
roots to American glory, Onua Obasi has journeyed from collegiate
(50:46):
stardom to championship triumphs, now standing at the helm of
the Empire Strikers. Revered for his tactical clarity and unifying leadership.
Obasi's assent from decorated player to visionary coach promises to
ignite a new era in Southern California's indoor soccer. The
Empire striker's future now rests in the hands of one
(51:09):
of the game's brightest young minds. You do not want
to miss it. We will see you all next week.
Welcome to k MET fourteen ninety AM ABC News Radio
in the Southern California Business Report with the Vettwalker, a
show dedicated to highlighting successful Southern California businesses and the
people behind them.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome and thank you for joining Southern California Business Report
on ABC News and Talks k MET fourteen ninety AM,
ninety eight point one FM and km ET TV. I'm
e Vettwalker, live blasting our signal from the center of
Southern California, serving a population of over twenty five million.
Get us crystal clear and on demand by downloading the
(00:39):
free live streaming app on Google Play and the app
lap Store. As always, a huge shout out to the
team Mitch, Bill and Sean I love you guys, and
to our special advisory committee that can be found at
www dot scbr talk dot com forward Slash Advisory Committee.
(01:01):
Click on the link and learn about the incredible leaders
doing the work. And as you know, my goal and
my mission is to always introduce remarkable leaders, and today
I'm absolutely thrilled to introduce Tom Gump, a visionary leader
whose rotary journey radiates service, innovation, and friendship. As a
(01:22):
proud member of the Adena Morningside Rotary Club in Minnesota.
Tom's commitment to growing Rotary's reach is unwavering. He chairs
Rotary International's Membership Growth Committee and has served as aid
to the Rotary International President soon to be director for
Zones twenty five, B and twenty nine. Tom is also
(01:43):
shaping the future through the Zone Realignment Committee for the
Americas and as co chair of the twenty twenty eight
Rotary International Convention in Minneapolis. Together with his wife Catherine,
secretary of the Adena Noon Club, and their son Andrew,
president of the twins Port Roaderact Club. Tom's family exemplifies
(02:05):
Rotary values, having hosted seven youth Exchange students. For Tom,
the heart of Rotary is the friendships forged and lives changed.
Let's join him in building a more connected, compassionate world. Tom,
thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Well, thank you so much for having me here today.
I am honored.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Well, you know, thank you for taking time. It's dinner
for you in Minneapolis, and instead of enjoying dinner with
your beautiful family, you're here with us today, and so
thank you so much for that. And as you know,
my first question to each of my guests is to
tell us what inspired you, how were you first introduced
to Rotary, and what called you to be involved.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Well, when I look back, when I first tried to
join Rotary, it was the service that I saw the
good that was being done in the world. It's that simple,
but it's interesting. My journey road wasn't typical, or at
least isn't typical today. I hope you know I was.
Back in nineteen ninety six. I was an assistant district
attorney in Gainesville, Georgia's just north of Atlanta, about forty
(03:13):
minutes and I wanted to join Rotary back then, but
they had a rule that there could only be one
classification for each spot open in their club, and so
I was an assistant district attorney and my boss she
had the law enforcement classification. So I didn't join Rotary
for seventeen years after that point. And the reason I
(03:37):
joined is because the gentleman who's my neighbor lives across
the street. We work out together a few times a week,
and he kept asking me, and he must have asked
two dozen times before I actually just said yes, just
so it'd stopped asking. And I went to the club
and just enjoyed all the people there, like minded people
who wanted to do good in the world, and so
(03:58):
it taught me a lesson though, of it taught me
that you need to be persistent because sometimes when you're
trying to go rotary, it might not work or fit
in somebody's schedule. So you don't need to give up
on them. You just need to find a club that
fits for them. So I'm glad it happened that way.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Well, it sounds like it was a long journey, you know,
having waited seventeen years because of the classification barrier. But
then also you know, kind of being revisited by a
persistent rotarian. Right, as rotarians, that's what we're supposed to do. Right,
when we see a quality person and we know that
they have what it takes to be a contributing member,
(04:34):
they have the skills and the intellect and the heart
of service, this is the perfect place for you. Tom.
What was your first experience as a rotary member and
how did it shape your journey?
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Well, you know, I think there are so many whys,
and there's so many things that inspire you to be
a part of something. And I'll tell you one short story.
If you don't mind, and that would be part of
the youth exchange. And I use that story because you
brought it up, and that is important. You know, we,
like you said, at seven long term youth exchange students
who lived with us anywhere from three months to a year.
(05:10):
And we had one wonderful boy named Paco. And Paco
came to live with us when he was sixteen years
of age. And it was great because we only have
one son and he has host daughters and sisters, sisters
and brothers around the world. When Paco came to live
with us, he was happy. He was always smiling. He
came from Valencia, Spain, where he was on the national
(05:32):
soccer team for his age, so he was the star
of the high school team. Was always helping out, always
asking to help with the dishes or yardwork or whatever.
So a few weeks after he had been staying with us,
I came down and saw him in our son room
and he was just sobbing uncontrollably. He could not stop crying,
and he couldn't tell me why. So I picked up
(05:53):
the phone and called his mother Anna, and she had
told me that Paco's father had died. Yes, it was
so heartbreaking. So I said, don't worry, Catherine, Andrew and
I will get on a plane with Poco and fly
him home. She said, no, he's to stay with you
for the entire year. And this all has a point.
(06:13):
So we flew Anna over here with Paco's younger brother,
then eight years old, and yet younger sister, Sarah, who
was six years old, to our home so they could
all be together. And Paco's mother brought my wife, Catherine
and I to the side of the room and let
us know that Pac and Paco knew this. Paco's father
had died via suicide. Yes, and you know our teenagers,
(06:37):
you have them, I have one. They see the world
egocentrically that their actions affect everything around them. So it
was easy for a teenager to blame his father's death
on himself because he had moved away. So that taught
me an interesting story. Because Paco's family was Catholic, our
(07:00):
family's Catholic, and they could not have a ceremony in
Spain for them, So we had a ceremony at our church.
And I'll tell you the night I opened those doors
and saw three hundred people from all the districts of
Rotory all around I realized that Rotor is not just
a club, it's a family. So that's my experience on
(07:20):
how I started Rotary, and I'll never forget that.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Wow, that is such a moving, heartbreaking but also beautiful
story and is a Catholic myself, you know, it resonates
with me that although the church didn't allow that ceremony,
Rotary rallied and supported this family in their darkest hour.
My god, what a beautiful showing of Rotary makes me
so proud to be a Rotarian. And you know, I mean,
(07:49):
how do I even move on from that response? But
you know, when we first met Tom, it was at
the Rotary Rose Parade decoration of the float out in
Baldwin Park here in California. And in our conversation you
mentioned that you were part of the organization there in Chicago,
(08:14):
which is the home of Rotary, where Paul Harris first
established the first group of professionals to start Rotary. How
does this location influence the organization's global vision.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Well, you know, we do headquarters in Evanston. So Rotary
the organization that is the operating entity is a Illinois
nonprofit corporation and then the foundation is a five oh
one C three tax exempt entity and being part of
(08:52):
that location, it does anchor you in certain ideas that
do reflect the work that you do. But our mission
statement of it is, we call it our vision statement
is together we see a world where people unite to
take action to create lasting change across the globe, in
(09:13):
our communities and in ourselves. And when we do those things,
it doesn't matter if we're doing a water project in Honduras,
it doesn't matter if we're picking up trash along the highway.
We are making the world, either right here or across
the world, a better place. And we're making ourselves better
by interacting with those people and learning the things that
(09:35):
we do.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Absolutely, and just the story that you mentioned about Paco
and his mother Anna and the travesty of the father's loss.
How is Paco and how are Anna doing today?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
You know they're doing great. And it wasn't just that
one day. They actually supported us those rotarias throughout the
whole year. There's three things that Paco wanted to do.
He wanted to learn how to play piano, learn how
to snowboard, and he wanted to box. So all of
those things were able to be done with the help
of Rotarians, and they took them. They took Paco to
(10:11):
sporting events, they took them on their vacation. There was
actually a gentleman who was about my age whose father
had died via suicide also, so Paco was able to
share stories with him that he understood that we didn't like.
If he would look out the window and think he
saw his father there, something I wouldn't understand as well
as my friend John did. But you know, people bring
(10:33):
over their dogs because Paco missed his dog. So it's
that kind of relationship that makes ROA to be different
than other clubs and other organizations, and it really does.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And you know, as a rotarian myself, I've been a
Rotarian for about ten years now, and that camaraderie, right,
that support that you have, and that second family right,
and being in an environment where people actually care and
hearing that story is it's so beautiful. It's not surprising,
but it is so impactful, and it's just such a
(11:08):
beautiful illustration of how rotary responds not only to local needs,
but to global needs as well. And you mentioned earlier
that you were previously an assistant DA and throughout our
conversations you also said that you kind of switched gears
and are now in real estate, which is interesting, right,
(11:31):
because as a Rotarian we bring our skills to complement
the projects that we focus on in the goals for
the mission. How have you found that your skills in
real estate complement your responsibilities in Rotary today.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Well, thank you for the question. You know, having a
legal background really helps you out a lot, even in
a volunteer capacity. So there's certain things I have to do,
especially in my director role. As a director elect, I'm
organizing three institutes. So our next institute in twenty twenty
six will be in Cancun. We'll have people from New York, Canada,
(12:09):
all the way down through the middle of the US, Chicago, Texas,
and Central and some of South America. Well, when you
have to negotiate a facility's use agreement in that way,
or in my position as the chair of the twenty
twenty eight Roader International Host Operations Committee, which is the
local folks who do the international convention, we'll have seventeen
(12:30):
thousand people from around the Rotary world come to our city.
And as part of that, we need to raise funds
for the work we need to do, and things like that,
so I draft assessment agreements between some of the districts
who want to help contribute to the cost of the
post operations committee. So it comes in handy a lot. Also,
(12:52):
I grow from being in Rotary, I mean being in
these different committees and meeting other business type people. If
people want to join Rotor to rub shoulders of people's
significance in their industry, especially younger people, it's a great
place to go. You know, people don't start off being
public speakers and being comfortable being interviewed, but Rodari gives
you those type of skills.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
That's very lucky to be in it, yes, right, and
then great mentorship opportunities as you mentioned, especially when you're
looking at the next generation like the interact and road directors.
And we'll come to that in a little bit. But
how has your experience as an assistant district governor influenced
your leadership in Rotary.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
You know, Rotary is a great place to develop and
that position, along with being governor and other positions, really
has helped me develop. But I think what position Rotary
prepared me the boast for being a director is being
aide to the Rotary International President. So for the last
two and a half years, I've been the person who is,
for lack of a better term, a chief of staff
(13:57):
or an advisor to the president of course, and always
makes the decisions, but I'm there to bounce things off of.
And why that was so important for my development was
I was able to audit the various committees in Rotary.
You know, we have various committees, finance, audit membership and
actually seeing as a director you may sit on one
(14:18):
or two committees, but I was able to audit many
committee meetings and that gave me a look under the
hood to see how it all works. So that really
prepared me well for my next position, which is a
Rotary International director starting in July.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
My goodness, that is remarkable. So tell us a little
bit about what that assistant to the International president was like,
you know, the travel, the commitments, the day to day
and how do you balance that all with you know,
having a family.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Well, it was it was an amazing experience, and it
was really a two and a half year experience. So
during her nominee year, which was a half a year
by the time she was selected, it was a lot
of of orientation meetings, meeting with different staff, to learn
how Roady works. You know, we had media relations training.
For example. The second year, during the president elect year,
(15:12):
she has to appoint her committees, and of course she
gets lots of recommendations from staff and others, and her
committee chairs and the people who are going to train
the governors at are International Assembly, and she's got to
do a lot of planning. We had a Council and Legislation,
which is once every three years. It's our parliament that
we hold in downtown Chicago. She had an international convention
(15:34):
to prepare for and those are large events. So the
second year is a lot of planning, and you have
to live in Evanston if you are in the president's
line international presiden's line. So I had lots of meetings
that year. During her president year, there was a lot
more travel, so she would travel around the world and
(15:55):
sometimes I was fortunate enough to go with her. So
if we go to Africa, we'd go to five different countries.
If we go to Europe, we'd go to several different countries.
And then one of my big jobs was appointing president's representatives.
So we have five hundred and thirty five districts and
they each have a district conference and the President gets
(16:16):
to represent someone to go somewhere to speak on her
behalf because obviously she can't go to every single one
because there's only so many trips she can have. So
of our five hundred and twenty two, there's about half
of them who want President's rep So I would recommend
to the President who to send to the Philippines to
represent the president or who descend to Japan. So it
(16:37):
was an amazing experience, but I'll tell you ave the
best part were the people that you meet, quality people
like you all over the world. Doesn't matter if you
go to Asia, you go to Africa, you go to Europe.
There are great people doing great things that just make
you feel good about the world.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
And of all of these wonderful experiences and locations, is
there one exchanges, there one moment that really resonated with
you and really made an impact on you as the
Assistant Rotary International President.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
You know, it's a very good question because there are
so many good things going on. But if you know
and you know about Rotary. But for your audience, our
number one internal priority is growing membership, but our number
one external programmatic priority is ending polio eradicating polio from
the face of the earth. It'll be only the second
disease that has ever been eradicated. So, you know, you
(17:33):
talked to different epidemiologists and they'll tell you, well, it
may be difficult to eradicate polio because there's you know,
fights that are going on. It's only endemic in two
countries right now, and that's basically the border between Afghanistan
and Pakistan. Well, going to Pakistan change my opinion from
(17:53):
being a doubting Thomas no pun intended that can we
ever get it done, to a believe that we will
get it done. And it was meeting those frontline workers.
You know, eighty five percent of them are women, and
they are putting their lives on the line. We've had
forty two people martyred while they were giving polio drafts.
But they put their lives on line, and you talk
(18:15):
to them. They are mothers and they don't want their
children crippled. And then you go to the National Emergency
Center in Pakistan where they're tracking all this and doing
the samples, and you talk to those chemists and those
scientists and they are excited because it used to take
them five weeks to track where the disease started. Now
it takes them five days. Seeing those people doing those
(18:37):
jobs makes me realize that we will eventually reach our
goal of eradicating polio.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Wow, that is just awful to hear forty two martyrs
on the mission to eradicate polio. My goodness. And with that,
you know, we also know that Rotari has a very
strong presence in the Pasadena Tournament of Roses, which is
a historic and beautiful event that takes place every year
(19:03):
on New Year's Day with the exception of Sundays, and
Rotary is going to have a float again this year.
Talk about how that impacts and how that assists in
spreading the message of the goals of Rotary today.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Well, Rodory does so many good things. But you know,
my job in Rotary is head of the committee for
Roady International Membership committee is to grow Rotary. But we
always have to ask ourselves of that, why do we
want to grow Rotary and why we want to grow Rotaries?
We want to have more hands and hearts to do
more good things, more service in the world. So when
you go to the Pasadena Rose bul Parade and you
(19:39):
know the numbers better than I do, almost as high
as your subscribership the twenty five million. But it's just
a great way to let people know what Rotary does.
And we want people to know what Rotary does so
they come and join us like minded people who will
go with us to Honduras and do those wells, who
will help us feed the hungry. You know, it's funny
(20:01):
because when you go, when you worship at various places,
you know they'll tell you this is what you need
to do well. In Rotary, we actually go out and
do it. So I love the balance of those two.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Absolutely, Rotary gives you the platform to live those values
and with the impeccable infrastructure and fiduciary duty and oversight
to do so with confidence and transparency. It's wonderful and
so touching back on the Rose Parade float, I just
(20:33):
want to hear a little bit about your experience because
you had just a once in a lifetime experience to
ride alongside your wife on the float. I mean, unless
you're the Rose Parayede Queen or somebody else on another float,
I mean, these experiences are few and far between. As
I mentioned, once in a lifetime. Please share what that
(20:54):
experience was like for you.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Well, it was definitely a bucket list item. And the
first time I did it, I actually rode the float twice,
the second time with my wife, the first time by myself.
The float is built by a committee of Rotary volunteers,
so Rotary contributes a small portion, you know, ten percent
maybe of the whole float costs, but the volunteers raise
(21:19):
money to build the float by people paying to ride
on the float or walk next to it. So the
first time I rode the float was with Jennifer Jones,
who was the first woman female president, and I thought
it was important to support her because that is so
important to grow Rotary. We need that diversity. And I
was proud of Rodory when they elected that person and
(21:40):
I rode the float with her. Then this past year,
the last Rose Boat Parade, was our second female president
who I was working for. I was her aid, and
my wife and I both were honored to ride the
float with her. But you know, you don't have to
pay to you know, ride the float. You can actually
enter into an auction as an ambassador for the Rotary
(22:01):
float and you can be chosen that way. And then
the first time I went was not either one of
those two. We actually just took a group of friends
from our district to go and decorate the float and
we had the best time. But it is an amazing experience,
especially writing down that television alley and going around the
corner just seeing all the people get so excited.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Absolutely, Now did the early mornings come even come close
to the mornings in Minneapolis.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
You know, it's never as cold in Pasadena as it
is in Appleis in January. But it's just wonderful. And
we have a friend who lives just a block off
the parade route, so one year we actually stayed with
her and that was fun. But getting up at four
o'clock in the morning when it's dark to get there,
it's all worth it. Your arm's a little bit tired
(22:49):
because it's about six hours by the time you get
on the float and by the time you end, but
it's just wonderful, and every inch along the way there's
kids that are smiling and happy. It's just there's nothing
like it. It's like the best Fourth of July parade
in your town, but on steroids.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Absolutely, it's such a beautiful tradition. And we're coming close
to the day just a few weeks away when the
rotary float is going to be, you know, coming down
Colorado Boulevard and making that turn. But for now we're
going to be heading out on and break Tom, So
hold on everybody listening. Ivette Walker with ABC News and
Talks Southern California Business Report Here today with Tom Gump,
(23:30):
visionary rotary Leader, Director elect for zones twenty five B
and twenty nine, Membership Growth Chair and global connector with
wife Catherine and son Andrew. Tom's family lives rotary values,
hosting youth, serving communities, and fostering friendships. He leads innovation,
inspires service, and unites people worldwide. When we return.
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Speaker 2 (27:27):
Welcome back everyone. Evett Walker with ABC News and Talks
Southern California Business Report. Here with Tom Gump, Visionary Rotary Leader,
Director elect zones twenty five B and twenty nine Membership
Growth Chair and Global connector with wife Katherine and son Andrew.
Tom's family lives rotary values, hosting youth, serving communities, and
(27:48):
fostering friendships. He leads innovation, inspire service, and unites people worldwide.
Thank you so much for being with us.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Today, Tom, Thank you for having me here.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Wonderful. So prior to the break, we were speaking a
little bit about the Pasadena Tournament of Roses and how
even a four am morning in Pasadena doesn't come close
to a four am morning in Minneapolis. I think we
can all agree to that. Yes, well, I just love that.
And so I'm just curious because your son is also
(28:23):
involved in this. Is your son also considering a career
as an attorney following in your footsteps?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
You know he's not. He has actually designed his own major,
which is storytelling using GIS. So a recent project he
did was to take GIS data from census data and
overlay it with Internet usage to show that in lower
social economic status neighborhoods, they use less internet, So this
(28:51):
information could be used for doing good in the world,
or it could be used for making profit for companies.
So I don't know what he'll do with it. He's
excited about it.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I love that. And so for those that may not
be familiar with GIS technology, it basically translates to global
imaging satellites that take pictures that track everything from weather
patterns to traffic patterns and data usage tides, ocean tides.
I mean, anything and everything we want to know about
(29:21):
the Earth is being measured and tracked by these global
imaging systems. And sure enough, for those that may be
interested or may already know, Ezri is basically the founder
of this technology, and they're based here in San Bernandino
County in Redlands, California, right in our backyard. So just
a little bit of trivia I wanted to throw out there,
(29:42):
But that is so fascinating. What turned him on to
this innovation and to these questions.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
You know, he's always been a kind spirit. He always
wants to help people. He's worked on different political campaigns
for individuals he thought could make a difference in the world.
And he wants to use his knowledge to help others
do good in the world as well.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I love that. I love that. So how does your family,
including your son, participate in events like the International Assembly.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Well, you know, it's interesting because my family is into
rotary as much as I am. My wife is going
to be president of her club in four years, so
she's always going to her club foundation meetings and her
regular meetings. And Andrew has been involved more so in
our international conventions, and he actually has had a job
(30:36):
with the last couple of international conventions doing things like that.
But what he's doing at university's second year at his university,
and what he's doing is he actually restarted the Rotoraq
Club that had gone away at his university and now
they have a satellite Roadoraq Club. Road Act is a
younger rotary for people who are under thirty. Usually there's
(30:59):
no age limit. That's typically who is involved. So they
have thirty five members. And when he first started, they
were doing service projects, but would be going to the
local zoo and that kind of thing. And he decided,
and you were talking about measuring things, he decided that
we need to have impact if we're going to do
more good in the world. So he's trying to do
larger projects. So he and my wife went to a
(31:22):
TED next in Atlanta a few weeks ago, so he
can be qualified to host a TED talk in his
city where his university is, Duluth, Minnesota. It's even further
north than me, even colder than Minneapolis. So they're planning
an event for five hundred people, and the volunteers for
that event will be local rotarians and local road directors.
(31:44):
So again, rotary does good in the community, but it
does good in ourselves. And he's developing through that nonprofit experience.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
That is absolutely remarkable. I mean, rotary in itself is
such a wonderful catalyst for growth and service. To be
able to do it is a family, I mean, that
is just so remarkable. I love that you're all able
to engage in something so meaningful together. What other opportunities
do you see for families to engage together in roadary activities,
(32:15):
either together or apart, or just you know, sporadically, because
you know, maybe people think, oh, we all have to
work on the same project, or can we work on
different projects? How what is that dynamic? How can that
dynamic look?
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Well? Thank you for asking that question, because you know,
every time on book comes out on membership or show
comes out of membership, I read it because I love
Rotary so much. I want to share that experience with
everyone else. And it's interesting to me because if you
look as at Rotary has it developed over the last
one hundred and twenty five years. It started out as
a business networking group, and then it came into service projects.
(32:52):
What a lot of times people see Rotary as owners
of business. Some see it as rich older white men
who own their own business, and they get together to
listen to speakers and eat lunch. What I have decided was,
you know, we do an all member survey, we do
a leadership survey, and what excites people is engagement. So
(33:15):
instead of just inviting, I would tell all our Rotarians,
you can invite someone to a meeting, but invite them
to a service project. You know, we just got done
doing Thanksgiving baskets, which is I'm in the morning club
in my town. It meets on Tuesday mornings and my
wife meets on Thursday afternoons. We got together and we
made hundreds of meals, packed turkeys and gloves and hats
(33:36):
and apple pies and you know, all the fixings, and
then we delivered them to the less fortunate folks around town.
And the thank you notes we got back and the
excitement when they smell that turkey and the cranberries and
all that. You know, again doing good in the world,
but you know, helping ourselves, those are the kind of
(33:56):
activities we need to engage family members. So if I
was just doing Rotary by myself, when I was going
to a beating every night and my wife, you know,
actually my wife is out at a food shelter tonight
with her club doing that and then they're going to
do a social after. So Rotary's not only doing service,
it's having fun. But I love it when the whole
family does it because then you're not taking someone away,
(34:18):
they're all doing it together. So's it's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Absolutely, And it's funny that you brought up the turkey
and the giving of these meals because as a one
time recipient of a box full of food and turkeys
for Thanksgiving it a time when our cupboards were barren
and our fridge was empty. That was a transformative moment
and that was the first time I ever made contact
(34:42):
with Rotary and fast forward thirty five years later, I discovered, Wow,
that was rotary, you know, and so I can attest
to the fact that it is truly transformative from both aspects,
right from the giver and from the receiver. You're the
chair of the host committee for the Rotary International Summit
in Minneapolis, and I know we just kind of touched
(35:04):
on it and it's really early to talk about, but
can you just talk about broadstroke goals for the event?
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Well, you know, of course we have a financial obligation
to break even. But what it is is it's interesting
because it's a combination greatest show on Earth. I mean,
our next one is going to be in Taipei. They're
usually in May or June, and Minneapolis will be in
May in twenty twenty eight. After that, it's going to
be in twenty twenty seven, it's going to be in
Dubai and then it's coming to Minneapolis. It's a way
(35:33):
for you know, all these friendships we make in Rotary
doing projects wherever we do them in the world, we
can meet up with all those Rotarians at an international
convention and depending where it is. In Dubai, they're expecting
fifteen thousand Minneapolis, we're expecting seventeen thousand. But we have
a combination of learning events, then we have wonderful entertainment.
(35:55):
We have signature events, whatever is local to that culture.
But one of the coolest things we do is we
have these home host hospitality events where you can go
to a rotarian's home and have dinner. So if you
go to Seoul, Korea, and we actually had an exchange
student from Seoul and she was finishing up her studies
(36:16):
right when we were going to the Soul Convention, so
we took her back with us and we got to
meet her mom and dad and do all these fun restaurants.
And they have like an American Idol TV show where
they have singers and we got to go on stage
with them, you know, just do all this fun stuff.
So that's what rotary. It opens up these opportunities for
you that other organizations just don't have, and that international
(36:39):
aspect of it really makes it fun.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Absolutely. That's the other great part of rotary is wherever
you are in the world, you can basically reach out
to the local rotary club and say, hey, I'm a rotarian,
can I join your meeting? And nine times out of
ten or maybe even ten times out of ten they'll
say absolutely and welcome you with open arms.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
No matter what time of the day it is. Event
somewhere around the world, somebody is doing good in Rotary
doing a project of some sort. It's amazing to think about,
it really is.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
And so as Director of Rotary International, you cover two
zones including Central Canada, Chicago and Minneapolis. What are the
unique challenges and opportunities in these zones and they're quite large.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
There's about fifty thousand in a zone currently, And what
are primary We are from a zone and we represent
that zone, but our primary fiduciary obligation since you brought
that up, is to Rotary International as a whole. So
I typically in a meeting I was in one today,
you represent what your people say. But when you come
(37:48):
to voting on things, because they're seventeen directors, along with
the President elect and president, they make the policies that
Rotary International follows and the strategies. So you have to
do that balancing act. But it's great to be a
director because you learn so much and it's important business
(38:08):
because you have to vote on where the next international
convention is going to be and various other things right
in order to be in the.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Position absolutely, and I understand that you also work on
zoning realignment, which occurs every eight years. Can you take
us into what that means and how that impacts the
landscape of rotary.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Thank you for the question. So Rotary, if you divide
it up into three worlds, three areas of the world,
you have the Americas, you have Europe and Africa, and
you have Asia. There's certain parts of the world and
Rotary that are growing and there's certain areas that are declining.
So overall gross generalization, the northern hemisphere is declining in membership,
(38:55):
with a few exceptions. Southern hemisphere is growing. So we
do redistricting and are actually rezoning. We try to balance
out those numbers. Right now, we have one point two
million rotarians. You divide that by thirty four zones, you
get thirty three thousand and seventy eight and you try
to get as close as you can, but as last
(39:16):
and you try to keep the areas geographically kind of
contiguous so they can do projects and have events and
summits and things together. But at our last council legislation,
which is our parliament, that happens once every three years.
We added an enactment that says you have to take
culture into consideration, so you want to make sure if
there's language or history or practices where zones go together,
(39:40):
you want to try to keep them together. So it's
an important job. But I don't want your audience to
think it's like what you hear on the radio when
it comes to redistricting for political purposes, because in those
situations you have a group that's trying to a gerrymander
a situation so that they have more power. International As
(40:00):
the directors, we try to make things fair. You know.
We have this as you know about the four way test,
and the last test isn't beneficial to all concern so
it's not exactly like it is in the political situation.
We're doing it for fairness, but we don't. When I
was in that meeting this morning, I was not jockeying
for his own twenty nine or twenty five b. I
(40:22):
presented what they thought about things, and of course I
wanted to, you know, not lose too many spots or anything.
But you think about RODA International as a whole, and
that's an important thing for a director to realize.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
So, in addition to developing and cultivating new members, how
does Rotary work to develop the next generation of Rotarians,
especially with the rise of interest and AI focused clubs.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
You know, it's interesting, this was the first year that
in our all member survey we talked about age and
we asked that question, and it's interesting. The areas of
the world that have the oldest members are actually declining
the quickest, and the areas that are growing have the
youngest members. And I know that's a gross over generalization.
(41:10):
We're pretty much down the line. So it is important.
But the most important thing is not to go out
and grab a young member and bring them into your club.
We have to make our clubs. We have to make
their culture accepting to younger people. So if there's a
young person who's interested in joining, I would say get
(41:31):
her him to get several friends and bring them in
as a class so they have something, because if you
don't give them what they need. And it's not that
there's not a lot of value on both sides, but
we need to get clubs that fit with the culture.
And if we don't have a club that they fit in,
we can start their own club that fits where they are.
(41:53):
You know, I am totally happy in my club. We
do a lot of service projects, like we pick up
trash along on the high way, We make sandwiches for
the hungry, we rake people's yards. Well, if I went
to my son and say come join us and pick
up trash, he would, but he wants to focus on
the environment and he wants to have a lot of
impact in that one area. So we can start a
(42:15):
club of young people just to focus on the environment.
And this is one of my big things in Rotary
that I push for, is the forming of new clubs
because we want to reach out to those potential people
of action and bring them in and have a club
for them. But we need to have it that meets
their schedule, their time for what they want to do.
I meet at a country club seven thirty am on
(42:37):
a Tuesday morning. Well that's great for me, but a
lot of my friends, if they have kids, they're taking
to the bus stop that happens a lot in North America,
or they're with a publicly traded company and they have
to be at work at that time. It doesn't work.
But maybe a younger group of professionals would like to
meet at a bar at night and decide whether or
not they wanted to pay for a fixed cost meal
(42:57):
or if they want to do a social and you know,
we need to survey our members and give them what
they want.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
I love that. So, what techniques are proving most effective
in attracting younger generations to Rotary in addition to you know,
trying to seek these different dynamics that appeal to a
broader range of age groups.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
I've seen this happen in many places around the world,
and what seems to be working the best is to
have what we call a satellite club. So if you
have a traditional club that's the host club, but then
you have a smaller club that meets at a different time,
at a different place what the young people want and
they the young people actually refer their parents and other
(43:42):
people to the traditional and the traditional club the host
club refer as their you know, people they know who
are younger professionals together and then they both grow together.
What doesn't work is to require people, you know, to
do what they don't want to do. We need to
be flexible, you know, we had all these rules. Remember
(44:03):
I couldn't join Rotary for seventeen years because I was.
I was the second person. The classification we've done away with,
you know, classifications, we've done a way for attendance. Now
some clubs, if they want to keep those things, that's fine,
but we need to find you know, we have one
point two million just think of it, how many we
could have tens of millions if we had clubs that
(44:26):
fit everyone's needs. And we can do that. It's not
hard to do, and there's a lot of people out
there to help.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
You absolutely to create a more dynamic environment. When I
came on board, it was very strict. You had to
have your attendance and as you mentioned the classifications, thankfully
that's relaxed a little bit. So it makes it easier
to engage and participate and really, you know, roll up
your sleeves and do the work that we all want
to do to serve our communities, both locally and abroad.
(44:53):
So what are some ways that rotary clubs can engage
current members and grow their membership.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
You know, you brought up a good point about that service.
What we're seeing work at a lot of these clubs
is what we call service impact club. So there's some
members like me, I like to come four times a month.
I like to go to the business meetings here, the speakers,
but there's some people just want to do service projects.
So if you have a satellite club that's focused on
doing service and maybe they just meet twice a month
(45:24):
and they go out for beer and pizza after, that's
a good way to do it. But what we really
need to do is we need to ask our members
what they want. You know, we started seeing in my
club a couple of years back then some of our
members stopped coming to meetings. So we did a survey
and we asked them what kind of socials do you want?
What kind of service projects do you want? And what
(45:46):
they said is we want to do work that helps refugees,
our new neighbors to our country. So we started a
rotary community Corps, which is the people who you're serving
get together with their chair and do they do things together. So,
you know, we had at that time, we're having a
bunch of Afghan refugees, thousands of them coming to Minnesota.
(46:08):
So we opened up the community center. We brought five
clubs together and every other Saturday we'd meet there and
the rotarians would bring pizza at one meeting, and then
the Afghans would bring a traditional Afghany meal, chicken, rice,
that kind of thing, and we asked them what did
they need, And you know, it's amazing what they said,
because what they really wanted was they wanted cars. They
(46:31):
wanted to learn how to drive so they can get
jobs so they can support themselves and send money home. Well,
and it didn't cost us a lot of money if
we wanted to. Okay, the driver's license manual in the
state of Minnesota wasn't translated into Pashtunandari and Google Translate
didn't do that. But I had just brought a friend
of mine into the club. He worked for a hedge fund.
They had software, so he translated the driver's manual along
(46:54):
with the help of some of the Afghan refugees who
knew who used to work for the US Army and
they were very good English speakers. So long story short,
you saw these people get their driver's license, they got jobs.
One man who is a translator is now the head
of product placement for Toro, saying which kind of yard
maintenance equipments goes to where in the world that kind
(47:16):
of thing. But you know, that doesn't cost any money,
and we can do it. But the point is we
had to ask people what they wanted. They wanted to
do something different, so we give them what they want.
There's buying from them. They feel like they belong, so
then they stay and they bring in their friends and family.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
I love that example. So, Tom, can we expect to
see you as a Rotary International President?
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Well, I don't know about that. I'm focused on being
the best person I can be as a chairperson of
the Membership Growth Committee. Then I'll focus on being director,
focus on getting through the twenty twenty eight writer in
national mention. I would always love to work for Rotary.
If they have a spot for me to do, I
would do whatever they need me to do. I'm not
(48:00):
thinking about that right now.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
So let's think about this. What message do you have
for those considering exploring service through Rotary, either through their
local clubs, to serve locally abroad and to explore the
vast opportunities that truly exist.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
They should give it a try, no matter what your
interest is. If you like bicycling, we don't have to
have a club that eats meals and listens to do
you have a mountain bike club that grooms the trails?
If you want to work on the environment, you can
do that. We started the first ever club in the
world in our district to serve veterans, and now there's
(48:40):
other clubs like that around the world. We started the
first club in our district to end human trafficking and
now there's over a dozen clubs doing that. So, however
you want to do it, however you want to serve,
it's nice to serve with people with like minded ideals.
So give Rotary a try, and if you don't find
a club you like, then we'll help you start one.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
The club for everybody, and we're only limited by our imagination.
In fact, I know that in southern California and Orange
County there is a surfing Rotary Club.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Wonderful.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Yes, So I mean there's something for everybody. So Tom,
thank you so much for your time, thank you for
your dedication, thank you for your heart of service. And
before we go, can we just can you please share
the four way test with our audience today.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Absolutely, we have a four way test that says, of
the things we think, say and do do First, is
it the truth? Second? Is it fair to all concerned? Third?
Will it build goodwill and better friendship? And fourth, will
it be beneficial to all concerned. So if we do
those things, if we don't know what to do, we
use that as our guiding model and it takes us
(49:50):
to the right direction.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
I love it. It's a great compass in life in
Rotary and beyond. Thank you again, Tom, and to your
entire family for your service through Rotary.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
Thank you so much for having me all right.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
For everybody listening, don't forget to find us on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn,
and Instagram. Check us out on SCBR talk dot com.
Don't miss my conversation with Christine Ferrera, founder of the
Polished Message Etiquette method. She is a celebrated coach and trainer,
renowned for empowering leaders to exude confidence and poise. Her
(50:26):
acclaimed workshops, international judging and award winning expertise inspire transformation,
proving etiquette is more than knife and fork, it's the
art of thriving in every setting. Next week. From English
roots to American glory, Onua Obasi has journeyed from collegiate
(50:46):
stardom to championship triumphs, now standing at the helm of
the Empire Strikers. Revered for his tactical clarity and unifying leadership.
Obasi's assent from decorated player to visionary coach promises to
ignite a new era in Southern California's indoor soccer. The
Empire striker's future now rests in the hands of one
(51:09):
of the game's brightest young minds. You do not want
to miss it. We will see you all next week.
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