JULY 12, 2016 ROTARY IN REVIEW:
Patrick Donohue
Joe Kovarik led the club in an a cappella version of America the Beautiful since the meeting next door didn’t want to be disturbed. What they don’t know is that Mindy Kastelic can whoop at any time, so they’re not safe! And this is our first time with a cash bar in the room – who knows what hijinks we might get up to? Jason Bradshaw offered an inspirational thought from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thanks to Annette Kuyper and Sophie Rupp for warmly greeting our wonderful members, and today’s scribe Michael-jon Pease.
Rotarians in the news: Peter Pearson retiring from the Friends of the St. Paul Library and Mark Stutrud from Summit Brewing.
Linda Mulhern introduced John Xiong (Harding High School grad), returning outbound student back from Taiwan and Aiden McVey, outbound to Harare, Zimbabwe. Aiden is a graduate of Central High School. His father participated in Rotary Youth Exchange.
John returned from Taiwan a year ago and was happy to be here to thank us and our foundation for sponsoring his experience. His trip to Taiwan was a memorial experience since his family is originally from there. He improved his Chinese language skills, which was one of his reasons for going. He helped his new classmates get more involved with their schooling and made many friends. After this experience, John will start at Mankato State this fall, majoring in International Relations.
Mindy Kastelic gave a promo for next week’s meeting with Megan Remark, CEO of Region’s Hospital.
Kristin Montpetit collected happy dollars from Linda Mulhern (to celebrate the return of her daughter from her year abroad at Finland), Doug Hartford (celebrating a trip back East to see the four cutest grandkids in the world), Roger Nielsen (celebrating his 7th wedding anniversary with “Suzy Homemaker” Vicki Gee-Treft), Susan Spiers (celebrating her recent trip to Iceland – only a five hour plane ride!).
Jay Pfaender introduced Patrick Donohue our speaker speaking about the entrepreneurial legacy of James J. Hill, including Hill Capital Corporation, which he serves as CEO. The company was founded by the JJ Hill Reference Library to serve the next generation of empire builders. Hill himself was a community developer as well as a business leader – founding the Hill Farm at North Oaks to research best farming practices. He imported new cattle breeds to give to new settlers. These efforts also helped combat starvation in the early days of the area, which was largely rural. He worked for stability for settlers and all citizens – because it made economic sense for everyone, not just his railroad. The Great Northern RR was the only privately held trans-continental railway and the only railway not to experience financial distress or collapse.
From their study of the business finance landscape, they identified a funding void in the $100,000 to $5 MM level, particularly for businesses further along the risk spectrum. This funding void is the Achilles heel of our main streets and business parks. Hill Capital identified 2,000 target business profiles in need of at-risk expansion capital. Their mission can be defined as “economic barn-raising.”
Chuck Whitaker closed the meeting by leading the club in the Four Way Test.
Respectfully submitted,
Michael-jon Pease