Events

Frank Ivy will talk to us about Rotary One and the Rotary International Headquarters in Evanston, IL.

About Frank Ivy

Born and raised in Austin, TX, Frank is a 3^rd generation Austinite.  He is a graduate of Anderson High School and has a BBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin.  He has been married for 35 years to his wonderful wife Alison.  They has two adult children:  Tyler who lives in Round Rock, and Haley who lives in Kennesaw, GA.  Frank has been a commercial banker for 39 years having spent 20 years at community banks, 8 years at large national banks, and 11 years in the Credit Union industry.  Frank has been with Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union for the past 8 years as a commercial real estate lender.

Frank joined the Northeast Austin Rotary Club in January 1996 and became Club Treasurer in July of that year and has been Treasurer for 18 of his 26 years in Rotary.  Frank has served as his club’s Foundation Chair for the past 25 years and is a Paul Harris Fellow +4.  Frank was Club President in 1999-2000 and again in 2014-15 for the North by Northeast Rotary Club in which the North Austin and the Northeast Austin Rotary Clubs merged in 2012.  Frank was inducted into the District’s Roll of Fame in 2010.  Frank has served on the District Board as Assistant Governor for 3 years from 2017 -2021, and Lt. Governor for 2 years from 2021 – 2023.

Mark Kurusz will talk to us about the development of the artifical heart, and the breakthroughs that made this life-saving technology possible.

About Mark Kurusz:

Mark Kurusz has been a member of the Rotary Club of West Austin since 2011. He spent nearly 40 years as a clinical perfusionist (operates heart-lung machine during cardiac surgery) in two university settings (Penn State-Hershey Medical Center, 1972-1977 and the University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston, 1977-2006) and with one contract group in Austin, Texas (2006-2010). Over the course of his career, he had the opportunity to meet many leading figures in the development of artificial organs. This led to a long-time interest in medical history, and he has published several articles and book chapters on historical events and clinical research. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the UTMB Department of Surgery. Today, he will recount the story surrounding the first implantable artificial heart, which occurred in 1969. While the case initially generated euphoria, there was much controversy and criticism concerning details of the event. This led to a famous, decades-long feud between two former colleagues, Drs. Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley. Mark is still involved in blood pumping and works for a start-up company developing a left ventricular assist device for heart failure patients. He and his wife have been married for 50 years, raised three daughters, have seven grandchildren, and have lived in Austin since 2006.

Ayah Alomari and Tiger Yang will be speaking to us about the Greater Austin Chapter of Engineers Without Borders, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving communities across the world by engineering infrastructure projects. The Greater Austin Chapter will also be speaking about its water project in Tanzania, where they are rehabilitating a water system for a village of over 12,000 people.

About our speakers:

Ayah Alomari: 

Ayah Alomari is a native Austinite with a love of built environments and humanitarian work. She recently graduated from UT Austin with an M.S. in Structural Engineering and B.S. in Civil Engineering and is now a practicing EIT at KPFF Consulting Engineers. She joined EWB ATX in 2020 and has served on the Tanzania project as both a fundraiser and a Health Safety Officer for their in-country travel in August 2022. In her free time, she enjoys Dungeons and Dragons, hanging out with her family chickens, and kayaking around Red Bud Isle.

Tiger Yang began volunteering with Engineers Without Borders in 2016 as a freshman at Rice University. He has held roles such as Project Lead and President at the Rice Student Chapter and now serves as Director of Finance for the EWB Austin Chapter. Tiger graduated in 2020 with a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Business and works as a software engineer at Silicon Labs. Outside of EWB and work, he enjoys soccer, cooking, and finance.

About Officer Shelly Borton:

Michelle Borton is a police office with the Austin Police Department  Austin, TX.

• Patrol Officer in Southeast FRANK sector
• Street Response Unit, conducting street level narcotics, prostitution, and high crime operations
• Cadet Training Instructor, Austin Police Training Academy.  Specialized in defensive tactics
• District Representative Unit Downtown area command.  Responsible for community outreach with business owners, special events in downtown, and acting at the direction of Downtown Commander.
• Crisis Intervention Unit/Homeless Outreach Street Team assignment (HOST).  Assigned as the APD representative to a collaborative team consisting of EMS, Downtown Community Court, Integral Care to assist persons experiencing homelessness in the downtown area.  This team assists with mental health services, medical, substance abuse treatment, and other homeless services.  

She has received special training and developed skills in:

• Mental Health Officer
• Hostage Negotiator
• Adjunct Firearms Instructor
• Adjunct Defensive Tactics Instructor
• Bicycle Patrol
• Crowd Management Team
• Bicycle Public Order Team

About Charles F Stahl

Charles F Stahl was a practicing architect with the firm Barrow & Stahl. David B. Barrow and Charles F Stahl both graduated from the University of Texas. Barrow & Stahl formed their office in Austin Texas in the 60's and produced both commercial and residential works from the 1960's until present day.  Their work was influential in the design, layout, and look of the Balcones neighborhood in Austin, TX.

Chuck was President of the Rotary Club of West Austin from 1973-1974, and became a member of the District 5870 Rotary Hall of Fame in 2005.  He is the longest serving Rotarian in the Rotary Club of West Austin, and is a Paul Harris recipient.

The Ukraine war has exposed a raft of contradictions in which world leaders are making claims that have little substance.  By focusing on the underlying economics we can gain a clearer picture of the forces shaping responses to the war by the major powers.  At the start of the war the Russian leadership said that they "wanted a new deal with the West."  That is a fine wish but there never was a deal with the West following the breakup of the Soviet empire.  Western responses have been less than direct.  Let us look at who has what to win and who has what to lose. 

About KC Cerny

K.C. founded Management Information Analysis (www.mia-consulting.com) in 1990 with the  goal of providing analysis to support corporate decision making. Over the years, he has helped build a well-rounded team. Corporations increasingly capture more and more data, without having a centralized solution to process it, and often they have multiple warring information systems. Having a team that can unravel and manage data allows us to support quantitative decision making at a very high level.

Dr. Cerny received a BA from Princeton University and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, TX.

Management Information Analysis is a team of proven professionals that support you with data integration services, custom application development, and enterprise and strategic planning solutions

We will host "table talks" this week. It is a way for West Austin Rotarians to visit and get to know each other through deeper conversations during the lunch meeting.

This type of meeting is much better suited to in-person gatherings.  Zoom participants can engage in conversation amongst each other.

Jill Skinner will talk about the Drive a Senior program in Austin, TX.
 

About Jill Skinner

Jill Skinner joins us as the new Executive Director of Drive a Senior after spending fourteen years helping to create life-changing wishes to children with critical illnesses at Make-A-Wish Central and South Texas. She brings with her an extensive knowledge of the inner-workings of a nonprofit with six years as their Chief Program Officer, four years as the Chief Marketing & Communications Office and four as the Major Gifts Officer. Prior to her work at Make-A-Wish, Jill spent many years in Los Angeles where she built a career in the music and television industries working with Grammy winning artists and later as a writer and producer for Dr. Phil. Jill moved back home to Austin in 2007 to start the next chapter of her life. "I've had such unique experiences working with such incredibly talented people in Los Angeles, but nothing or no one can compare to the incredible people I've been blessed to work with in the nonprofit arena who find so much joy in sharing their talents, treasures and compassion for others," Jill said.  She is married and has two beautiful step kids, a brand new granddaughter, and two sweet kitty cats.

About Dr. Namkee Choi

Namkee Choi, PhD, is Professor and Louis and Ann Wolens Centennial Chair in Gerontology in the University of Texas at Austin’s Steve Hicks School of Social Work. She received her MSW degree from the University of Minnesota, supported by International Rotary Foundation Scholarship. She received her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, and intensive geriatric mental health research training at the Advanced Research Institute in Geriatric Mental Health at the Weill Cornell Institute of Geriatric Psychiatry, a program funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Choi’s primary research goal is to improve low-income and /or  disabled older adults’ access to mental health services, especially in the context of geriatric mental health workforce shortages. Through NIH-funded randomized clinical trials, Dr. Choi and her research team have provided evidence for effectiveness of videoconferenced depression treatments and fall prevention delivered by lay counselors/coaches. Her community partners are Meals on Wheels, Area Agencies on Aging, and other aging service network agencies. Dr. Choi have also done extensive research on late-life suicide and substance misuse among older adults. Dr. Choi was one of the five recipients of the 2019 Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s Innovators in Aging Award and the 2021 recipient of the Gerontological Society of America’s Maxwell A. Pollack Award for Contributions to Healthy Aging.

Category Talks : several members will introduce themselves and their professions. We look forward to hearing from:

Tab Barker
Kris Bills
Elaine Loyd

About Honorable Lee Yeakel (Retired)

We will have lunch at the Casa Chapala Restaurant, and then transfer to the Celis Brewery where owner Christine Celis will give us a tour and talk about the brewing process.

About Christine Celis

https://www.celisbeers.com/