Posted by Pete DeLaunay

 

President Beth rang the bell promptly at 12:30 to open the meeting, followed by a rousing rendition of ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’ led by Bill Center accompanied by Freeman Fong. 

She announced that Rotary past president, Todd Summerfelt, had passed away from the cancer he fought for a long time.  Kim Moore and the Rotary Rogues will offer a celebration of Todd’s life next week.  A memorial service will be announced soon.  Rotarians recognized Todd in a moment of silence.

She said it had been an emotional week in the world of sports with Serena Williams playing and losing her last tournament and Sue Bird playing and losing her last game with the Seattle Storm.  On a lighter note, the Mariners beat the White Sox and are now tied for first place. 

President Beth said she is recruiting five/seven Rotarians to help manage our club’s online meetings.

She then invited Membership Co-Vice Presidents, John Steckler and Nicole Klein, for an update on membership development.  They reported how ‘guest cards’ are being used to introduce potential new members to Rotary and acknowledged Sue McNab who used a ‘guest card’ to bring  in the first new member under the new program.  They invited Rotarians to the website calendar for information about several upcoming fellowship events:  9/7 - YRL happy hour; 9/15 - Ethnic Dinner;  9/20– newer Rotary members happy hour; and 9/25 – Garden Party 

VP Membership, John Steckler, announced the September Member Spotlight on Rotarians Mary Wagner PhD, classification Food & Beverage.  Mary is an achiever whose career trajectory was centered on food, with degrees in bacteriology and food science.  She worked as a food scientists in product development at General Mills (Hamburger Helper, Betty Crocker and Gorton’s Seafood) then on to product development at Taco Bell, followed by work at Gallo Wines, Mars, and finally Starbuck’s where she contributed to many innovations.  Mary has been married to husband, Richard, for thirty years and they have two grown daughters.  Mary is now retired but serves on several boards.   . 

Program VP Ken Grant came to the podium to introduce the day’s featured program Brent Beardall, president/CEO, of Washington Federal Bank (WaFd).  He described his various positive family experiences with the Edmonds branch of Washington Federal, inviting the day’s speaker to the podium for remarks about ‘Leading with Gratitude: The Intersection of Foresight, Hard Work, and Luck’.

Washington Federal (WaFd) was founded in 1917 with $40K in assets.  WaFed is now the largest bank based in Washington State with $20B in assets and 2,100 employees.  In the last 105 years he is only the sixth CEO, who attributes the bank’s success to consistency, passion and core values that matter.

When he was named CEO, he sent and signed letters to every employee asking them to do two things:   Love what you do and be passionate about it to help people, and after that make a difference and be part of the solution.   He said WaFd has a lot in common with Rotary.

He described how WaFd is encouraging diversity as the future is not just for white males as his bank is working hard on diversity with a great mix of cultures, and 40% diversity on their board of directors.

He drew a comparison between WaFd and Washington Mutual that was founded in 1920, comparing stock prices and how bad lending decisions led to the largest failure in U.S. banking history with $60B in WaMu value simply wiped away.  “WaMu was a story of acquisition that was phenomenal until it wasn’t.  Lives were impacted as hundreds of employees, clients and shareholders lost most everything,” he said.  “We have a responsibility to the bottom line and more importantly being a fiduciary for your clients.” 

He said WaMu lost its culture and values.  WaMu was the admired bank around, the friend of the family, save a school program, so much good.  “WaMu did not Invest and grow values,” he said. “I believe we should all be students of leadership and learn from others. “  

He offered an example of “servant leadership”  when WaFd took the initiative with the Federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans that were aimed at putting money in the hands of small businesses.  He viewed the PPP loan program as an opportunity to be part of the solution. “We made the decision to do PPP loans, with everyone at the bank including me writing loans,” he said. “We ended up making 10,000 PPP loans for $1.1B many were to non-clients of the bank".

He concluded with a snapshot of WaFd coming to the aid of federal workers whose paychecks were held up by the government shutdown of 2019 from a stalemate in Congress.   “We launched new product called ‘lifeline’ for impacted government workers,” he said, “where WaFd would give a line of credit for up to six pay checks with no origination fee or interest. We got thousands of new clients.”

“We are passionate about doing good at WaFd Bank,” he said. “We are big believers that you can do well and make a reasonable profit.”  

Past District Governor Cathy Gibson came to the podium to talk about three environmental summits that will be featured this Saturday on Zoom.  “Climate caring Rotarians from 30 Rotary Districts are joining with regional partners to talk about environmental challenges and solutions,” she said.   This Saturday with feature a water summit to focus on rive and ocean health; a green transportation and clean energy summit; and a healthy soils and sustainable agriculture summit.  Consider devoting all or some of your Saturday to engage in one or all of these informative sessions.  

Ken Grant returned to the podium to talk about next week’s program at the Rainier Club and on Zoom featuring Amy Lillard, Washington Filmworks, and a representative from Senator Patty Murray’s office to talk about the election.

President Beth concluded the meeting with remarks about leading with gratitude.  I’m reminded of the values gratitude plays in our life, she said, with a quote from the award-winning program, Ted Lasso, after losing a critical match.  “This is a sad moment and there ain’t nothing I can say … look at everyone else here and be grateful you are going though this with others…be sad but be sad together.” 

Thank you to this week's meeting reporter, Pete DeLaunay, for another fabulous report!

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