Events

OPERATION CARE & COMFORT

Saratoga Rotary Packing Event: Friday, October 11, 2024

At our Club Lunch Meeting we will be doing our Annual Care packages to deployed service members overseas.

Join us in this rewarding Rotary Community Service Project after lunch on October 11^th.

“At Operation: Care and Comfort (OCC), we recognize the immense sacrifice made by our troops who leave behind their safety, comfort, and homes to protect ours. That’s why we strive to send them a little piece of home – a connection back to the memories and comfort they left behind.

Since 2003, we’ve been dedicated to improving the lives of those who serve our country.”

Co-Chairs: Patti Workman & Shinku Sharma

october TGIF at Marcia and Russ Hansen's House

The City Council is pleased to announce the appointment of Matt Morley as the new City Manager. Matt will begin his role on Monday, June 10, 2024, and a transition plan has been established to ensure a smooth handover of responsibilities. During this transition, the current City Manager, James Lindsay, will continue to serve through July. Morley will officially assume the full powers and duties of the City Manager on Monday, August 5, 2024. 

Matt Morley brings a wealth of experience to our city. He joins us from his recent position as Assistant City Manager with the City of Cupertino where he provided direction to five of the seven city departments and was instrumental in addressing Cupertino budget challenges while enhancing services to the community. Prior to Cupertino, Matt served as the Parks and Public Works Director for the Town of Los Gatos, and before that, he worked for the City of San Jose as Deputy Director of Public Works. 

A native of the South Bay Area, Matt holds a bachelor’s degree from UC Davis in Political Science and German, and an MBA from the University of Phoenix in Business Administration.

Matt Morley shared his excitement about the new role, stating, “I am honored to join the City of Saratoga and look forward to working with the community, City Council, and staff to continue making Saratoga a wonderful place to live and work.”

Please join us in welcoming Matt Morley to the City of Saratoga!

Doug Brent is a technology leader and strategist focused on the digitization of industrial business such as agriculture, construction and transportation. Doug served in a chief technology officer role at Trimble, a $3B+ revenue industrial technology leader. Doug is a Silicon Valley veteran – from start-ups to Apple and IBM. Doug is a Board member at industrial technology company Anova, and an advisor to Piaggio Fast Forward, a personal robotics company.

Doug is the 2024-2025 President of the Rotary Club of Los Gatos, where he also served as secretary for three years. Doug is a three year appointee to the Rotary International committee on technology.

Doug Brent is a Silicon Valley veteran, expert in the connection between the physical and digital worlds in a range of industrial settings--today’s digital transformation. In 2011, Doug became the first VP Technology Innovation (CTO) at Trimble, a leader in digitization for construction, transportation, agriculture and other industrial markets. At Trimble, Doug championed modern software platforms, cutting-edge technology and culture change that supported growth from $1.7B to $3B of revenue and a transition from a hardware-centric model to a deep software and solutions model.



 

Dr. Caicai Wu grew up in China in an intellectual family, with both parents obtained master’s
degrees from US. As she was about to finish junior high school, the cultural revolution started.
Like millions of millions of teenagers of that time in China, she was sent to the countryside,
1,200 miles away from her home town, Beijing, to be “Re-educated”. She worked in the field and
later worked as a “barefoot doctor” in a village for four and half years. After returning to Beijing,
she worked as a chemist in the waste treatment plant in a coking factory for five years. During
those five years, she self-studied high school curriculum and some college level chemistry
books. When the cultural revolution ended, she passed the competitive entrance exam to
college. Her mother, a senior translator in the largest news agency in China who held a Master’s
degree in Teaching English from Columbia University in US, trained her in English for over 15
years. In 1988, she passed the TOFEL and GRE exam and was accepted in the graduate
program at the University of Washington in Seattle. She received her PhD in Analytical
Chemistry in 1993 and completed two post-doctoral fellowships from the Departments of Lab
Medicine and Bioengineering at the University of Washington. Dr. Wu is a diplomate of the
American Board of Clinical Chemistry emeritus and was a fellow in the National Academy of
Clinical Biochemistry. From 1999 to 1981, Dr. Wu worked for Pacific Biometrics, Inc. (PBI), a
Seattle based clinical reference laboratory. Dr. Wu performed a number of duties with increasing
responsibility. She was the Associate / Technical Director for six years. Since 2011, Dr. Wu
worked as the Laboratory Supervisor in the Science Department at Northwest University in
Kirkland, Washington. Dr. Wu also teaches the laboratory courses for Survey of Chemistry in the
same school. She has published over 20 articles / abstracts in peer reviewed scientific journals
and held 7 patents. After retirement in 2021, Dr. Wu continued to teach online science courses
at Northwest University for 2 years. Now, Dr. Wu is the science instructor for College of Adaptive
Arts.

From 2010, Dr. Wu started taking voice lessons with an opera singer Pamela La Salle
Casella. The voice training has been strict and challenging. Dr. Wu loves to share such
gifts with others, especially for seniors in retirement homes. She was one of the
founding members of Gospel Choir at the University Presbyterian Church since 2005.
From 2011 to 2013, she participated in several chorus singing of opera productions by
Lyric Opera Northwest, such as La Boheme, La Traviata, Tosca. At school she sang
solo for her students and for visitors from China. She also sang at the wedding of the
chairman of the Science Department, Dr. Steinkamp. In 2014, she started to lead sing
along or singing solo for seniors at Merrill Garden, Columbia, Hearthstone and Crista
retirement facilities. In addition, she sang solos in the masses at Sacred Heart Church
in downtown Seattle and in talent shows for international students at University
Presbyterian in Seattle. After moving to CA, Dr. Wu continues to use the gift of singing
to serve senior communities.

In her spare time, other than singing, Dr. Wu enjoys writing and cooking.

It's a lovely program hearing the perspectives and history of all the past presidents of the Saratoga Rotary Club. 

Wrapping gifts for local schoolchildren in the community. 

Hors D'oeuvres, buffet dinner, dessert buffet, Tom Collins playing holiday tunes, entertainment

Dr. Kenneth Geisick began his role as Superintendent of Saratoga Union School District on September 3, 2019. Dr. Geisick most recently served as the Superintendent of Schools in the Orland Joint Unified School District in Orland, CA. 

“I am honored to be selected by the Board of Trustees to lead the outstanding Saratoga Union School District as the new superintendent,” Geisick said. “The district has a long tradition of excellence in providing students with an exceptional education and I look forward to building on the district’s strong foundation and many accomplishments. Coming to Saratoga will be something of a homecoming for me, I grew up in the area and attended nearby Union School District and Campbell Union High School District. And, my mother actually attended Saratoga Elementary School some years ago.”

Prior to his tenure as superintendent at Orland, Geisick held positions as Chief Educational Services Officer for THINK Together, an academically oriented after-school learning program that serves over 100,000 children each year; as Superintendent of Schools in Riverbank Unified School District; and as a high school and middle school principal.

Geisick began his career in education as a classroom teacher at Andrew Hill High School in San Jose, teaching social studies, English language development, and journalism.

Joyce Mercado, Rotary Club of Alameda President, is available to give Rotary Clubs a presentation on her new book “Save the Planet in Your Spare Time – A Climate Protection Handbook for the Busy Person.” The book chronicles Joyce’s journey to becoming a climate protection leader in Alameda so others can learn from her experience.  The book covers:

·         Reducing your emissions

·         Creating and distributing a checklist of 70 action items to protect the climate and a resource list to help individuals take action

·         Writing for the local press

·         Jumping at opportunities as they present themselves

·         Partnering with other organizations

·         Building leadership actions into your daily life

·         Taking political action

·         Presenting on climate change

·         Maintaining your optimism

Leaders influencing others in their communities to protect the climate, community by community, is an essential element in fighting climate change and Rotarians can be an effective part of the solution to the climate crisis with the guidance in this handbook. Anyone can be such a leader, even if you have a busy life. We need thousands of leaders like you in communities nationwide and worldwide to solve the climate crisis.  Together we can make a difference!

Joyce Mercado’s bio:

Joyce Mercado has been an effective climate activist in her community of Alameda for the last twenty years even while holding a full-time job as a Technical Sales Manager for IBM and raising two children with her husband David. Joyce is a monthly climate protection columnist for the local press, an Al Gore program-trained Climate Reality Project Leader who has given dozens of presentations on climate protection, a member of many climate protection organizations, creator of the Alameda Climate Protection Checklist and Resource List with 70 actions individuals can take and has been recognized by the City of Alameda for her climate protection leadership. The climate emergency prompted her to write this book when she retired so others could learn from her experience to become climate leaders in their communities. Joyce is a proud Rotarian having served as Community Service Chair and President of the Rotary Club of Alameda. Joyce has a Bachelor of Science in Physics from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Joyce went to graduate school at Princeton University to study plasma (electrically charged gas) physics for two years.  Joyce decided plasma physics was not for her, attended her first on-campus interview, and got a job at IBM for the next 35 years. Joyce lives in Alameda, California with her husband David.

Karyn Sinunu-Towery is a 30-year veteran prosecutor in Santa Clara County who has volunteered with the Innocence Center. She will tell the story of how she helped gained the freedom for Jeremy Puckett through the Center. Karyn Sinunu-Towery is the past president of the San Jose Rotary Club. 

The Innocence Center is an independent non-profit law firm dedicated to freeing the innocent from prison, educating the public on the causes of wrongful conviction, and assisting freed clients as they reenter society. 

The Innocence Center launched in 2023.  The Board and Staff have decades of innocence work under their belt, all having worked at the California Innocence Project as a staff or faculty member.  Collectively, the group has freed more than 40 people who have served 560+ years in prison for crimes they did not commit.  The team has been responsible for getting a dozen laws changed to prevent future injustices and make it easier to free the innocent.  The Innocence Center is a member of the Innocence Network.

Alzheimer's is a global health problem with more than 6 million people
living with the disease in the US alone. Tremendous gains have been made in
the understanding of the science and basic biology underlying Alzheimer's
and other dementias. These advances are leading to great strides in
strategies for prevention, detection, diagnostics, and therapeutic
interventions. The Alzheimer's Association is a global leader in research,
mobilizing the field to advance the vision of a world without Alzheimer's
and all other dementia.