Bulletins - 2008 - 01/14/2009
This
Week's Bulletin Was Written
By Jenny K. Goodman, Esq.
Gary McElroy started our meeting with the invocation followed by new returning member Sandy Rugg leading us in the flag salute. Mary Engles was the songmeister today.
J. McCain, Robyn Bottomly and Karny Stefan were all lucky raffle ticket winners. Gary Green thanked Maureen Eberle and Linda Jalving for a great Foundation Gala that many from our club attended and enjoyed. Jeremy Larson praised Jonathon Stone for organizing the wine tasting event at the Chapman Collection. Mel Gallegos reported he was a lucky raffle ticket winner at the Foundation Gala.
We welcomed several prospective new members and a few traveling Rotarians this morning.
Judy Bambace presented a Student of the Month award to Rebecca Barrera who has a 4.38 gpa at San Diego High. She does lots of community service and has been involved with RYLA and Rotary's Outward Bound programs. Certainly she will be a future Rotarian if we are lucky. Becky was joined by the Vice-Principal of the school, Joe Austin. Congrats to Becky for her fine work and we look forward to hearing about her college experiences in the future.
-
Mel Gallegos announced that on January 22, 2009, our club will host some of the District Governors.
Karny Stefan introduced Fred Harris, the CEO of NASSCO. In a show of dramatic flair and unplanned coincidence, one of the company's newest ships, the product carrier Golden State, was making its way through the Bay on its maiden voyage as Mr. Harris spoke. Now that's what I call a visual aid! Mr. Harris had many positive thoughts on the ship building industry in San Diego. The company was struggling when he took over but now they are one of the biggest employers in San Diego and have contracts for many more ships. The company was originally founded in 1905 and now builds predominately Navy ships with some commercial ships as well. They are the lead maintenance provider for the Navy. Mr. Harris attributes the success of the company to the San Diego workforce. They are currently under contract for 12 dry cargo/ammo ships which takes about 3-4 years each to build. He reported that the learning curve for building them is the best in the nation and that the most recent boat they built took only half the time of the original boat. Mr. Harris spoke of the lessons he learned when his company partnered with a successful Korean boat company and have implemented many of the best practices observed in that partnership. NASSCO is planning a facility expansion project which will make the ship building even more efficient and cost effective. Mr. Harris commented on health and safety regulations his company has implemented including a no smoking policy that has been very effective. Mr. Harris was an informative speaker and in this economy, it was nice to hear about a company that is succeeding and has worked locked in for at least three years. Kudos to NASSCO.
| 
