Meet The Palos Verdes Peninsula Rotary Club

Inaugurating President Julia with a Baseball Theme
The Palos Verdes Peninsula Rotary Club is composed of a diverse and interesting group of local business and community leaders.  Our club welcomes all community members to join us in our goal of service to the community, region and world.... and To Have Fun doing it!
President Julia Parton
 
Julia Parton, our club President for the 2023-24 year, is a long term member of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Rotary Club and a Past President.
 
Julia, born in San Diego and raised in Palos Verdes, is a graduate of Rolling Hills High School and California State University, Dominguez Hills.  She has spent her entire career working in the South Bay and has over 30 years of expertise and experience in managing staff, marketing, and community relations.
 
Julia has worked for various South Bay media publications and has served as Business Development Director for the Daily Breeze and publisher of the Palos Verdes Peninsula News.  Highly regarded in the community for her public service, Julia enjoys giving back to the community and currently serves on several boards in the community, including PVPHS Athletic Booster Club, PV Juniors, Toberman Neighborhood Center, Peninsula Seniors, and Switzer Learning Center.
Rick Humphrey
 
Rick worked as a senior graphic designer for The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo for 39 years. He has been involved with plein air painting since 1985 and is a signature member of the California Art Club and a founding member of the Portuguese Bend Artist Colony.

Bruce grew up on a small family farm in Central Illinois.  Following college he was accepted into the US Department of Agriculture Director training program.  In 1988 Bruce switched to an investment career working on the floor of the Chicago Board of Options Exchange as a market maker clerk.  His journey continued as a financial futures trader for a Japanese bank, then an investment banker with a regional West Coast firm before reaching his ultimate destination as Wealth Advisor. 

Frank has been a Rotary member for six years and serves on the Rotary Foundation Board and the Public Relations committee. Frank pursued a career in the information technology industry for four decades.  He specialized in the collection and storage of information from the years before the internet through the data explosion that we now call ‘Big Data’. 

Dr. James Hartman

Jim Hartman has been a Rotary member for twenty-six years and has served as President of the Club for two of those years. He is currently retired but still very active in Rotary as the Membership Chair. Most recently, Jim served as Director of Institutional Planning and Accreditation at the College for Officer Training (CFOT) of The Salvation Army from August of 2008 to August of 2017. Upon his retirement he was appointed and currently serves on the College’s Board of Governance. Jim has extensive knowledge of higher education having worked at the Vice-Presidential level at Ohio University, Radford University and California State University, Dominguez Hills. Prior to serving at CFOT, he served as the Finance Officer at Chadwick School, a distinguished private K-12 school on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. He has extensive experience with public and private education at all levels, school and college finances, policy making, strategic planning, grant writing, and faculty training. He is now active as a fiction writer and mentor for Club Rotarians.
Christine Barnicki
 

Unlike most kids growing up in the mid-'50s, there was no television at my house. So I became the neighborhood's bicycle speed queen, and I read voraciously, designed and crafted outfits for my dolls and paper dolls, colored and painted my way through endless boxes of Crayons and watercolor sets, scored big-time playing Scrabble, Monopoly, and card games, and I was a good student, especially enjoying history. To keep my mother happy, I endured endless years of piano lessons, practicing, and recitals.

Warp speed to 2023: Not much has changed. I bicycle in Europe with my daughter. Reading and all that creative stuff morphed into an almost 40-year career as a graphic designer who also writes and edits clients' copy. Games remain a favorite pastime, and my passion for history is reflected in a decades-long love of genealogical research.

Between "way back when" and today, I graduated from USC and Otis College of Art and Design, married, raised three children, and became a Rotarian in 1991.

And all those years of piano lessons? They taught me how to do things I don’t want to do. Today, I get them done first thing in the morning so I can enjoy the rest of my day.