I am always amazed at people who continually reinvent themselves as they experience and move through life. Our newest Rotarian is just that type of individual. Jonny Holz joins us today under the classification of Food and Beverage.Jonny was born and raised in Michigan and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Physics. By the time he graduated, he decided he was more interested in the implementation of science and technology then doing the science itself. He went to Madison, Wisconsin for an internship with the National Resource Defense Council where he wrote white papers for politicians. His focus was on biodiesel and he got very interested in sustainable energy solutions.
Now as exciting as all this sounds, let’s not forget that Jonny was a young man at this time and ran the risk of getting distracted. His distraction came in the form of a girl who sparked his fancy but decided to move to Spain. Jonny followed her and together they biked all over Europe, living in hostels and becoming true hippies as they grew out their hair and beards (both of them!). Well, as expected, distractions fade, and it was time for Jonny to come back to America. Looking like a Woodstock reject, he picked the one spot in America where he could blend in – Portland, Oregon! There he went to work for Eco Northwest, an economics consulting company. His work focused on evaluating the impact of utility-funded energy efficiency programs.
Jonny really wanted to stop writing about things and start implementing things, so he took a career turn into business development and marketing. He spent the next seven years working to save energy in buildings. He worked on consumer programs, helped launch emerging technologies, and worked with commercial building developers, architects, and engineers to help construct energy-efficient buildings.
Now, you want to know the best thing to come out of all this Portland consulting? Her name is Rebecca. They met at a pop-up event and Jonny asked her out. In 2013, they both moved to Seattle so Jonny could complete graduate school. Rebecca and Jonny were married in Portland in a friend’s backyard surrounded by nature.
In 2015, Jonny graduated from the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business with a master’s in business administration. Armed with his new degree, Jonny decided to put his experience in science, energy, construction, and utilities to good use and he took a job, in the FOOD industry.
In 2015, Jonny joined a company called Lish which is an online dinner delivery service with meals created by local chefs. Now the interesting part of this is that Jonny was hired as the marketing and business development guy for an expansion into a whole new area of catering and corporate clients. He positioned the company as a subscription catering provider where companies sign up for weekly meals for their employees. He targeted the tech companies as they were most likely to use this service and today, 18 months later, the company dropped their consumer service and pivoted completely to workplace food service. Jonny has helped drive over 2x year over year growth for the business. That is what we in the business world call a win! He then helped launch a new product called PopUp Restaurants where they bring rotating restaurants inside companies to serve lunch to employees, like a food truck without the truck.
Jonny and Rebecca live in Fremont with their two sons, Kaiden, 4 years old and Lucas, 10 months.
Jonny is proposed and seconded by Jon Bridge and Dorothy Bullitt. Two very impressive names and we thank them both. I asked Jonny why he wanted to join Rotary and he had two answers:
- Find meaningful ways of supporting our community.
- Step out of his everyday bubble to engage with a more diverse group of professionals and servants of service.
He expresses his gratitude to Dorothy and Jon for encouraging him to get involved with Rotary. Jonny’s service passion is to help at-risk youth in our community. He has worked in after-school programs, summer youth programs, and even spent two months working with children in a campiemento in Chile which is a Chilean equivalent of a shantytown. I am sure the Rotary Boys and Girls Club would welcome his involvement.
