Bulletin For June 7th, 2019 (May 31, 2019)

Today’s Greeter: Dick Bean (who is leaving us and going back to Concord) welcomed members to Bow Rotary

Presiding: President Bryant Stevener

Attendance:

Bow Rotarians: 33
Visiting Rotarians: 0
Guests: 2 - Proposed New Member: Joya Denehy, guest of Dave Scanlan & Mark Normandin, Nick’s Dad, guest of Rick Minard
Speaker: 1 - Nick Normandin
Scooters: Didn’t catch this
Total: 36

Announcements:

2^nd Week Announcing Joya as a potential member.
Skip Poole reminded everyone Recognition Night is next Friday, June 14^th at the Library. Please note: parking maps available on the tables (one may be attached here if I can figure that out). The event begins at 5:30pm with a reception and the presentation at 6pm. This is our meeting for this week. Sandy is catering.
Dave Stack spoke about the Concert Series. The bands are lined up and the sign up is circulating. It has spaces for one Emcee and 2 assistants, but the more the merrier. Concerts are from 6 – 8pm at the Bandstand. First concert is July 14^th.
Rick Minard said that last week he and Judy did the first grade read in for Dunbarton and it was awesome. You should all consider doing this next year.
Karen announced that Bicentennial week is still going on. Today on Capitol Street is all local products. You should check it out. Dick Bean seconded that and plugged checking out the Peppersass.
President Bryant announced that Bob Couch will be framing PDG John Lyford’s Rotary pins to be hung in the Rotary Room at the library.
Cindy announced the Bow High Baseball Teams come from behind to win. Next game is Monday 4pm at Fishercats.

Sargent At Arms: Ben Kiniry

Late: Jerry Kingwill and David Gazaway
Logo: Jon Ruggles – R&T Electric
No Birthdays.

Happy Bucks:

Tamar Roberts is happy that scholarships have been selected. They had 17 applications and are awarding 10 scholarships. Dick Swett, Peter Imse and Tamar made up the committee and Tamar thanked them very much. It is a LOT of work to read all of the applications, weigh them, and decide. It is hard, but rewarding work.
Rick Minard was happy that Nick is here and happy that Dick Beans socks match his shirt.
Jon Ruggles was happy that last night was Jackie’s 8^th grade graduation from Shaker Road School. She’s been there since she was 3 years old. He was also happy that she will be doing a 3 week trip to Spain starting Monday.
Gerry Carrier had a Happy $12 for their wedding anniversary of 48 years! (4+8=12)
PDG Chris Parkinson was happy about his upcoming trip to Praque, the Check Republic, etc. and that when he returns he will be doing his Parkinson Plunge jump. He has raised close to his $3k goal for Pure Water for the World and is quite happy with that. Let’s see if we can get him over that goal!
Dean Cascadden was happy to be back in his regular chair – soooo comfy!
Cindy is happy that it is her senior’s last day of school. She’s still waiting for proof of graduation though!
Mike Griffin said that he and his son, Andrew, are continuing their “boy weekends.” They are now working on the “New England 100 Highest to Hike.” You can ask him about the bushwhacking involved.
Peter Imse was happy about summer interns who seem to get younger and younger each year…
Noreen Christensen was happy, but I didn’t catch why – sorry Noreen!
Dick Bean is happy to be going to see the Zach Brown Band.
Ben Kiniry was happy for Tammy’s 50^th Birthday party last Saturday. He was also happy that Gale and I bartended for it. He will be giving a thank you donation to Tammy’s favorite charity The Capitol Kids Club in appreciation.

Raffle: The winning ticket last 3 numbers were 924. Dean Cascadden had them but didn’t pull the joker.

Scooters were excused.

Program:

Rick Minard introduced our Ambassadorial Scholar, Nick Normandin as the speaker.

As many of you know, Nick was among the final class of Ambassadorial Scholars sent out by the Rotary Foundation. Nick did his year abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland studying applied mathematics. His presentation today is “From Army to Hedge Funds”.

Nick was a WestPoint Grad, in the military and doing his studies in Scotland. He became involved in Artificial Intelligence, was a Cyber Warfare Officer and worked in DARPA as well. He then went on to do Grad school in NYC and then began working for a Hedge Fund on Wall Street.

According to Nick, AI (Artificial Intelligence) is statistics + marketing. It is machine learning using algorithms (aka a series of steps). It takes past examples and applies them to new things. AI is used to create art, music, movie scripts and more.

Some of the differences Nick noticed from Army life to Wall Street was going from a Uniform and saluting and calling folks Sir and Ma’am to working for essentially the company in “Billions” where shady things happened, they were called out and now they were flying the straight and narrow. The company’s new motto is “Performance with Integrity.”

Nick learned that old habits die-hard and, as he said, he was “missing some key life skills of normal adults” like: “how does insurance work?” and “how do I mail something?” The Army took care of things for him.

Scientific Lessons from Wall Street were luck v skill is hard to distinguish. He taught us about the card mailing game. Also, Hedge Funds people are super specialized.

Philosophically he learned: it is not about how much you know, it’s about how much other people think you know.

Nick ended by thanking us again for selecting him and giving him the opportunity to be an Ambassadorial Scholar. It’s hard to imagine that that was 6 years ago now!

PDG Chris Parkinson added that RI is looking to bring back a version of this program, but are calling it a Global Scholar Program.

Respectfully Submitted,

Donna Deos