Rotarians came together for lunch on Tuesday to celebrate the New Year!

Anticipating our guest speaker, Robyn DeLong’s Thought for the Day focused on the dramatic changes in transportation since her family arrived in California via clipper ship during the Gold Rush.

President Kerry Wood recognized birthdays for the following Rotarians: Don Hagy, Joel Hockman, PP John Frisch, Kelly Huffman, Todd Aquilina, Bryan Murray, Timothy Schroepfer, PP Linda Geery, Larry Cassidy, Sedrick Burkes, PP Bob Miller, and Hugo Bogren.

Sadly, our Rotary family recently lost one of our beloved members, Jim Phillips, at the age of 95.  Past President Wesley Yee gave a moving eulogy in Jim’s honor and spoke of the many club trips Jim led to Yosemite National Park to go hiking and snowshoeing. Jim was a graduate of Grant High School and UC Berkeley and served in the US Air Force. He spent decades in the HVAC field, including inventing modifications to air conditioning systems. Jim was an accomplished pilot, a past president of the Active 20-30 Club, and a five-time Eddie Mulligan and Paul Harris Society member. Jim will be greatly missed by his family, friends, and our entire Rotary community.

Club Announcements

•    Community grants. President Kerry announced that community grant applications can be submitted on the club website through January 31. The grants range from $2,000-$5,000 for local nonprofits meeting the grant guidelines.

•    PP Peter Dannenfelser announced the South Sac Rotary Club is hosting a crab feed on Saturday February 1, and Peter has tickets available for interested buyers.

•    Joe Quilici asked for support for club social media postings. He also asked for feedback on preferences for new club swag.  If you’d like license plates, hats, or anything else branded Rotary, let Joe know.

•    Loaves and Fishes. Virginia Wade announced our next volunteer shifts on Friday, January 29. Slots are available for both the morning (food prep) and afternoon (meal service) shifts.

•    Meeting sponsors. Josh Pelz appealed for meeting sponsors. It costs $350 and allows the sponsor 3 minutes to talk about their business or whatever they like. Sign up with Josh.

•    Scholarship. Nancy Smith-Fagan announced that applications are open for club scholarships to deserving high school seniors who desire to lead, serve, and can demonstrate a financial need.  Applications are available on the club website, and the committee invites volunteers to evaluate applications.

Getting to Know Your Fellow Rotarians

Elfrena Foord spoke about Dick Osen, who has been a club member for 27 years. Dick met his wife Judy when they were 16, and they have now been married 62 years. He comes from a family of talented musicians, and is a magnificent tenor himself. In 1989, Dick was part of a choir that performed at the Sistine Chapel and Notre Dame in Paris.

Bruce Hester profiled Jeff Stone, who is also a talented musician and became affiliated with Rotary in 1987 when he joined his dad Paul in the Rotary Rooters band, later joining the club officially. Jeff’s musically inclined family includes his two brothers, one of whom is a concert conductor, while the other is a professional saxophone player. Jeff studied piano and trumpet, and today plays bass guitar with the Rotary Roadies. He is a car enthusiast and currently owns 8 cars in 2 separate garages, and he has owned over 100 cars throughout his life.

Past President Fred Teichert introduced our guest speaker, California Secretary of Transportation Toks Omishakin. Secretary Omishakin was appointed in 2022 and oversees 8 state departments that combined have more than 42,000 employees and budgets exceeding $30 billion. He covered the Department of Transportation’s top four priorities – safety, equity, climate action, and economic prosperity. With regard to safety, Secretary Omishakin mentioned how road fatalities increased during COVID, with an 87% increase in the amount of people driving over 100 mph; fortunately, road fatalities have started going back down after peaking in 2022. For climate, he talked about California as a leader in electric vehicle use; of the almost 7 million EVs in the United States, about 2.5 million are in California.  As to equity, Secretary Omishakin discussed the creation of an Interagency Equity Advisory Committee that seeks to elevate historically marginalized voices. Secretary Omishakin spoke about economic prosperity, and how the past transportation initiatives resulted in a consistently increasing Gross State Product (GNP for a state).  Finally, Secretary Omishakin quoted JFK: “Transportation and land use must go hand in hand as two inseparable aspects of the same process.”

During Q&A, Toks fielded a question about Fix 50 delays. His office followed up afterward with this response. “The major traffic-impacting work was completed at the end of December and traffic splits on U.S. Highway 50 have been removed. One lane of mainline paving in each direction was postponed due to weather and is tentatively rescheduled for the weekend of January 23-25. Between now and early summer 2026, the contractor will finish the remaining ramp improvements, median barrier reconstruction, electrical work, sign replacements, and final striping. This will require various lane and ramp closures but should not have a major impact to mainline traffic. After this work is completed, there will be other miscellaneous punch list/finalization items through early fall that may require intermittent lane and ramp closures.”

The meeting’s wine sponsors were Virginia Wade and PP Dan McVeigh. John Swentowsky served as the meeting photographer. Peter Coyl, PP Walter Dahl, and William Hodges were our greeters.  Matthew Green was your Pulse reporter.

Our next meeting is Tuesday January 13, 2026, which will feature speaker Scott Syphax of Syphax Strategic Solutions, host of the current affairs program Studio Sacramento on PBS KVIE. Just remember to RSVP!