Club President Heather de Kok with new member Ben Gomez
This week we heard from our newest member, Ben Gomez. Ben told us that he is a first generation Canadian whose parents came here from Chile many years ago. He said that they are both his inspiration and the reason he has such a passion for helping others. They came here with only twenty dollars and built a life together through hard work while also finding time for all kinds of charity work.
Ben said that he went to high school in Edmonton and that is where he met his wife Rhonda Smith, who is also a Rotarian and a member of our club. He said that he has worked in several different occupations, first in machining and tooling, where he travelled a lot setting up machine shops, then he started his own construction business and did that for a few years. Currently he and a partner are working with carbon capture technology to develop a device that will attach to diesel engine systems.
Ben told us that both he and Rhonda have a passion for helping others and have taken on many different projects over the years. These included different types of volunteer work and collecting donations themselves for many different charitable groups. Ben said that a day spent without helping others is not worth living. He said that he and Rhonda have done many projects on their own and can appreciate how much better it is to have a team to do it with. That is why he has joined Rotary and is looking forward to the opportunities that Rotary provides to help others. We would like to thank Ben for his very inspiring talk and look forwards to getting to know him better.