New Member Talks

This week we will be able to learn more about two of our new members, Larry Christenson and Grady Mateen.

  Larry Christenson grew up in the mid-west. After graduation and Naval Flight Training, he arrived in the Bay Area is 1971.  He served eight years on Active Duty plus fourteen years in the Reserves at Moffett Field as a P3C Orion multi-engine patrol aircraft Navy Pilot.  He is a retired Navy Commander.  An Eagle Scout, he has been very active in the Peninsula Boy Scout, Pacific Skyline Council.  He served on the Council’s Executive Board of Directors and the Palo Alto Historical Association.   He has been a Northwestern Mutual Financial Advisor for forty years. 

  As a transferring Rotarian (Milwaukee and Miami) Grady Mateen has been looking for the right fit in a Rotary Club since his arrival in the Bay Area. He has visited many other clubs, even volunteering as a Sergeant At Arms for a District Meeting where many already knew him. Although invited to join by all he met, we were his first choice. Grady works for Boehringer Ingelheim as a Cardiovascular Business Specialist, but his real talent is dealing with people, as any conversation with him will prove. An expert communicator with a background in consultative sales, software consulting, and SAP implementation. He is able to “speak the language” and sell solutions to decision makers in technology organizations, hospitals, and medical offices. He is also a 6’10” former international professional basketball player competing in Cyprus, Israel, and France. An Arkansas native, Grady has a BS in psychology from The Ohio State University. He was successful in sales at Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson. He was a financial analyst with Whirlpool and General Motors. While a Certified Senior SAP HR Consultant he was a veteran of 11 successful SAP implementations in Canada, France, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and here in the United States.