Rotary International

We are honored to have speaking to us, Mike McGovern, who, since 2014, has chaired the Rotary International PolioPlus Committee.  This means he is Rotary’s top volunteer leader in our #1 international priority, the eradication of polio.

A member of the Polio Oversight Board since 2018, he is also now Chair of this board, which is the governing  body of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative which includes Rotary, the World Health Organization, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.   

Mike joined Rotary in 1986 as a member of the Rotary Club of South Portland-Cape Elizabeth, Maine, USA. He has served in many Rotary positions including as a director and vice president of Rotary International and as a trustee and vice chair of The Rotary Foundation.    

Other Rotary involvement includes chair of the Rotary Action Group for Family Health and AIDS Prevention, and the global chair of the Rotary Leadership Institute

Volunteer service outside of Rotary includes terms as president of the Maine Municipal Association and of the  Maine Town and City Association, chair of ecomaine which is the state’s largest recycler, and he served as a member of the Board of Visitors of the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine from which he had earned a Master’s in Public Policy and Management prior to it being named as the Muskie School.   

His professional life was entirely centered in the Town of Cape Elizabeth, Maine beginning as an intern in 1977 and serving as the chief appointed officer (the town manager) for 31 years until his retirement in 2016.