Meeting date: 2/1/18
17 members present
Led in prayer & pledge by Dave Rosacker
No guests
Treasurer report: Balance $2,070.90
Announcements: Lunch Bunch will meet on February 14th at Shevy’s. Bring your Valentine home some leftovers!
Other announcements/discussion: Next week we will hear from member and Elkhorn Public Schools Superintendent Bary Habrock. We look forward to learning more about ALL that’s going on at EPS!
The discussion continued regarding the breakfast menu and options. President Mike will put together a survey and distribute to members via email to gather ideas that can then be presented in an orderly fashion at an n upcoming meeting for discussion and hopefully provide a solution to the breakfast cost vs., benefit quandary.
The Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) is a weekend long camp held a Camp Kitaki for high school sophomores and juniors. There is an interest within the club in providing an opportunity to local students to participate. Judy Ackland, Bary Habrock, Ron Mortenson and Jim Tomanek have stepped up to work on the processes for identifying interest within the three local high schools.
Speaker for the Day: Neil Kirby introduced Chris Cowell, VP/GM Valmont Global Utility Division.
Chris shared a lot of information about the areas of industry in which Valmont operates. Valmont achieves $2.5 Billion in sales annually. They employ 10,000 people in 92 locations throughout the world. Sixty percent of their business is done in North America and they plan to do more expansion globally.
Valmont has four core businesses: Utility, Coatings, Lighting/Traffic, and Irrigation.
Chris shared more information about the Utility area in which he works. They have 15 facilities in the US, Canada and China. The division employs about 1,975 people. Within in their market, they account for about 50% of the business and produce $850 million in sales annually. He shared information about how what Valmont produces is incorporated into the nation’s utility grid. They have also transitioned into providing the structural materials used in both the wind and solar energy markets.
It was a highly informative presentation and helped to explain a lot about one of the largest employers in our area.
