Occupation (or former): President at the Gardner Chamber of Commerce
Tell us about your family: My wife Jacci and I will be celebrating our 20th anniversary on October 1st . I have two stepdaughters, Chloe 29, who is a nurse at NKC Hospital and Desiree, 27, who works in insurance. Jacci and my
daughter Mallory, 16, is a junior at Shawnee Mission West.
When did you join Rotary: I joined in March of 2006 after Greg Peterson introduced himself to me at a Lenexa Chamber event and said, “Do you want to have lunch Friday?”
Why did you join Rotary: I joined after Greg brought me to that lunch and as a new business owner, I looked around the room and saw lots of faces of names that I had heard but didn’t know, so I thought it would be a great networking opportunity for me. But I stayed primarily because of the people and relationships that I’ve developed over the years. It’s great being with people who have service to others as part of their DNA.
What Rotary offices have you held: At the club level I served as President in 2010-2011, and as District Governor in 2019-2020 and all the interim level roles that go with both of those. I served as Vice-Governor the previous two Rotary years and thought I was out of District roles for a while but was asked to serve on the District Global Grants committee so I will be tracking those dollars for the next 3 years.
What is your favorite Rotary memory or project? I like to get my hands dirty so there’s lots of projects that have been fun from ShrimpFest, to streamway cleanups to planting trees to building ramps, but my favorite memory is meeting a fellow District Governor Elect at a training in Boise, Idaho, who asked me, “Do you like to hike?” which lead to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in October 2021 with a group tied to a charity that was formed out of a Rotary club speaker presentation in Evergreen, Colorado.
When you are not working, how do you spend your time? Between the regular job at the Chamber and helping to run two locations of Transport Brewery, there isn’t a lot of non-work time, but I manage to include personal time with those entities (and Rotary) by travelling as much as possible and hiking as part of that when I can.
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