Meeting Recap 04/08/2010
by lou on 14/04/10 at 2:02 am
BULLETIN FOR MEETING OF 4/08/10
Our April 8th meeting began with an invocation from Deborah McHenry and our Pledge of Allegiance led by Mark Smith. Rick Quan introduced our visiting Rotarians and guests. PP Scott Shewan, International Service Chair Ralph Boyajian along with our President Lou composed our head table. Special thanks from the President to PP Steve Varvis for leading last week’s meeting due to his family trip up to Vacaville, Santa Cruz and visit to the King Tut exhibition. PP Nick Smaldino came back from Las Vegas with offers for other Rotarians to join him in a bet that the Jets will win the AFC and Super Bowl. Announcements: Roger Rocka’s Oklahoma! Sign ups for an April 24th showing; June 5th Wine trip per PP Nick Smaldino; Pancake Breakfast July 10th; April 17th Airport Rotary Lobster Feed; April 30th East Fresno Cioppino Feed; and May 14-16 District Conference. Kevin Oflazian is still looking for someone who can host a Group Study Exchange person from Brazil. Congrats to Dick Ellsworth for winning last week’s raffle. Congrats to Jason Weber for winning this week’s raffle—and for pulling out the ‘winning marble!’
International Service Chair Ralph Boyajian introduced our guest speaker, David Mortenson of Grundfos Pumps. Grundfos is the world biggest pump manufacturer whose headquarters is in Denmark with a local presence here. His talk was about the solar energy project they chose to have constructed locally a year ago and their subsequent assessment of the project. He discussed why they did it, what they did, the problems in doing it, their economic analysis of it, and their ‘bottom line’ conclusions.
Mr. Mortensen stated that Grundfos has “always had ‘sustainability’ in their culture.” With their desire to decrease energy consumption and to be carbon neutral, they decided to “go solar.” Their decision was also based on a desire of the company to reduce global warming and dependence on fossil fuels, a decreased dependence on the California utility grid, and a concern of electric prices for the next twenty years. With an arrangement with Morgan Stanley, which put up seven million for the project, the process of permits and construction began. The solar energy units were built on open land. Mr. Mortensen also discussed the many problems that went with the process as well as his assessment of the perceived vs. actual value of creating and maintaining a large solar energy project. He stated that he does not recommend that a company build a solar energy plant if one is solely doing it only for the monetary benefits since there are far more attractive investments. He said for residential projects, however, the roof mounts make sense (versus open land), but one’s roof must slope south and one must not expect to have roof repairs over twenty years. He stated that there are a number of factors that are necessary to make solar works, including a location with lots of sunshine, like Fresno, and where there are tax credits, like California and New Jersey.
Important Update: To those who don’t know, our Terry Huntsman, has been in the hospital this past week due to a brain tumor which was discovered. As of Sunday evening, my latest report is from John Frost is that Terry went into surgery on Sunday and was in recovery around 6:30pm. The doctor has stated that the surgery went well but stated that recovery will be a process. Let us keep up the prayers for Terry and his wife Marsha.
–Chris Wong
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