ISSUE NO. 27
FEBRUARY 2, 2001
OUR 79th YEAR
http://RotaryClubofSantaMonica.org
…Max
Carey, who presents motivational talks, was suddenly called out of town and
will not be able to be with us today. However, in his stead we will hear from
his associate, Dan Olson. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time enough to obtain
biographical information on Dan, but please be here to welcome him. We’re
sure you’ll be glad you did.
Which
is what you do when you’re trying to get out an issue and the copy that had
been prepared had to be scrapped. So, here goes!
Well,
if you aren’t, be sure to be at the meeting on Friday, February 2nd.
Ron Bawden will have all of his photography paraphernalia with him and
will be taking pictures of all the newer members. Please make it a point to be
here. Your page in the roster gives every member an opportunity to put a name
with a face – and it helps you get known to the membership. So, bring along
your brightest smile (AND, if you haven’t already filled in a Roster
Information Sheet, please be sure to get a form from Barbara Hopper).
February
13th:
Board Meeting
February
23rd:
Joint meeting with Palisades Club at Camp Josepho
George
Collins
has a new office e-mail address: gcollinslaw@msn.com.
And,
Judy Neveau has a new office address: Santa Monica College, Main
Campus, 2714 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica 90405.
Congratulations
to our new Rotarian Dr. Ted Chough on his ascension as a Fellow of the
American College of Surgeons. To be a good fellow is a bargain at $125. Keep
rising, Ted, and we thank you for your financial support.
This
is already a good year for Dr. Eric Schmitter and Marilyn. Their
number-two son, a Navy pilot, was recently married in Wilmington, North
Carolina, where he is stationed. Our leader, John, prudently postponed
setting Dr. Eric’s fine until receipt of a final billing for medical service
rendered to Kay’s hand. Good thinking, John.
Barbara
Hopper was
unjustly fined $25 because a Rota-Monica headline set the wrong date for the
child immunization session at St. John’s. (Date was right in the text, wrong
in headline.) She may have accepted this in typing or proofreading, but she was
misled by our esteemed Rota-Monica editor, who probably should have been fined
twice because (a) an editor should not err, (b) an editor should correct errors.
Barbara should appeal, ask for a recount, or seek a reprint.
--
Lionel Ruhman
We’ll
go camping, sort of, for our regular Friday meeting on February 23rd.
It will be a joint meeting with the Pacific Palisades Rotary Club at Camp
Josepho, which is a Boy Scout week-end camp just 2-1/2 miles into Rustic Canyon.
A
catering firm will serve lunch in the camp’s big lodge built sixty years ago.
Then, instead of the usual sit-down proceedings, we’ll take a sightseeing
stroll (which means hiking boots, or old and scruffy footwear, will be advisable
on the 23rd). Along the trail we can try our skills at the archery
and rifle ranges, and perhaps fling a life ring into the big swimming pool.
The
Palisades Rotary president this year is John Wilson, well known to local
Scouters for many years. He and John Lehne and Hugh Travis, our
member who is the Scout Executive for these parts, are jointly arranging the
occasion. (To get to camp you turn north off Sunset onto Capri, then follow your
nose. Complete directions later.)
February
9th:
The Esther Johnson Music Awards – a program not to be missed!
February
16th: Rotary
member Bill Hunt will talk on Rotary International. This should be an
exceptionally informative program for our newer members.
William
H. Crookston,
our president-to-be, may be the most educated of us all. He has earned four
university degrees. He has also been a faculty member at Cal State Northridge
and the USC School of Business. Intermittently he served as a lieutenant in the
Army medical service corps, sold advertising space on matchbook covers, and ran
a badge company.
In
1980 he joined our club. He was a vice-president in 1992-93, and will become
club president in July 2002. (Rotary’s system specifies that club presidents
be elected two years in advance, giving them time to get educated for an
industrious year in the presidency.)
Bill
lists himself in our club directory as a marketing consultant. While still in
his teens he diagnosed himself. “Business is in my blood,” he told friends.
While younger he thought he might become a doctor, and his first merit badge as
a Scout was first aid, but he changed his mind at first sight of an open wound,
when he changed a surgical dressing on his mother. However, he can now be known
as Dr. Crookston if he wishes, because he earned a Ph.D. from Claremont in 1990.
Bill’s
mother was executive secretary for an investment firm. His father was controller
of a succession of companies. The family dinner-table talk whetted Bill’s
ardor for business, so he became an entrepreneur in his teens, incessantly
selling iris bulbs, tangerines, and other good stuff around his neighborhood.
Then, as an undergraduate at Stanford, he enrolled in all available business
courses, and took charge of promotion for numerous charity drives.
After
graduation in 1957 and Army service, he set out to find a sales job with a
promising future. He wrote letters to 100 firms. From 89 responses, he chose an
offer from Universal Match Company. Starting as a salesman on commission, he
rose to become the youngest district manager in the company’s history.
In
1964 he decided it was time to become an entrepreneur. Obeying an axiom he’d
made up earlier, “Buy a business, don’t start one,” he bought the Western
Badge & Trophy Company in Los Angeles. “I wasn’t in love with buttons,
but with a growing business,” he told friends later. His company diversified
and grew steadily for 21 years, while he not only managed it but also earned two
master’s degrees from USC.
He switched to being an educator almost by happenstance, in 1979. “A friend dared me to take over a sales management course he was giving at Northridge,” he recalls. “He was leaving to go into business. I sold my company, ad-libbed my way at Northridge, and kept on.” In 1985, at the behest of a USC professor, he moved to USC, where he now teaches four classes – including one that teaches physicians how to run businesses. No doubt he’ll live happily ever after. Unless he decides to be an entrepreneur again.