Events

Will Willis has a history of service. He started his life of selfless service in the United States Air Force where he served for 30 years and earned the highest enlisted rank of Chief Master Sergeant. Only 1% of the enlisted members would ever achieve the rank of Chief. Will retired from the military in February 2016,  where he served as the Air Transportation Manager, 62 Aerial Port Squadron, 62 Maintenance Group, 62 Airlift Wing, Joint Base Lewis-McChord—McChord Field, Washington.

Will enlisted in 1986 after graduating from East Saint Louis Senior High School, East Saint Louis, Ill. He has held numerous base and staff positions in the air transportation career field. He has been assigned to multiple squadron level positions as well as staff positions to include: the 715th Air Mobility Operations Group in Hawaii, Headquarters Air Mobility Passenger Policy and Air Transformation Branch at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. Will was the Air Transportation Inspection Manager for the Headquarters Air Mobility Command’s Inspector General’s Office at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. And lastly, he served in a demanding position as the noncommissioned Officer in Charge of Operations for the J4 Directorate as well as the senior Air Force enlisted leader during his joint staff tour with the Special Operations Unit in Qatar.

Will was given a great opportunity to serve again within the Office of U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell as her Military/Veterans Constituency Services Representative in May of 2016.  He provides constituent services to Military, Veterans and their families for Washington State residents. He also advises Senator Cantwell on legislative issues as it pertains to military and veteran issues.

Join the committee for this Zoom meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82907367696

Rotary member Pamela Transue would like to share with you the experience of walking every street, cross street, cul-de-sac, and dead end in Tacoma.

https://pugetsound-edu.zoom.us/j/8722177219?pwd=SXJZN0dwa3NFVDc0T09ZQnVidmNpUT09

Join us to celebrate our recent accomplishments and learn how we can each make the new year outstanding. 

Payment portal for meeting sponsors

Riding a skateboard in downtown Tacoma was an illegal activity for nearly 2 decades from the 1990's until 2011 when Alchemy co-founder Ben Warner worked with city council members to decriminalize skateboarding. This seemingly small adjustment to public policy was a catalyst that launched Alchemy Skateboarding, a 501-c3 non-profit serving youth in Tacoma and greater Pierce County. Current Alchemy Executive Director Taylor Woodruff supported the 2011 Go Skate Tacoma Celebration and has witnessed over the past decade the profound changes associated with de-stigmatizing skateboarding.

Serving in various roles at Alchemy over the years, Taylor has created and delivered various youth skateboard programs - both in and out of school - as well as developing relationships within the city, the parks department, and the Tacoma Public Schools system. The skateboard advocacy work has resulted in several credit-bearing skateboard classes offered in partnership with local schools, a small indoor skate park that serves a wide region of skateboarders due to a lack of indoor or covered skateboard facilities across the state, and programing that serves court connected youth through a partnership with the Pierce County Juvenile Court.  

Taylor will be sharing with the group how the power of play, something skateboarders have harnessed for decades, is being used to forge unlikely partnerships, strengthen communities, and create opportunities for young people to learn and grow through skateboarding. 

Speaker:  Taylor Woodruff on Skateboarding, Systems Change, and The Power of Play

Taylor will be sharing with the group how the power of play, something skateboarders have harnessed for decades, is being used to forge unlikely partnerships, strengthen communities, and create opportunities for young people to learn and grow through skateboarding. 

The mission of the Imagination Library of Washington is to foster a love of reading among young learners by ensuring equitable access to free monthly books mailed directly to their homes from Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. Their vision is that all early learners have developed a quality, inclusive home library, are inspired to read, ready to learn, and are excelling academically, creating a thriving child and a vibrant, healthy community.

Reading begins at birth and the benefits of a home library go far beyond the books. Parents and guardians are a child’s first and best teacher. By providing books every month at no cost to families, the Imagination Library increases childhood literacy rates, fosters a love of books, and promotes a culture of reading among all families in Washington.

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library: loved by families, validated by research.

We will hear from Executive Director Brooke Fisher Clarke who is a champion for Washington children. Brooke's vision, dream, and efforts to bring this program to all Washington early learners began in 2020 as she formerly managed the top performing Imagination Library affiliate in the state with most enrolled children, as Executive Director of United Way of Cowlitz and Wahkiakum Counties. She saw the way it united a community, and how effective it was at equipping children for a successful future, and she wanted this opportunity for all our children. 

Brooke brings 20+ years of world-class hospitality, nonprofit, and leadership experience to this role, having served at renowned company's like Walt Disney World, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, and United Way. Brooke is a Rotarian having served as President for Rotary Club of Longview for the 2021-22 term, and she loves supporting her local community, having championed numerous events. She is married with two children, Anabelle (14), and Baron (5), who keep her plate full and exciting! In her free time, Brooke enjoys camping, entertaining, traveling and being her kids biggest cheerleader.

Kurt Miller is one of the nation’s leading advocates for hydropower and its role in our clean and equitable energy future. His expertise in energy policy has been featured in over 50 contributed pieces across several regional and national news outlets, and he is a frequent commentator on T.V., radio, and policy panels. As the executive director of Northwest RiverPartners, Kurt represents millions of public power customers across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah who rely on the affordability and reliability of hydropower to power their homes, businesses, and transportation. Kurt is active on the policy front and has advised the Western Congressional Caucus and the Western Senate Caucus on hydropower policy. He has spent most of his 30-year career in leadership positions for electric utilities, bringing expertise in power supply and smart grid initiatives. 

 Mr. Miller will present on the hot button issues around salmon restoration and the role of hydropower in our clean energy future with a key focus on how we can meet the Northwest’s clean energy requirements while ensuring social equity in the context of our energy availability and resources.

For 113 years, the Rotary Club of Tacoma #8 has positively impacted our community through service projects large and small. We have an opportunity to join forces with community partners and deliver big impacts to underserved areas of our community as early as this summer!

Last fall, Joint Municipal Action Committee Chair Elizabeth Bonbright shared with our Club the community assessment work they completed. That work identified key priority areas for community projects. Our club’s Major Projects Committee has been reviewing JMACs recommendations this past year, with special focus on our ability serve youth in Southeast Tacoma.

Major Projects Committee Co-Chairs Jim Whitacre and Jackie Flowers will join Trust for Public Lands, Metro Parks Tacoma, and Greentrike to present plans for transforming outdated school yards into vibrant green spaces that will serve as neighborhood parks outside of school hours. In conjunction, there are also opportunities to serve youth in underserved areas centered around literacy.

While Tacoma is arguably home to the most spectacular urban park system, access is unequal. 31% of Tacoma residents do not have a park within a 10-minute walk of home―the largest park access gap in

Washington. Like in many cities, park access follows inequities in income, health, and other resources. And most land is already developed, leaving limited opportunities to create new parks. Tacoma’s Eastside neighborhood has fewer parks than wealthier neighborhoods with more parks and more resources. We’re working to change that by partnering with community members and local schools.¹

Transforming schoolyards into vibrant parks has the unique potential to expand nature access and create new community spaces in Tacoma’s neighborhoods with limited existing park access. In Tacoma, renovating and opening schoolyards to the public after school would put a high-quality park within a 10-minute walk of 88% of residents. ¹

Trust for Public Land has created more than 250 community schoolyards nationwide. Every

schoolyard is designed by students to reflect local cultures and feature students’ interests. For the Tacoma project they are partnering with Metro Parks Tacoma, Tacoma Public Schools, State of Washington, Names Family Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, Boeing, Bamford Foundation.

The Major Projects Committee sees this project as a perfect fit for our club! By partnering with these organizations and leveraging existing projects, we can get immediate traction and connect our club to underserved youth and residents most in need. We look forward to sharing more with you and planning for our next major community service project!

^{1 - Information provided by Trust for Public Lands}

David Fischer’s professional background in the arts began as a professional theater artist in 1977. His degrees in theater and film (BA, MFA), combined with his Leadership Certificate from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, furthered by his work experience, have allowed him to become deeply invested in the arts through theater production, performing arts presenting, youth education, arts management, fundraising, advocacy, university teaching, and urban design. Previously, he has worked as:

• Producing Artistic Director for Tacoma Little Theatre
• Executive Director of the Pierce County Arts Commission
• Deputy Executive Director of Broadway Center for the Performing Arts
• Executive Director of the Luther Burbank Center in Santa Rosa, California

Fischer reorganized the Luther Burbank Center, including its staff, fundraising, capital investment, endowment growth, governance, and programmatic impact resulting in an improvement to the balance sheet of $14 million in 5.5 years, and the creation of a new community hospital adjacent to the arts campus.

Since 2006, Fischer has served as Executive Director of Tacoma’s non-profit performing arts center, Tacoma Arts Live, working to transform the organization to focus on strengthening its service to the community, particularly in:

• Education through the arts,
• DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and access)
• Historic facility improvements and preservation
• Economic development for Pierce County
• Professional theater production
• Advocacy for public funding of arts, heritage and science non-profits.

Faaluaina (Lua) Pritchard is the Executive Director of the Asia Pacific Cultural Center since May 2010 and has been with APCC since early 1997.  She is the executive leader of operations for APCC.  She hails from the village of Amouli in American Samoa.  She came to America in 1966 at the age of ten and landed in San Francisco, CA.  There she was educated from elementary to graduating from Carson High School in Southern California and attended Pepperdine University in Malibu.  Faaluaina has over 35 years of non-profit management experience. She was the Executive Director of Korean Women's Association from 1996 to 2009; and was with KWA for 19.5 years.  Under her leadership there - they developed close to $100 million valued housing and community projects.

Her community work is very extensive and speaks to her talents and skills as a community organizer.  To name a few she is  a Board member for the United Way of Pierce County, the Chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition of Pierce County, board member of Washington State Arts Commission,  Multicare Advisory Board, ARCORA Fluoridation Advisory Board, Pierce County Affordable Housing Consortium, Pierce County Arts & Culture Coalition, Tacoma Urban League Board, KBTC TV-BATES College Board, Washington State Department of Transportation Board, Governor Council on Environmental Justice and Commissioner of the Pierce County Arts Commission.

We will learn about one man’s experience responding to disasters over the last 9 years and the shift from acute to chronic disaster responses.

Daniel Wirth, currently serving as the interim Northwest Regional Executive of the American Red Cross, has a committed history of fulfilling the Red Cross mission over the past decade. Beginning in March 2014 with the Indiana Region, his career quickly led him to accept the position as the Regional Disaster Officer for the Kentucky Region in 2016. Here he helped guide and mentor the disaster workforce of 17 for a 119-county territory. After four years of leadership in the disaster line of service, in January 2020, Dan moved to Washington State to serve as the Executive Director for the South Puget Sound and Olympics Chapter serving eight counties. Dan’s deployments have spanned the nation including the Flint Water Crisis, Texas Flooding, South Carolina Flooding (x2), Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, Hurricane Florence in North Carolina, the recent wildfires in California and Oregon, and served extended deployments for the Kentucky tornado operation helping the most vulnerable in Mayfield and surrounding counties, as well able to serve the migrant population on Pine Island during Hurricane Ian. 

Learn about the Opinion Page at The News Tribune and hear about the addition of Community Members to the newspapers Editorial Board,  joining with newsroom staff.

Our long-time member Pamela Transue participates on the Editorial Board every election season as candidates for public office are interviewed.

Matt Driscoll grew up in Edgewood, and has worked at The News Tribune since 2015. He has previously written for Seattle Weekly, the Weekly Volcano, the Tacoma Reporter and other regional publications.  Driscoll, serves as the opinion editor, leads the editorial board and writes columns that provide a look at the good, bad and ugly in our community.

Louise Braun Frank is the author of an International Award-Winning nonfiction entitled “The Gift of Great Sorrow – A Journey Thru Pain to Purpose”.  While writing her book, Louise founded a nonprofit called “Joy Thru Tears Foundation” with the mission of gifting a Wish of self-care to selected caregivers, in their Silent Angels Program. They currently serve Pierce County and South King County.

She will talk about the Joy Thru Tears Foundation Vision and Mission of Celebrating Caregivers.

How does one go from working in his father’s barber shop as an 18 year old to becoming one of the most recognized television personalities in the Pacific Northwest?   “Never stop trying to improve, always recognize those who help you along the way and look for ways to help others.”  That’s sound advice from the former Sports Director and Anchor at King-5 Television from 1983-1994 and Kiro-7 Television from 1994-2004.

Beginning in 2004 Tony was host of the Seahawks post game show on 710 KIRO radio,  anchor and reporter for Comcast “Local Edition,” and “Newsmakers “ through 2008.

Tony also covered the Seahawks for KCPQ-13 from 2004-2006 before taking a full time job as Digital Media Host for Seahawks.com.  During his 10 years with the team, Tony covered three Super Bowls and was awarded a Super Bowl ring by team owner Paul Allen in the spring of 2014.

In the spring of 2022 Tony began working with King County Television on a program called “Community Conversations,” doing interviews with elected officials and other individuals serving their communities in various capacities.

In 2002 Tony wrote his first book, “Smile in the Mirror,” a collection of motivational stories from childhood through his broadcasting career.

In 2009 he published a second edition of “Smile” and in 2016 wrote and published “Here’s Smiling at You,” another collection of stories of hope and gratitude.

In the fall of 2016 Tony ran for U.S. Congress in the 8^th district, losing to six term incumbent Dave Reichert.  Three years later Tony was elected to the City Council in Newcastle, where he served as Deputy Mayor before moving with his wife Mika to her former home town of Steilacoom, Wa.

Tony has appeared as an inspirational speaker for hundreds of commercial and non profit organizations since the beginning of his broadcast career in the early 1970s.

He has been host of the “Great Strides” walk for Cystic Fibrosis research in Seattle since the mid 1980s.

Besides broadcasting, writing and speaking, Tony has appeared in two dozen community theatre productions in Snohomish and King counties since the early 80s and with close friend Dave Blacker, established the “Rosehill Players” in Mukilteo in 1984.

Tony has four children, seven grand children and one great grand child.

Oh, and the barber career?  His Dad wanted to make sure Tony had something to call back on. “I’ll always be grateful to my Dad for teaching me to cut hair. Some of my greatest memories are from the few years we worked side by side at Ventrella’s barber shop in Connecticut.  “Need a haircut,” says Tony, “One never forgets something as special as a lesson from their father. Sit down, let me know what style you want.”