President Mark Foster rang the opening bell on a meeting packed with Rotarians and guests. Tom Strode played God Bless America to start us off. Ed Johnson shared some so familiar lines from Scottish poet Robert Burns whose memory is celebrated across the world on January 25. Elaborate, and raucous, Scottish dinners, including haggis, are served and readings of favorites round out the evenings. Joanne Pierson and Don Duquette led the club in singing “Baby It’s Cold Outside.”
President Mark greeted guests and thanked the people who make the meetings run smoothly. Sarah Paspal-Jasinski celebrated birthdays with a couple of notes from Happy Birthday, and announced anniversaries.
Kathy Waugh introduced our new administrator, Cat Meyer. Cat had a long history of success in learning new things and creating new protocols for administrative duties in the School of Public Health. She was the first woman bus driver in the UM Bus Fleet. She has a long list of hobbies and interests including motorcycle riding. She has jumped into Rotary with both feet, attending the first Euchre Night Party – and cleaning our clocks!
Steve Schram reported the Rotary News – first broadcast of the year.
Barbara Eichmuller reported on the Membership Committee’s social activities, which welcome all Rotarians. In January Dan Romanchik organized Movie Night at the Michigan Theater, and Kathy Waugh and FanFan Zheng rounded up forty (40!!!) people for Euchre Night. Barbara invited all members to suggest these social events, and invited all to come.
District Governor Collyer Smith , accompanied by Past Assistant District Governor Rosemarie Rowney and Don Deatrick, told us about the District Conference, that will be May 17, 18, and 19, 2024. Collyer has some spectacular events planned. Don told us about the bagpipe announced color guard presented by the Boy Scouts that will begin the festivities. Rosemarie then asked that members consider offering their homes as B ‘n Bs to the out-of-town Rotarians who will be attending. Most Districts do offer accommodations, which is a wonderful, low stress way to meet Rotarians from around the district. Give this some thought and contact Rosemarie for more details.
Notes from the Speaker
Our speaker was Jeff Makarewicz, Group Vice President of Technical Resources at Toyota Motor North America, Research and Development, which has a huge campus based in York Township. Jeff told us that production is recovering from the pandemic and that 30% of the vehicles produced by Toyota are electrified. The R&D effort in Ann Arbor and Saline is not a new effort in the area for Toyota – it has had an R&D presence in Ann Arbor for 50 years.
Toyota concentrates on five characteristics for their mobility portfolio. Connectedness is important, and the vehicles collect and transmit huge troves of data. Data Analytics consume a big amount of resource and concern. Another characteristic is that the vehicles are Human Centric, encompassing safety, comfort and communication features. Automation of driver functions like Driver Assist, Parking Assist and Lane Monitoring are some of these features. Shared Services come into play as Toyota works side-by-side with hundreds of North American suppliers to build its top-quality vehicles. Electrification is the final characteristic. Toyota must also anticipate new emission rules, be proactive about how quickly electrification arrives, participate in the search for clean production of the minerals needed for battery cells and in the production of those cells to relieve our overreliance on China. Two-thirds of all fleets must be electrified by 2032 – only eight years away.
Toyota works with other mobility providers on these efforts. It also has STEM programs in 13 states to encourage students in the technologies need to design, produce and repair the vehicles of tomorrow – and today!!
President Mark announced that the program next week will be a presentation by John Pasquale, Director of the Michigan Marching Band. He closed the meeting with our standing and reciting the Four Way Test.
