The Membership Committee was pleased to introduce four new members plus returning member Roger Fraser at the April 2 lunch meeting. As a reminder, when you see someone with a yellow ribbon, please introduce yourself and get to know them.

Kelly Doonan-Reed (Sponsors: Kathy Waugh and Laurie Atwood)

Kelly is a dedicated information technology professional committed to fostering innovation and creating lasting change within her community and beyond. With more than 20 years of service at the University of Michigan, Kelly has significantly contributed by implementing new systems that improve service delivery and streamline processes. This work has allowed others to concentrate on their strengths in research, teaching, learning, and community service.

In her role as a Product Manager for the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, Kelly champions improvements in data infrastructure, focusing on securing data deposits, enhancing data FAIRness, and promoting OpenScience with a global impact.

Kelly believes that we all have a part to play with societal well-being and has regularly volunteered and made financial contributions to a variety of local organizations that benefit youth, housing, food, dental and medical care.

Kelly and her family have been actively involved in Ann Arbor scouting.  She has served in leadership roles in both girl and boy scouts.  She is the proud parent of an Eagle Scout and an aspiring eagle scout.

Kelly has coached a variety of programs that serve youth.  Currently, she is mentoring students from the School of Information on technology or service improvement projects for non-profit organizations. At the First Congregational Church, she serves as a deacon and has been a regular Art Fair volunteer to raise funds for service/mission trips. Kelly likes to volunteer and serve in programs that benefit youth, housing, food, dental and medical care for all.  Kelly also loves music and is a volunteer at the Ark.

Through her professional work and volunteer efforts, Kelly consistently strives to make a difference, improve her local community and larger world.  She believes with cooperation and collaboration we can make an impact together.  She is looking forward to more opportunities to serve Washtenaw County and beyond with a focus on environmental sustainability, peace efforts and poverty solutions.

Roger Fraser (Sponsor: Collyer Smith)

A native of Oakland County and a political science graduate of the University of

Michigan at Dearborn, Roger worked for 11 years as a labor negotiator and human resources director before moving to Colorado, where he managed multiple cities.

He then took a job in Blaine, Minnesota, as city manager in 1996, and stayed there until accepting the City Administrator position in Ann Arbor in April 2002. After nine years, he was asked by State Treasurer Andy Dillion to become the deputy state treasurer for local government services.

As Roger explained: “The local government operation really has a lot to do with overseeing how cities are doing with their finances.” Remember – this was during the Great Recession in 2008.

Recently, he retired as the Village Administrator of Franklin, a small, historic community northwest of Detroit after five years.

Roger and his wife Sue have been married for 42 years. They each had a boy and a girl and now have 13 grandchildren and three great grandchildren. They get to Colorado at least annually and just recently enjoyed a two-week road trip to Arizona. They have travelled to Scotland, Italy, Germany, Mexico and occasionally to Florida and the Carolinas. Roger and Sue enjoy playing euchre, group games and numerous yard games with their families and friends. He also enjoys riding his motorcycle.

Roger has been a Rotarian for over 37 years and was Collyer Smith’s sponsor when Collyer joined in 2007.

Karen Pancost (Sponsor: Bonita Singal)

Karen grew up in southeastern Michigan, graduated from the University of Michigan and Duke Law School. She was a clerk for Federal Judge Thomas Tang in the Ninth Circuit and spent her career as corporate counsel with Washington Gas where she became an expert in energy and environmental law.

After she retired in 2012, she returned to Michigan. She now volunteers with OLLI and UMS. Bonita Singal, Karen’s sponsor, admires her most for her intellectual gifts, her love and knowledge of literature and music, and her quest to explore and understand the world. As Board member and president of her condominium association, she has selflessly volunteered her time and talents and demonstrated her ability to collaborate, conciliate, and lead a complex organization.  This required gaining a working knowledge of subjects like budgets, drainage, building materials, resilience and other minutia.

Karen has two children and five grandsons who live in Massachusetts and Texas. She visits them often. Her hobbies are knitting, reading, and travel. Bonita predicts she will make a significant contribution to Rotary.

Susan N. Smith (Sponsors: Kate VanHorn and Collyer Smith)

Susan currently serves as the Chapter Network Officer with Gift of Adoption, a small but mighty national organization serving all 50 states that provides grants to complete the adoptions of children in vulnerable circumstances.  She has worked/served in and around Washtenaw County since interning at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum while attending Eastern Michigan University where she met her husband, Austen, of nearly 20 years.  Together they have two girls, Estelle, 12, and Lucy 14, and a new puppy named Milly.

After graduating from EMU, she joined the team at Ann Arbor Running Fit, and helped to organize their numerous running events, many which benefited the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  After three years of planning races (and she completed a few half marathons herself), she joined the team at Make-A-Wish Michigan where she worked for 10 years, raised funds to help grant more than 3,000 wishes to Michigan Children with life threatening medical conditions.  During her time at Make-A-Wish her then 2-year-old daughter, Lucy, was diagnosed with Leukemia and she later experienced the joy of a wish, a playhouse in her backyard.  Lucy is a healthy, happy, teen and headed to Father Gabriel Richard High School this fall.

What brought Susan to Rotary was her role at United Way, where she served for nearly eight years on the Washtenaw team and became very involved with the community, both their funded partners as well as working alongside many people in the room today.  She chose to join Rotary to keep connected to the community and continue to serve others.

Jamie York (Sponsors: Ingrid Sheldon and Joe Diederich)

Jamie was first introduced to the Rotary Club of Ann Arbor when Roy More persuaded him to put together a golf foursome for the 2024 Golf and Pickleball Outing representing First Merchants Bank where Jamie is a First Vice President and Commercial Sales Manager.

First Merchants is a regional bank headquartered in Indianapolis. Jamie’s local office is in downtown Ann Arbor at the former Anderson Paint building at 125 W. William St. – an easy walk to our meetings at the Union.

Jamie grew up in Livonia and graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1981 with a degree in Finance from the EMU College of Business. He started his banking career in the area of commercial lending at Michigan National Bank and has progressed through the ranks to his current position and bank.

He has three sons 18, 19, and 21 all of whom are attending Hope College in Holland, Michigan – the city in western Michigan with heated sidewalks. Besides golf, he has run five marathons! He loves to travel and finding unique destinations. One of his goals is to visit all the profession

al baseball parks of which he is one third of the way to accomplishing this goal. He loves to read so maybe he will sign up for one our club’s new book

He d

oes have a notable local relative. Many of us know or know of Tommy York, a purveyor of fine spirits and fun dining at the “York” on Packard south of Stadium.

Since being introduced to our club, Jamie has attended several meetings. He has been impressed with our meetings, our speakers, our projects, and the members he has interacted with. His wife reminded him that she had been a Rotary Exchange Student to London, England. He has already signed up for the highway clean-up. And best of all, he recognizes that “service above self” is the best gift he can give back to his community.