Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show March 13 2014

 
On a warm early-spring Thursday, the Los Altos Rotarians gathered for our weekly meeting at the Garden House.  Arriving Rotarians were greeted by HARRY PRICE, MARLENE COWAN, and NANCY DUNAWAY.
 
Pres. JACK chimed the meeting to order at 12:15 PM.  JACK called on HARN SOPER to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
 
The thought for the day was provided by ALISON SALISBURY, who gave us some thoughts on what it means to be an artist, including Georgia O’Keefe’s observation that, “I found I could say things with colors and shapes that I could not say any other way, things I had no words for.”
 
RON STEFANI led us in the song.  In honor of St. Patrick's Day we sang “When Irish eyes are Smiling.”
 
Pres.-Elect KENDRA GJERSTH stepped up to the podium to introduce visiting Rotarians, but we did not have any this week.  Several Rotarians introduced guests, including GARY WALDECK, SHELLY POTVIN, JERRY MOISON and DENNIS POTTER.
 
KENDRA also reminded us next week's guest will be Bill Coleman, speaking on cyber security.
 
 

ANNOUNCEMENTS
 
Pres. JACK announced that at the District Conference  taking place April 11 through April 13, will include tennis and golf tournaments.  The International Convention is coming up in Australia in June, and Rotarians interested in attending should contact ROY JONES for travel options.
 
RON STEFANI announced that he was circulating a clipboard to obtain sign-ups for future song leaders.
 
RON LABETICH announced that the Cioppino Feed last Friday had been extremely successful, with 142 attendees, raising $20,000 for the Matt Manoukian scholarship fund.
 
RON PACKARD announced that he had lost the names of the folks who signed up at the Red Badge auction for a tour of his candy factory, so all 140 of you who signed up for the tour should contact Ron to arrange a time (Four-Way Test suspended by candy lust).
 

PP MARY PROCHNOW reminded us that the Los Altos High School gym will be renamed FOR DUDE ANGIUS on Saturday, May 3 from 3-5 PM.  Everyone in the club is invited to attend to honor Dude.  Mary also reminded us that we are trying to raise funds for a scholarship to honor Dude and those making a contribution should send a check to Mary made out to Los Altos High School with the memorandum showing the Dude Angius Scholarship Fund.
 
DONNA VERNA announced that she is circulating the sign-ups for the sponsors for the Fine Art Show.
 
FRANK ELMER then announced that the Fine Art show is scheduled for May 17 and May 18, and everyone should sign up for two work slots.  FRANK is circulating an e-mail with everyone's assignments from last year, so review that and see if you want to do the same two jobs or switch to new jobs.
 
JERRY MOISON announced that he will be taking over the Program Committee from Pres.-Elect Kendra, and he is seeking Rotarians to join him to locate speakers for next year's programs.
 
Pres. JACK discovered the slideshow that he forgot last week, so he presented his slides on the 65th anniversary of the club.
 
KENDRA gave her report on the PETS conference (President Elect Training Sessions).  She mentioned that our Los Altos Club was well represented and well-known among all the other club presidents.  She was honored to see the World Community Service and the Child AIDS Prevention booths, which all the presidents passed on their way to the meals.
 
 

10 MINUTE TALK to 10 MINUTES OF TALK!
Pres. JACK announced that he had scheduled in a 10 minute talk for a Red Badger, but the member was not present. JACK then considered showing his slides again, but wisely opted for having the club engage in 10 minutes of social time.
 
 

A BONNIE FINE TIME
This week's fine master BONNIE BURDETT decided to put the pressure on as many Rotarians as she could.  PAUL GONELLA paid $50 and joined join President’s Club in honor of his birthday.  

BONNIE then called on BILL MOISON, who claimed that he had already given $100.  BONNIE was unpersuaded and fined Bill $30 for his anniversary.  BONNIE then turned to JERRY MOISON, who also claimed that he had previously paid $100, and complained about the record-keeping.  Once again, BONNIE was undeterred and JERRY was fined $40.
 
BONNIE then launched into some St. Patrick's Day trivia, and fined NANCY DUNAWAY $20 for not knowing St. Patrick's original name.  BONNIE called on JEANNE MACVICAR, who decided to join the President’ Club in honor of the great team that had put on the Cioppino Feed.  MARLIS MCALLISTER was fined $30.  SHELLY POTVIN paid $50 in honor of her 14th wedding anniversary.  BONNIE then asked MARY PROCHNOW if she new why a St. Patrick's Day was on March 17. Mary confessed that she didn't know that St. Patrick died on March 17 and paid $20.  TINA PIERCE was fined $20 for not knowing that the first St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin did not take place until 1931 (it originated in the United States).  BONNIE called upon Pres. JACK KELLY, who surprisingly did not realize that 13,000,000 pints of Guinness are consumed on St. Patrick's Day.
 
 

THE WEEKLY PROGRAM-Silicon Valley History in Pictures
 
JERRY MOISON introduced this week’s speaker, Mary Wadden, author of “Silicon Valley, the History in Pictures.”
 
Mary started by letting us know that she is a local girl, having graduated from St. Francis High School in 1998. She is still currently living in the Los Altos area but will soon be moving up to the Lake Tahoe area to work as a real estate broker.
 
Mary pointed out that her book has over 400 pictures, and she was just going to be able to hit the high points. Mary started with the early history of the Valley, the Wild West and the coming of the Spanish in the 1700s. During the Gold Rush, the Valley exploded along with the rest of the state. At that time, there were only two ways of getting to California. One way was to come "around the horn," sailing from New York around South America and up the Pacific Coast. The other was to come across country by horse or stagecoach. Each took six months. Mary's research located some the interesting rules that Wells Fargo had for passengers on its stagecoaches. These included sharing your alcohol, and a warning to people to avoid spitting tobacco into the wind.
 
In the early years, many of the residents of the Valley found that producing wine, wheat, and lumber Tmajor industries of the early valley.
 
The early towns in the Valley blossomed after the Gold Rush. The town of Mayfield was founded in 1855, and included six brothels and 12 saloons. In 1886, Leland Stanford wanted to partner with the town in order to set up his university, and approached Mayfield with a proposed of a partnership, provided that Mayfield would stop selling alcohol. Mayfield preferred its brothels and saloons to Mr. Stanford's proposition. So Stanford formed Palo Alto to become the home of Stanford.
 
First type forms of transportation between San Francisco and the Valley were steamships that ran from San Francisco to the Alviso pier starting in about 1890. Transportation by train began in 1900 and in 1905 the South Pacific ran a train to Los Altos. Paul Shoup bought a large stretch of land from the famous Sarah Winchester in order to set up the train station and the beginnings of the town of Los Altos. This line later became the "suntan special" running over the hill to Santa Cruz. In the early part of the century electric trains ran on 70 miles of track in the area.
 
Mary then mentioned the "streetcar scandal", in which General Motors, Firestone and Standard Oil conspired to purchase and close many of the railroads in order to promote the use of automobiles, trucks and buses.
 
Mary then moved to the more recent stages of Silicon Valley and pointed out how Stanford University had been a focal point for the origins of the Valley. Leland Stanford had purchased 8000 acres from Mark Hopkins (the Robber Barons look after each other). Over the years, students and professors at Stanford partnered with private universities and the Department of Defense to build many breakthrough technologies. Stanford and the Department of Defense founded the Federal Telegraph Company" in Palo Alto prior to World War II, and this became "the birthplace of electronics." Fred Terman of Stanford is generally recognized as "the Father of Silicon Valley," and was a mentor to Bill Hewlett and David Packard. He set up Stanford research Park.
 
Hewlett-Packard Company started in 1942 in a garage at 395 Page Mill Dr. Varian followed closely thereafter, and then Lockheed became a permanent force in the Valley. The Valley really took off when Lockheed began to work with the Department of Defense on aerospace and semi conductors.
 
Due to time constraints, Mary could not continue on with a further history of the Valley, and JACK chimed the meeting to a close promptly at 1:30.

 Bill Coleman is a partner with Alsop Louie Partners, an early stage Silicon Valley venture capital firm,  He has been a Chairman, CEO, or founder of several high tech firms, including Resilient Network Systems, a cyber security software company; Cassatt, Inc,. an enterprise cloud computing company; BEA Systems; Sun, where he co-founded Sun Federal and Sun Professional Services; Dest Systems; and VisiCorp during development of the first spreadsheet. 

He began his career in the USAF as chief of satellite operations, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force.

He is a member of the board of directors of Framehawk, Resilient Networks, Seagate and iControl Corporations, a director of of Business Executives for National Security, a Commissioner of the Trilateral Commission, and a Trustee of Santa Clara University.

Bill Coleman holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the U. S. Air Force Academy, a master’s degrees in computer science and computer engineering from Stanford, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado, where he founded the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities.