District 5280 Governor-Elect Lew Bertrand

Lew Bertrand, our District Governor for the coming year, has just returned from the 2012 Rotary International Assembly in San Diego, a training event for incoming Rotary District Governors.  He showed off his new Rotary Theme pin and banner.  RI President-Elect Sakuji Tanaka unveiled his 2012-13 RI Theme, “Peace Through Service”, and will ask the incoming leaders to promote three Rotary Peace Forums, to be held in Hiroshima, Japan; Berlin, Germany; and Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.

Lew reviewed his path through a life of Rotarian service.  As a student at Loyola University in Los Angeles (now Loyola-Marymount), he participated in a service project with his fraternity brothers, hand delivering lottery tickets (which could not be sent through the mail then) for a fundraiser for a new addition to a hospital.  2 months later, the university president asked him to attend a University board meeting to thank him for his efforts in this event for raising more money than had been anticipated.  After graduation, he entered the banking business and remembers a 1972 lunch with a Rotarian member of the United California bank, who invited him to join Rotary.  Later he worked for Security Pacific Bank and served in various branch offices in Southern California.

 During this time, he has belonged to the Wilmington, San Pedro and Venice Marina Rotary Clubs and served in a number of District 5280 positions.  He was President of our Club in 2007-8 when our member Dave Moyers was District Governor.  During Lew’s coming year as Governor, the San Joaquin Valley District, which is down to only 22 Clubs and is too small to continue, will join District 5280.

Lew remembers when the “End Polio Now” project was begun in the Philippines in the 1980s, and soon spread to a worldwide effort sponsored by Rotary International.  He urges us each to get involved and make a difference.  “If you want your dream to come true, don't oversleep.”