Thanks to everyone who helped garner a prize for the Calendar Raffle. I have given all the information to PIP printing to print the tickets. I hope we will have them for this week’s meeting. We have some really great prizes, the tickets should sell themselves. As we did last year, each member will get 10 tickets to start. If you sell all 10, we will definitely get you more. Ticket price will be $10. The total prize value is over $2300. This is our big fundraiser for the year, so we need all hands on deck. Drawings will be once a week at our Friday meetings. Be sure to get all sold tickets turned in by Friday the 28th. Our first drawing will be the following Friday.
John was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico of Dominican parents. His family were entrepreneurs and business owners. His mother owned a catering service and a restaurant, and his father owned a pest control service and an office cleaning service. Since very early John learned from his parents to work hard and to the advantages to be his own boss. John started his first business when he was 8 years old, selling cakes door to door in the same neighborhoods while his father was providing service. With this experience, John learned to be resilient, to accept rejections and to sell for a profit.
After finishing high school, and against his classical guitar teacher wishes and recommendation, he decided to go to the University of Puerto Rico, to pursue an Industrial engineering degree. After that, John transferred to the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, in San Juan PR. for the electrical engineering program. Later in life, he went to the prestigious Wharton School at UPENN for executive education in three occasions; Marketing of High-Tech products and services, Executive Negotiation and EDP (Executive Development Program) for executives that are entering at the C level. Also, he is currently earning a Restaurant Revenue Management certificate from the Hospitality Department of Cornell University.
As professional career, John had worked as an insurance agent for a national insurance agency, as a registered representative selling mutual funds and annuities to the bank’s customers for the largest bank in Puerto Rico, Banco Popular. Eventually, the desire to be his own boss bite john and he moved forward to work on his own.
John had been a serial entrepreneur and had founded several companies during his life including an ISP (internet service provider) a cigar distributing company, (Cigar by the Box), a concierge company, (Executive Concierge service) and an international trading company, (Gio Holdings International). John had done business in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, in various states of the U.S.as well as with many international customers including Haitians, Russians and Chinese. Currently, he is Principal of Consilium Opis, LLC a management consulting firm in Springfield MA. He also volunteers as a member of the board of World Affairs Council, a member of the board of directors of the Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce, Chairman of the Minority Business Council, is vice president and board member of the Rotary Club of Springfield, MA Inc.
John had been married to Nancy for the last 33 years and have two sons John Jr., and Giovanni. John Jr. is a U.S. Naval Academy Alumni and served as a Captain with U.S. Marine Corps and Giovanni has a bachelor’s degree in business from Boston University and currently works for John Hancock Insurance Company. John is an avid reader, enjoy smart conversation, loves to go to the movies, like to swimming as exercise and is a foodie; he likes to try new foods and flavors from all ethnicities as often as possible.
Last Friday, MICHAEL KERR, CURATOR OF ASTRONOMY gave a wonderful and informative presentation to our club last Friday. There are lots of fascinating things happening at the museums. Did you know the Springfield Science Museum is home to the Seymour Planetarium, the oldest operating planetarium in the United States. The star ball in the Seymour Planetarium can project more than 7,000 stars which vary in brightness. And soon there will be a life size replica of the International Space Station. But before that happens, you can view the space station passing over your own house. Really! Go to https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings/ and you’ll be able to find out when the ISS will be passing over your house.
THANK YOU! Your generosity and participation are greatly appreciated! We have collected enough gifts for the Raffle. It is not time to sell the tickets. Please help us sell out all the tickets for our March Raffle.
Raffle tickets were passed around last Friday at our meeting. If you were absent, please pick them up this Friday and/or contact Bert Carter.
The funds raised allowed us to give away grants to local non-profit organizations.
We are happy to welcome Nathan Skrocki and Keri Davidson-Bravman from the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind (MCB) to the Rotary Club of Springfield! They were inducted on December 6, 2019.
Their inductions were announced in the news on The Republican and BusinessWest!
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