Category: Members

We found out earlier this week the sad news of the passing of Lawrence Central member Becky Castro.

Becky was one of the founding members of our club to quote one of our members, “Becky has always been the rock/foundation of Lawrence Central Rotary.  Always the first person to welcome guests and new members, the historian, and the one to make sure everyone was thanked, thought of, appreciated.”  She will be dearly missed.  Her spirit and excitement about the club was a bright spot in the week.

Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 14, 2014 at First Christian Church in Lawrence.  The family will greet friends from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. Friday, June 13th at Warren-McElwain Mortuary in Lawrence.

Becky, your work here is now done, go and accept your wings — and say hello to Paul Harris for us.

A rise in sea levels may not seem like a problem that would concern Kansans,  but Michael Steinle told his fellow members of Central Rotary Club that it’s a situation that could affect everyone.

Steinle is  Principal Management Consultant with ARCADIS, a  privately owned company that deals with risks in the infrastructure, with water, the environment and in buildings. ARCADIS  provides risk assessment in all these areas. He said rising sea levels along the coasts are going to be a major problem

“In evaluating situations such as this, we go through several steps,” Steinle said. “We identify risks and then work on ways to mitigate them.

“We repair damage, getting specialists in many areas to help us.”

Steinle said the company studies responses to situations and provides training , for example, simulating search and rescue exercises.

“And then,” he said “we work on helping with recovery from incidents.”

Steinle said the company is also looking at resilience as the infrastructure is aging and at asset management.  They do earthquake planning,, especially studying  providing shelters for quake victims. They have grant applications out to FEMA on behalf of  clients and they work with the highway patrol in several states on crash response.

“Our clients are starting to understand the sea water rise and we’re currently looking at a project in New York to provide water barriers.

“We’re working hard on getting everyone to be aware and follow the necessary guidelines,” he said.

Lawrence Central Rotary club president Tobin Neis installed two new members at the January 29th meeting of the club.  Charlie Bryan and Audrey Coleman were welcomed into membership and received Rotary pins and packets of information. Bryan’s was presented by his sponsor, Michael Steinle. Coleman’s stepfather, Olathe Rotarian Dennis Meyer, surprised her by coming to the Lawrence meeting and participating in her installation.

Neis interviewed the new members, asking questions about their occupations (Bryan is a Comunity Health Planner with the Lawrence, Douglas County Health Department. Coleman is senior archivist at the Dole Institute); their families (two young children each); their personal interests and their interest in community service (both have been active for years.)

We’re excited to have these two dynamic individuals as a part of our Rotarian family!

Central Rotary’s own Jessica Mortinger was the speaker at the  January 15 meeting, telling the club about her work as a transportation planner with Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO).

Jessica works with a network of committees and groups in a variety of ways. She and her supervisor conduct surveys, prepare flyers and releases, create long range transportation plans, do population projections and update existing situations to name a few of their functions.

Her work is funded out of a consolidated grant program, rather than by the city of Lawrence, and some federal funding is also involved.

“We’re stewards of public money so it requires our processes to be up to standard.” she said.  “We maintain and update regional planning regularly. We have a technical advisory committee of public officials and a city/county advisory committee.” They also work with a regional transit advisers committee.

“We  bring people together to find out what they want through open houses, public meetings and surveys,” Jessica said. “Getting people concerned on the local level helps us see  where we should work. While politics is a reality of planning and we have to incorporate financial reality, what we really want is to get people where they need to go, safely.”

Future projects include bikeway expansion and pedestrian issues such as accessing transit and crosswalks.