The guests at the meeting included: Irene Ullmer, mother of member Kitty Ullmer, and visiting Rotarian Ned Dull of Van Wert, and his daughter Cindy. Shweta Agrawal came as the guest of Jeffrey Senney. She is working on an IT project, but will soon be in India for six weeks. Raj Grandhi, a guest of Vas Appalaneni, has put in his application for membership in the club.
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ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Ray Merz noted that the speaker for the June 19 meeting will be Mike Bellanca, manager of the Siebenthaler South Garden Center, speaking on "Bringing Color to Your Yard."
Our president Judy Budi noted that club scholarship winners from Alter and Centerville high schools will be appearing on Centerville Reports Today with Kim Senft-Paras and will also attend our meeting the week of June 9.
Sgt.-at-Arms Erich Eggers collected Happy Bucks for the Food-4-Summer program.
SPEAKER: Ed Flohre, store director for all three Dorothy Lane Market stores
Ed said he has been with Dorothy Lane Market for 45 years -- since 1969. His dad died when Ed was just five years old, and he has three half brothers and a half sister and a 90-year-old relative who was at Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge.
Ed said he grew up across from St. Alberts in the area of Dorothy Lane and Far Hills Avenue and attended St. Alberts, and Alter High School. He earned a bachelor's degree in finance from OSU, after attending UD and WSU.
He said he has been the wine man, the cheese man, the coffee man, the food guy, etc., for DLM. He and his son used to brew their own beer. When the Springboro store was opened he was sent to Europe to learn all he could there about food and wine to bring back to the store. When the Washington Square store was opened he was sent to Seattle to learn what he could there.
He has been the community service guy, and the secretary (12 years) for Centerville Rotary.
He said he remembers when they had 11 Russian visitors in retail, hosted by Rotary. When they went into a Dollar General Store, they had to call them out to the bus in Russian using the store speaker, as they wanted to buy everything in the store.
Ed is vice president of special operations for the three stores, which he said entails looking at various trash issues, including sustainability, composting, recycling, combustibility, digestion, etc.
Ed said he knows his wines, as for a year he got to drink 30 to 40 wines every week in taste testings. He is a history buff and knows the stories of all the wines, he said...The British had a lot to do with fortifying Port wine from Portugal so it would hold up when they went on long voyages, he said.
DLM is known for its quality foods and unique gourmet offerings, Ed said. Bacon from a Spanish pig fed on acorns can run $120 a pound, though you can get a couple strips for $8, he said.
Cal expanded his business with three innovations, Ed said. He invented the daily operations report to tell them the plus and minus market numbers for the day. He also started using the loss leader, such as cheap milk, to get people into the store, and watched traffic patterns, putting popular things like Welch's Grape Jelly at the opposite end of an aisle to get people to walk down the whole aisle to get it.
Ed said anyone wishing to be employed by DLM has to go through three or four interviews. Also, "we want you to eat and taste everything," he said, so you know what the store is selling and can respond to customer's questions better. His son worked in the store's deli department for two years and still demands Boars Head meat for its great flavor, he said.
Customers want local, all natural, and organic foods, which most stores are handling these days, he said, though at DLM, the difference is, the flavor. Flavor comes first, he said.
Jeremy Wong, Youth Pastor of the Centerville Seventh Day Adventist Church, speaking about a proposed new youth center that would have an after-school program and be a place for youth to safely gather after the school day.
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