The guests at the meeting included Van Wert Rotarian Ned Dull and his daughter Cindy; Chris Small, with American Testing Services, the guest of Shelley Fisher; Tom Lasley, with Learn to Earn at UD, a guest in support of the educational initiatives supported by Dayton ​Mayor Nan Whaley, our guest speaker.

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Club president Vas Appalaneni reminded members of the upcoming Trilogy at Normandy Church. He noted that there will be no speaker at the Aug. 21 meeting, which is the club assembly.

Harvey Smith welcomed member Ron Hollenbeck into the Paul Harris Society, the Rotary members who pledge to donate $1,000 a year to the Rotary Foundation as a Paul Harris Fellow. Harvey is also a member of the Paul Harris Society, and other members of our club qualify to belong, he said.

 

HAPPY BUCKS:
With Sgt.-at-Arms Eric Eggers absent, president Vas called on member Ann Blackburn to stand in as sgt.-at-arms. She collected Happy Bucks from her fellow club members for Operation Warm. It was reported the club had collected $1,400 thus far to buy $20 coats to keep kids warm this winter, and a number of members donated $20 for a coat, with others donating money towards the cause, and member Kim Senft-Paras even buying two coats this day.

 

Our speaker, Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, was introduced by club member Dale Berry. He said that while Whaley hails from Indiana, she moved to the Five Oaks area of Dayton in 2001. In 2005 she was elected to the Dayton City Commission. He said she has served on the Montgomery County Board of Elections and as deputy to the county auditor. She is a member of Corpus Christi Church and has served on the Montgomery County Planning Commission and the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Trustees, and the Dayton Development Coalition Board of Trustees, among other groups, including supporting the bikeways in the area. She also led the community in creating a county-wide land-bank system to take a regional approach to the area's housing crisis.
Her goals include positioning Daytonians to be educated to meet the needs of job growth in the region. She’s been working with the Dayton Regional Task Force with local businesses and officials from charter schools and other schools, public and private.
Berry said Mayor Whaley got her undergraduate degree in chemistry from UD and her master’s degree in public administration from Wright State University, where she was an adjunct professor.
An admitted fast talker, Mayor Whaley packed many details of her agenda as mayor into her brief speech. She said her work as mayor includes three initiatives: education, economic development, and regional cooperation efforts. She said Tom Lasley’s Learn to Earn program at UD is one of the programs helping to prepare students for future jobs in the region.
She said that by 2018 two out of three jobs will require a post secondary degree. In Montgomery County only 38 percent of students have that, she said. Oakwood is the only district meeting that goal, she said. The city of Dayton only has 18 percent of students doing post secondary work.

Mayor Whaley, who has been Mayor since January, said a City of Learners committee has been formed to work with the schools and business community to help build high performance schools and after-school and summer programs, and to give students access to pre-kindergartens so they will be reading by third grade. Subcommittees are working on 2-year short term goals and 5-year long-term goals, she said.
Dayton is competing with cities like Nashville, Louisville, and Indianapolis for companies to grow jobs, she said. Students need to have the skills and technology and robotics background to qualify for these jobs, she said.
She hopes to improve communications with area businesses, especially small businesses.

The I-70/I-75 corridor and UD have been bringing jobs to the area, she said.
 PSA Airlines is the only corporate airlines headquartered at the airport and the company's flight attendants and mechanics are being trained here, she said. CareSource downtown has been booming in the past three years, she said.

Mayor Whaley said 80 percent of the growth is from businesses already here, and that a group of 8 to 10 small business owners have been meeting monthly with the city to talk about their needs and how they can help one another. 

 Dayton was recently rated highest in the state for being friendly to small businesses, she said.

She said she hopes to grow our job base in manufacturing and that a manufacturing task force will meet the first Friday in October. The goal is to connect area schools with manufacturing needs, such as robotics education, adding associate degree certification. 

With Dayton's great water source, the underground aquifer, we should be able to attract businesses that need a good water source, especially with the West in the drought it is in, she said. Companies like Coca Cola and soft-water and brewery companies should be attracted to the area, she said. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has also shown an interest in partnering with area businesses, she said.

The Dayton urban area has 40,000 jobs and thanks to Charles Simms taking the early risk in providing housing development downtown, the housing outlook is growing, she said. 

David Bohart is heading up a group looking into the re-use of the Arcade and its nine buildings, she said. The Arcade Passport group is assessing the buildings and will be making recommendations, she said.

At Patterson and Monument streets the Water Street Development will have 215 market-rate apartments, she said.

The downtown area has 95 percent occupancy, she added. 

Mayor Whaley said she has been calling on the new mayor of Cincinnati and one day a month has been meeting with Cincinnati business leaders to see how they can cooperate in getting manufacturing partnership grants and working together. Sinclair and Cincinnati State are working together in the high tech grant area, she said. 

 She said the greater Dayton area, which went from a population of 250,000 to 144,000 since 1952, has taken a step back from just having the priority boards being the major sounding boards for Dayton neighborhoods. They've broadened the base and are working with all the neighborhoods to give everyone a voice, she said. 

An added note: Columbus is engaged in a similar effort and a PBS show early Sunday morning covered a meeting addressing the issue and noted that the state of Ohio is also getting involved by holding regional meetings to get higher education and industry on the same track to close the gap in the jobs available and the lack of people with the skills to fill these jobs. The Columbus Metropolitan Club had a panel discussing the issues and the Columbus Chamber of Commerce has been playing a role, especially with the small businesses in Columbus.

 

 

Did you know you don't even have to be on Facebook to see what's posted on the Centerville Rotary Facebook page? You can get to it easily by clicking on the FB link on the home page of the club's website.

 

Each week in the eBulletin, we'll make it even easier for you to connect through social media, by including links to our Facebook, website, and LinkedIn.

 

This week you can see a link to a site where Rotarians share their story through graphics and photos.