Pamela L. Banks is a tireless advocate for equality and social justice, building community partnerships and strengthening community engagement to create lasting economic opportunity. In December 2020, Pamela joined the Mayor’s cabinet in a newly created role as the Director of Recovery and Equitable Investments to lead the City of Seattle in social and economic recovery from the impacts of COVID-19. In February 2021, Mayor Durkan expanded her role to serve as Interim Director for the Office of Economic Development. The Office of Economic Development continues to be a lifeline for many by promoting access to economic opportunities, especially for small business and workers. Before returning to work at the City, Pamela was President and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle. Prior to that, she retired after 30 years working for the City and built a reputation for making city government more accessible to underserved residents, community organizations and small businesses. Pamela has served on multiple boards and is a graduate of the University of Washington. In her free time, Pamela enjoys trying new restaurants throughout Seattle with family and friends.

Program Notes by Merrill Mayer:

• 5th director in 4 years
• Focused on recovery from COVID
• Vision is build inclusive economy.
• Many impacted by COVID especially Bipoc and low income. Try for equitable recovery.
• Cannot have healthy city without healthy downtown.
• Teams of people work with communities. Provide training for careers. High wage careers. Focus on growth industries. Partner with unions for training.
• Neighborhood recovery, downtown revitalization, small business support
• $128 million to deal with housing and homelessness, biz recovery, community well being, community assistance. 23 million of this for Seattle office of economic development. Money will be used to revitalize downtown and get people back to work. Also concerned with Public safety, beautification.
• Community driven ideas for neighborhood revitalization.
• Going week by week to assess impact of Delta variant.
• Housing alone won’t solve homelessness. Need services.
• Try to bring back 1/3 of previous downtown workers to offices.
• Allow different use for ground floor biz. Example, have art studio or dentist office instead of retail.

Meeting summary by Michael Bronsdon.

Paula Del Giudice has been the executive director of Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center in Redmond, WA, for the past four years. Previous to her work with Little Bit, she served as the executive director or regional director of National Wildlife Federation, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Seattle Guild, and the Pacific NW Pollution Prevention Resource Center. She has earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Nevada, Reno, and a Master of Education degree from Regis University. She lives in Sammamish, WA, with her small dog. She has two grown children, Kevin who works for the State of Washington’s Emergency Management Division, and a daughter who is a Speech-Language Pathologist in Issaquah. She is an avid golfer, artist, and gardener who loves to bake for family and friends. She is also Secretary of the Rotary Club of Redmond and is a member of BNI–Eastside Excellence chapter.

Little Bit was founded in 1976 by a woman named Margaret Dunlap. Margaret had Multiple Sclerosis and found that being on the back of a horse slowed the advance of her disease. From our humble beginnings of one horse and five riders, we have grown to be one of the largest nationally accredited, industry-leading PATH (Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship) International centers and one of the largest full-time therapeutic horsemanship programs in the United States. We offer Adaptive Riding and Hippotherapy, and serve 260 riders and patients each week with 30 horses and the help of more than 350 volunteers.

Little Bit runs three programs

• Hippotherapy: PT, OT, or Speech-Language Therapy: The movement of the horse brings full-body movement for riders, which brings a number of benefits to each rider. Core strength, stretching of muscles, and the bond between horse and rider are key benefits. Many of the clients are also able to have a different view of the world from on top of a horse.

• Adaptive Riding: Similar benefits to the above, but also teaches how to care for and work with a horse. Clients have goals to pursue through recreational horseback riding. Special Olympics Equestrian Team is also a component of the Adaptive Riding Program. Program suspended by Covid; intending to restart

• Equine-Facilitated Psychotherapy: Mental health therapy, working with mental health professionals and an equine specialist. This is an ‘unmounted’ program and through the interaction between horse and client includes helpful biofeedback. Equine-Assisted Learning also includes educational and professional skill development, in which clients also have personal learning goals as they develop life skills through working with horses.

Other Programs – Summer Camps! Inclusive camps for children and young adults for kids from 5-12, and young adults ages 18-35. Participants get to ride for an hour a day.

Volunteers: A key part of Little Bit is the volunteer support that enable all of the programs. 135 volunteers weekly, who range in age from 14 to 92! Over 15,252 hours were logged in 2020.

The Horses

30 horses currently on the property. One third are Norwegian Fjord horses, which are stoic and a bred to be work horses. They are also a bit shorter than other breeds. They are easy to work with and very popular. Horses average 419 hours of staff and volunteer care per year.

‘Harvest’ was a Seattle Police horse who retired from the department and has moved to Little Bit. He’s been great for larger riders, as he is 17-hands tall.

Friends of Little Bit

34 different work groups (including some corporate teams) help with cleaning and maintenance issues.

Little Bit sponsors several fund-raising events every year. On September 9, 2021 they are hosting a golf tournament at Redmond Ridge. Registration is available online.

Program Summary by Joe Diehl.

Jake Leachman made a presentation on the use of hydrogen in Washington State as an environmentally friendly approach to reducing carbon emissions. Refer to Jake’s PowerPoint slides for more detailed information. Jake noted, this talk is presented on a very high-level basis. There is a lot happening in the news on clean energy. Jake’s presentation covered where we were; where we are today; and where we are going in the future. There is no doubt climate change is a reality!

Currently a major challenge is in the supply change: most hydrogen is delivered in liquid form in a huge tanker truck. In the big picture, 74% of all of the mass in the universe is hydrogen – and 75% of the sun’s mass is hydrogen. Thirteen percent of all atoms on the earth are hydrogen atoms. Jake covered several different types of hydrogen (grey, blue, green, etc.). Washington is building one of the largest plants for green hydrogen production. By the way, nuclear power produces a byproduct known as pink hydrogen.

Jake spoke about combining wind power using hydrogen to produce electrolyte water. A good characteristic of hydrogen, is that it can be compressed. The use of hydrogen is growing as quickly as the historic growth of solar and wind power. Jake noted that Federal funding for the development of hydrogen energy is sorely lacking.

Worldwide, hydrogen energy development has now been embraced by the world. During the pandemic, carbon emissions were reduced; but now they exceed pre-pandemic levels – thus elevating the importance of developing alternative energy sources. Hydrogen can be delivered forty times fast than other energy fuel.

Jake answered questions and answers from Rotary Club members in the remaining time.

Jacob “Jake” Leachman is an Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University (WSU). He initiated the Hydrogen Properties for Energy Research (HYPER) laboratory at WSU in 2010 with the intent to advance the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of cryogenic hydrogen systems. He earned a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2005 and a M.S. degree in 2007 from the University of Idaho. His master’s thesis has been adopted as the foundation for hydrogen fueling standards and custody exchange, in addition to winning the Western Association of Graduate Schools Distinguished Thesis Award for 2008. He completed his Ph.D. in the Cryogenic Engineering Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2010 under the advice of John Pfotenhauer and Greg Nellis. He is the lead author of the reference text “Thermodynamic Properties of Cryogenic Fluids: 2nd Edition”. In 2018, he received the Roger W. Boom Award from the Cryogenics Society of America and is a Senior Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

Our new President, Pam Mushen, opened the weekly meeting at 7:30 a.m. 

Jim Horrigan’s Red Team members introduced the Thought of the Day and the Rotary Minute. 

President Pam announced that Club Social Events Chair Colleen White and Club Community Service Co-Chair David Mushen had already met with their committee members and have put together our first Social/Community Service event on July 13^th, 4:00 p.m. at Colleen White’s residence at 9209 8^th Ave NE.  Everybody participating will help with preparation of a meal that will be delivered to Teen Feed at University Way NE. that same night.  Teen Feed will distribute the meals. 

Pam introduced her first ‘Historical Fact’ and reviewed all Club positions and areas of responsibility for the coming year.  She will follow-up by emailing both the Social Events Calendar and Committee Roster to all members. 

Pam, the ‘almost’ ‘Strawberry Fair Princess and probably future Queen’ of the Lebanon, Oregon community, informed and entertained us with her “This is Your Life.” so far, facts and stories about her education, career positions, and family.   

We were then led into our ‘Break-Out sessions by Committee assignments’ by Lincoln Ferris, who also coordinates the ZOOM meetings each week.   

**Sidenote:  I was fortunate to be the only other member of the Social committee in attendance with Joseph Thomas and Claudia Gutierrez in our ‘break-out session’.  They attending from Mexico City.  We discussed an idea of theirs……They have mailed/emailed a local Rotarian who owns large grounds at the foot of the volcano sites and hosts two ‘Beer Festivals’ a year and an annual ‘Cut your own Tree’ Christmas Tree sale.  They would like our University Sunrise Rotary membership to attend this festival in 2022.  As of now, they have not heard back from the owner of the property but will keep us posted.  Pam thinks this would be a great trip for us! 

That’s it.    

Teri St. Onge – First-time Scribe for our new year – July 2021 – June 2022. 

Our program on June 17, 2021 featured Damian Wampler, Public Diplomacy Officer, Office of Press and Public Diplomacy, U.S. Department of State discussing the state of US-Russian Relations. 

This program was off-the-record.

Damian joined the Foreign Service in 2009. His first assignment was in Central Asia, where he served as the Embassy Spokesperson and Information Officer in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Due to his background in education and culture, he served as the Cultural Affairs Officer in Tbilisi, Georgia, and the Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer in Moscow. He has managed and overseen major academic and professional exchange programs such as Fulbright and created numerus programs to promote cross-cultural understanding. He has also served in a consular capacity adjudicating visas and supporting American citizens overseas in Harare, Zimbabwe, and Karachi, Pakistan.   

Before joining the Foreign Service, Damian served in the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan teaching English and returned to Kyrgyzstan as a Fulbright scholar to do research. He also worked as a recruiter for the FLEX high school exchange program in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and as Peace Corps recruiter for the New York regional office.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and Anthropology from Boston University, and received his Master’s in human and political geography from the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia at UW-Madison. He also earned a Master’s in Professional Studies from the School of Visual Arts in New York, and is a photographer and author of plays, screenplays, and graphic novels. He was born and raised in Newark, Delaware, and serves overseas with his wife, son, and two dogs. 

Many of us received our Covid vaccinations through the work of the Southeast Seattle Senior Center with the City of Seattle. In addition, the Club has donated $5,000 to the Center for an elevator project.

Lynda Greene is the Executive Director of the Southeast Seattle Senior Center.

For over 51 years, Southeast Seattle Senior Center, fondly known as SESSC,  located in the Rainier Valley, has been a neighborhood activity center that addresses the social, educational, and health needs of aging adults and the community at large.  Over 600 seniors living on Beacon Hill, Skyway, Rainier Valley, Renton and the Central Area are active participants at the Center.  Activities are designed to include all physical stages of aging such as exercise programs, computer classes, weaving and quilting classes, card clubs, line dance classes, Spanish classes, recreational trips, and much more.

She has over four years experience heading up the Resource Development Department at a non profit organization in Seattle. Prior to that, she worked in the hospitality industry as Senior Sales Manager and finally as director of Sales at a boutique hotel.

She left the hospitality industry because she felt a strong pull toward the mission oriented work of the non-profit sector. Lynda continues to impress with her people skills, confidence, warmth and cultural competency. She is often described as the go to person, grounded, unflappable and skilled at building teams with volunteers and staff to pull off projects of all kinds.

As  Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington and a private rheumatologist in Renton for 20 years, Dr. Andrew Holman was able to help define a new concept in medicine called immuno-autonomics: How stress flares immune activity.

Find Dr. Holman’s Slide Deck here.

In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Seattle-based Inmedix validated stress as the primary reason immunosuppressive treatments fail. 

Inmedix suspects it could to do the same for COVID-19: assess and control how fight-or-flight stress drives the disease to cytokine storm, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), ventilator support and death.  More important, mitigating fight-or-flight stress in COVID-19 might reduce the overwhelming immune activation, just as it did in untreatable rheumatoid arthritis.

Dr. Holman told us that “It comes down to stress.”  There is a growing body of evidence that stress has a big impact on health–particularly with regard to immune system regulation and the treatment of of autoimmune disease.  Some of these stress reactions are hard wired into humans.  

Increased stress seems to weaken treatment and is often the primary reason that treatment fails in patients.

Dr. Holman’s company, Inmedix is developing very sensitive tests that measure the heart rates.  These tests measure beat-to-beat changes.  These changes are indications of the impact of stress.  The new technology is able to measure these changes accurately to 1/1000 of a second.  The goal is replace blood testing–in some cases–with math–and greatly improved the treatment of disease.

Notes From Hal Beals:

Scientific data shows that stress is strongly linked to autoimmune diseases like Rheumatoid Arthritis, Psoriatic Arthritis, Lupus and Fibromyalgia. 

Dr. Holman’s research is to measure the biochemistry of stress to predict therapy effectiveness through his company-Immedix. Today there is evidence that Heart Rate Variability is associated with stress which triggers the well known “flight or fight” responses that increases stress. The brain can trigger this response in1/1000 second.  The average heartbeat takes 1/2 a second.   But useful measurements of Heart Rate Variability, measurements must be accurate to 1/1000 second. Immedix is getting close to this level of accuracy.  

75% of patients with autoimmune diseases do not improve with standard treatments.  Dr. Homan believes that with more accurate measurement of stress levels, more effective drug treatment, combined with changes in diet, exercise, sleep and meditation will reduce stress and greatly improve the quality of life for patients. And new research indicates that stress is related to certain cancers.  

Note: A program summary is on the way! Doc did a great job telling the story of his impressive journey from a young boy in Jim Crow’s Mississippi to becoming a Seattle University professor with four degrees! We are grateful to have him as a member.

Wilson “Doc” Reed was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, into a family of farmers. He grew up in the small town of Redwood, which became the home of International Paper Company after buying up many of the small farms in the area.

Doc lived his early life during the Jim Crow era of the South that was regulated by twenty-two laws regarding race relationships.  Because of this strife nearly six million Americans fled the south and migrated to the north and the midwest.  He attended racially segregated schools. 

Doc’s mother died at age 36 from cancer and his family pretty much fell apart.  In 1969, he boarded a bus and traveled 2,600 miles, arriving in Seattle to live with his father’s family.  He attended the University of Washington and earned four degrees. 

He taught at Seattle University for seventeen years before retiring.  He is currently writing a book on poverty to Ph.D. and lives in Shoreline. He is a single Dad to a 21 year old son.

Education:

• Ph.D., Political Science, Northern Arizona University
• M.A., Criminal Justice, State University of New York at Albany
• M.A., Political Science, University of Washington
• B.A., Political Science / African American Studies, University of Washington

Visit Dr. Reed’s Website here.

Eric Ramsing’s Notes:

1. Ranken introduced the Speaker, Dr. Wilson “Doc” Reed. Also known by the sobriquet “June Bug”.
   1. Born and raised in Vicksburg, Mississippi on a family farm
   2. Reed spoke of the Jim Crow laws growing up in Mississippi while showing family photos of youth.
   3. Talked of how life under the harsh rule of segregation and uneven interpretation of the rule of law, and of unspoken “law”, resulted in a feeling of self-inferiority.
   4. Imparted his historic support system composed of Leaders, Teachers, Parents and Clergy.
   5. Four degress:
      1. University of Washington, BA and a MA in Political Science
      2. Masters degree in Criminal Justice from the State University of New York-Albany
      3. Ph.D. in Political Science at Northern Arizona University

1. “Vicksburg to Seattle” in 1969 by bus.

Tim Burgess served 10 years at Seattle City Hall as a member of the City Council and as the city’s 55^th Mayor. He was first elected city-wide in 2007 and won re-election in 2011 and 2015.

Tim was the lead architect of the Seattle Preschool Program for the city’s three-and four-year old children, one of only three municipal government facilitated preschool programs in the United States to meet all ten national quality standards. Tim led the effort in 2011 to double the size of the city’s Families and Education Levy so school-based health clinics could be located in every middle school and high school. Tim developed the Seattle Retirement Savings Plan for workers without an employer-offered plan, making Seattle the first city in the nation to create a such a mandatory plan. Under his leadership, Seattle became the fourth major U.S. city to fully fund the Nurse Family Partnership, a home visitation program for low-income families that The New York Times calls America’s best anti-poverty program. Tim also persuaded his colleagues to adopt an excise tax on the sale of firearms and ammunition with the revenues dedicated to gun violence prevention and research. In his time at City Hall, he was a consistent and staunch advocate for criminal justice and police reform, economic growth policies, and tourism promotion.

Key Points Summary by Michelle Lee

The Seattle city government appears not to have a plan for unsheltered living. Encampment in public places blocks uses of public spaces such as parks, sidewalks and sports fields and harms business recovery.

To guide the city government, Tim, some neighborhood and business groups have formed Compassion Seattle, a citizen initiative planning to put a charter amendment on the King County election ballot this November.  They will need 45,000 signatures to make sure the initiative is certified although only 33,060 signatures are required.

The charter amendment will ask the city to:

• To make available mental health and substance use disorder treatment services and to create a behavioral health rapid-response capability as an alternative to police response in some situations

The city will spend the money but the services will be provided by King County which has mental health and substance use disorder treatment services, but not yet the behavioral health rapid-response capability yet.

• To create 2,000 new units of emergency housing within 12 months

Emergency housing includes enhanced shelters, mini houses and hotel/motel rooms.  Different from regular shelters, lockers, on site treatment services and housing referral are available at enhanced shelters.

• To remove encampments with public health or safety risks or obstruct access to or use of public spaces

Removal is not a quick fix.  Outreach professionals are needed to build and nurture relationship, persuade the individuals to move and accept services.  However, if the encampments endanger safety, public health and use of public space, immediate removal is required.

• To establish a dedicated fund in city treasury for these purposes and to accept outside contributions from public, businesses, philanthropy and other government entities

• To require 12% of the city’s general fund be allocated to human services program, including homelessness

Today 11% is allocated to human services, the additional 1% equals to approximately $18 million.  Expected cost for the new behavioral services is $5-16 million depends on number of people sign up. 

• To invest in, support and cooperate with the new Regional Homelessness Authority

The Regional Homelessness Authority was established 2 years ago, the new chief executive has been recently hired.

• Charter amendment sunsets in six years (December 2027)

If the measures in Charter amendment do not work in 6 years, it is time to try something else.  If there is no sunset clause, the City constitution will be changed forever unless it is voted again.

The charter amendment is currently pending at the court for some legal issues.  Tim would like to collect signatures from as many people as possible once it is cleared.

Thanks to Club Member Michael Bronsdon for making this program possible.