May 13, 2014 Speaker: Kelsey L. Dowdy – Climate Change in the Arctic: A Rotary Scholar’s Research

Kelsey L. Dowdy, B.A. is an incoming PhD graduate student at UC Santa Barbara and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow. Her research is focused on ecosystem ecology and climate change, specifically how carbon cycling and microbial communities in soils and waterways respond to environmental change, and how these changes affect larger ecosystem processes and feed back into the global climate system.

As an undergraduate studying Biology at UCSB, she received the Florence Riford Scholarship for Science three times and used this funding to pursue studies and field research early on in her undergraduate career in extraordinary places, including the cloud forest of Costa Rica, the Northern Greenland desert, and twice to the Siberian Arctic tundra and larch forests.

May 27, 2014 Speaker: Imam Taha Hassane, Director, Islamic Center of San Diego

Imam Taha Hassane is currently serving as the Imam/Director of the Islamic Center of San Diego. He joined ICSD in September 2004 from the Colorado Muslim Youth Foundation where he served as a youth instructor. Imam Taha graduated from the Institute of Islamic Sciences at the University of Algiers, Algeria, and served as a high school teacher and Imam in Tenes, Algeria for ten years before coming to the United States. In 2009 Imam Taha obtained a Master of Theology in Islamic Studies from the Graduate Theological Foundation in South Bend, Indiana.

In addition to his regular duties at ICSD, Imam Taha is a:

• Religious adviser of the Muslim Students Association at UCSD.
• Representative of the Muslim community in the interfaith dialogue and action.
• Board member of the Interfaith committee for worker Justice of San Diego County.
• Board member of the Interfaith Worker Justice, based in Chicago, IL.
• Member of the west coast Muslim-Catholic dialogue.
• Member of the advisory Board of the San Diego Police Department representing the Arab/Muslim community.
• Board member of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.
• Member of NAIF (North American Imam’s Federation).
• Speaker & lecturer at several Islamic Centers, Youth camps, and Family retreats, in the US.
• Regular invitee to open the sessions of the city council of Santee meetings with an Islamic invocation.

He is married and is blessed with four daughters.

Rotary Club of La Jolla Benefit: Alison Brown Quartet at La Jolla Athenaeum, Friday May 2nd

Place your order for tickets to the Alison Brown Quartet performance at La Jolla Atheneum, a benefit for Rotary Club of La Jolla. You will be contacted by email to arrange a convenient payment method. Tickets may also be purchased in-person at club meetings.

Friday May 2nd…doors open at 7:00 p.m., the show begins at 7:30 p.m. One intermission…wine will be available for purchase by the glass.

Click HERE to order your Alison Brown Quartet tickets

About Alison Brown

Alison Brown has achieved success in many areas: a Harvard graduate, record label co-founder and owner, mother, and, the role that most people know her in: banjo virtuoso. An internationally recognized musician with a wide-reaching and loyal fan base, Brown first came to national prominence when she was asked by Alison Krauss to join her band Union Station in 1989. Brown had already made a name for herself prior to that by performing extensively with fiddler Stuart Duncan, and on occasional pick-up sessions with artists such as Vince Gill, Byron Berline and John Hickman.

In the summer of 1978, she traveled the country with Duncan and his father, playing festivals and contests. A first place finish at the Canadian National Banjo Championship helped her land a one-night gig at the Grand Ole Opry. And around the time Brown graduated from high school, she and Duncan recorded a duo album for Ridge Runner Records entitled Pre-Sequel.

Brown’s journey to a professional music career took a detour while she attended Harvard, studying history and literature, then UCLA, where she secured an MBA and went to work as an investment banker. After taking a hiatus to return to composing and recording music, Brown assembled the material for her solo debut, the GRAMMY nominated Simple Pleasures. A three-year stint with Alison Krauss and Union Station and a year serving as band leader for Michelle Shocked followed as did bluegrass music’s highest accolade for an instrumentalist: the International Bluegrass Music

Click HERE to order your Alison Brown Quartet tickets

May 6, 2014 Speaker: Eric Zwisler, Living & Working In China

Eric is currently Chairman of Cardinal Health China. He’s been involved in healthcare businesses in China for the last 26 years. For the three previous years he was President of Cardinal Health China, and earlier CEO of Zuellig Pharma Asia Pacific, a Pan Asia healthcare distribution and services company with $8.5 billion turnover and 8,000 employees located in 15 Asian countries and regions. Earlier in his career he spent 16 years establishing and building a breakthrough healthcare distribution and services business in China for Zuellig Pharma, sold in 2010 to Cardinal Health for $470 million. Following the completion of the sale, Eric returned to China to head-up the business again, now a company handling over $6 billion of healthcare products annually in China.

Eric is well versed in the acquisition and integration of Chinese companies having acquired over 12 Chinese-owned manufacturing, distribution, IT services and specialty retail pharmacy companies. He’s negotiated, established and operated all forms of foreign investment in China, from minority share JV’s to wholly foreign owned enterprises. He’s knowledgeable in a wide range of healthcare industries, products and service businesses, including pharma, over-the-counter, consumer healthcare, vaccine, device, med tech, lab/IVD product lines, as well as service offerings for pharma, medical device and med tech suppliers, hospitals and retail pharmacies, and services such as third party logistics, specialty pharmacy and IT channel management solutions.

Eric has been recognized at the highest levels by the Chinese government for his contributions to business and society, including the Friendship Medal (2008), the highest national level award bestowed on foreigners in China. He is also an Honorary Citizen of Shanghai (2004), and silver and gold Magnolia Medal honoree.

Eric is chairman of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers (IFPW), the international trade organization of pharmaceutical distributors that helps its members and stakeholders advance the safe, efficient and continuous access to pharmaceuticals worldwide through the promotion of good distribution practices and services.

He is an independent director of Fibrogen China, a San Francisco research-based biotechnology company using its expertise in connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) and hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) biology to discover, develop, and commercialize novel therapeutics for serious unmet medical needs.

He is also a board member of the Jane Goodall Institute in Shanghai, a China registered NGO promoting sustainable ecological concepts to the youth of China, and a board member of ChinaYES, a US registered 501(3)c promoting environmental protection concepts to the youth of China.
Eric is a graduate of Carroll University with a degree in economics (1980) and holds an MBA (1982) and completed course work for a Masters in Chinese Studies (1987) from the University of Michigan, He holds a Chinese language certificate (1988) from the Interuniversity Center for Chinese Studies (Stanford Center) in Taipei. He is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Eric is a keen China observer and a frequent commentator on national political, economic and healthcare industry trends. His most recent publications are:
“A Chinese JV Means Big Work for the Board,” Board and Directors, March 2013.
“Board Oversight of Corruption Issues in China,” Directorship (the magazine of the National Association of
Corporate Directors – NACD), August 2013.

He and his wife Tori have lived in China for the past 26 years.