Posted by Sanjiv Prabhakaran on Mar 16, 2018
 
 
This was a packed event since we had a special guest today - Ildiko Tesak. She is a dear friend of the club and our members have worked with her on projects in El Salvador. She arrived with a cast on her left hand due to broken fingers from a tennis game!
 
Jan Parsons kicked off the event with her "What I Do" talk. Her primary tasks as the Secretary of the club are to create the minutes of board meetings, log into the ClubRunner site and track all attendances, track the status of members, track the monies collected, such as, Polio funds, Happy Dollars, Fines, etc.
 
1. Why did I choose this position: By force from previous secretary :-).
 
2. How would I improve it? Nothing to improve as of now. Process is good.
 
Then we had a talk by our honorary guest Ildiko Tesak about her work and accomplishments in El Salvador. It seems she is always traveling there with armed guards. Amazing presentation about the armed trafficking, corruption of police that led to more gangs, etc. People are not allowed to move out of the community without permission from the gang's leader. Ildiko has worked with these gangs and convinced them to allow her NGO to work with the community and provide basic essential medical and other services, such as, psychological counseling, group therapy, etc. to these communities. Her NGO provides weekly visits for the children to dental clinics, etc.
 
 
We also had District Governor Scott Carr as our guest today and he awarded Ildiko with a special "People of Action" award for all her exceptional services. Usually this is reserved for 1 award each year but he made an exception this year.
 
 
Finally, we had a wonderful talk by Community Advisor Phil Kendro.  He is a trusted San Diego leader with proven track record in cross-functional team leadership, networking, business development, marketing, veteran mentorship, communications, public relations, aviation and ground operations, executive program and project management, social and historical media. 
 
He is a transitioned 20 years Marine Corps veteran.  He has lived all over the U.S. and the world (Virginia, Florida, Mississippi, Arizona, Texas, Okinawa Japan) and multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Qatar and more. His specialty was as a pilot, but he also had multiple years of experience in aviation operations, safety and risk mitigation, community relations, forward air controller, and more.
 
He has been in San Diego almost a decade, leading some of the largest events in the United States. Planning, narrating and entertaining audiences of 10K-500K+ at the Miramar Air Show, Seattle Air Fair, Air Show San Diego, San Diego Fleet Week, Concourse D'Elegance, and the Centennial of Naval Aviation (largest flyover of San Diego since World War Two). His key strengths are in strategic thinking, communications, public speaking, and positive energy during high-risk and high-visibility operations. He is also an executive global pilot with experience in dozens of aircraft. You have a plane?  He can fly it.
 
His Gallup StrengthsFinder includes: Strategic, Communication, Futuristic, Context and WOO (Winning Others Over). He is very active in mentoring vets in transition. His one request to the audience was that if any veteran reached out to connect on LinkedIn then to please connect and spend few minutes on a call or chat over coffee. He started a Veterans Beer Club with 4 other friends - a grassroots organization - in 2015 and has now grown to over 1300!
 
He is on the board of trustees at the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial. He said that on Memorial Day May 28th there is a large event at Mt. Soledad Memorial from 2-3 pm and there will be a special keynote speaker. He invited all the members and guests to attend that event.
 
 
President-elect Ken Barrett presented the "virtual" Joshua-Malawi certificate to Phil. The certificate honors the speaker with a contribution of supplies to schools in Malawi.
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