President Steve Stauffer rang the bell to start the meeting.
Kevin Courtney offered the prayer and led the pledge to the flag.
Announcements:
This Saturday, August 18 will be trash pickup at the High School at 9:30am. If you did not sign up but want to help or if you need more information, contact Cory Malphrus.
Next week - Tuesday August 21 there will be a Board meeting at 5:15 at Mangiamos
Update - member Darcy Patrick whose home was destroyed by fire recently has found a house to rent. She will be displaced for quite some time so feel free to reach out to her.
On September 11, District Governor David Tirard will be officially visiting the club. That morning there will be a board meeting after the regular meeting - officers and board please take note.
September 13 there will be a wine and beer tasting social at Rollers on the south end. Cost will be $5 per person at the door.
Ivan Bennett announced that shirts had come in. He also had the new ear buds which will be presented to the students at the schools instead of dictionaries.
Sergeant at arms, Alicia Powell welcomed visiting Rotarian, announced birthdays and collected Happy $$$
Visiting Rotarian: Ken Nykell, Shaumbord IL.
Visiting Rotarian: Ken Nykell, Shaumbord IL.
Speaker:
President Steve introduced our speaker Cliff Mrkvicka. Cliff is the field Sales Support Systems Engineer and site Manager at MCAS Beaufort for Lockheed Martin.
photo credit Barry Davis
He served for 30 years in the U S Marine Corps and during that time has many distinguished honors and accomplishments. He joined Lockheed Martin in 2014 and oversees the F35 program in the Lowcountry. Even more importantly, he is the President of the Rotary Club of Lowcountry Beaufort.
He talked about his company, explaining that Lockheed Martin has four business units: aeronautics-aviation; missiles and fire control; rotary emission systems; and space, space exploration. They have 100,000 employees of which 49,000 are engineers, scientists and IT Professionals. One in Five are veterans. 69% of their sales are to the US Government, 30% are international, and only 1% is Commercial. Future focuses are robotics, directed energy, sensor, cyber security. They partner with Educators and work with a lot of organizations supporting STEM education, emphasizing improving youth.
He spoke about the F35 and its features and capabilities. The cockpit is glass with touch screen control panel. It is a high tech plane which costs an average of $92 million depending on model. Currently there are 30 in Beaufort with plans to in the future have 70 or a total of 4 squadrons. The F35 can fly singularly because it can fly undetected. Cliff said that it is "not an aircraft" but a "computer that flies"