Today's speaker was Jo Schmidt, a senior at Hamline University.  Jo is currently working as an intern for the Borgen Project.  This non-profit was started in 2003 with a mission to reduce global poverty through political advocacy.  They have volunteers in over 1900 U.S. Cities who work to lobby congressional leaders to secure support for poverty-reducing policies and programs for those around the world living on less than $1/day.  Jo has been speaking to a number of Rotary Clubs because the focus areas for the RI Foundation line up so closely with the policy focus areas of this group:  Food insecurity, maternal and child health and welfare, and access to clean water and sanitation.  
 
Our "member minute" came from Anoop Mathur.  Anoop spent his first 22 years in India and the next 47 years in Minnesota.  As a top student in his state, he was able to go on to obtain a degree in Engineering.  After coming to the U.S., he was hired by Honeywell where he had a long and rewarding career.  His last position there was as Director of Labs, which had him traveling the world overseeing lab operations in many locations.  After Hoenywell was acquired in 2000 by Allied Chemical the corporate culture changed dramatically.  The focus on R&D shifted to a focus on continually reducing expenses and trimming staff.  After awhile, this made for too much personal unhappiness, and so, with wife Preeti's agreement, he left.  He has gone on to build a start-up company as well as to volunteer his time with many non-profit organizations including Rotary, The Father Project and the local Twin Cities Indian American Group.