Brian Sekula
President-CEO and Founder
Health Performance Institute
HESS Club
February 28, 2019
Brian is the President-CEO and Founder of the Health Performance Institute. He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Houston with a degree in physiology and statistics. Brian is involved in various organizations including Advancement Team Board Member for the Central and South TX region of the American Diabetes Association, Diplomate Faculty Member, Medical Wellness Association and has been a Moderator and Keynote Speaker for national and international conferences on type 2 diabetes. He has been featured in the Houston Business Journal and is also the author of 10 Steps to Breaking the System and Beating Type 2 Diabetes. Prior to serving as the president, CEO, and founder of the Health Performance Institute, his roles included that of a professor at the University of Houston, UT School of Public Health, Baylor College of Medicine as well as a scientist for NASA-JSC – Wylie Laboratories: Astronaut health after long-term exposure to zero gravity.
David Leebron
Rice University President
"Not Your Father's University; Rice at the Forefront of Education"
March 7, 2019
HESS Club
David W. Leebron, JD, has served as Rice University’s seventh president since 2004, a period of growth and transformation for the university. A native of Philadelphia, Leebron is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review. Following a judicial clerkship on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, he taught at the UCLA School of Law in 1980. After two years in private practice, he joined the faculty at the NYU School of Law in 1983. In 1989, Leebron joined the faculty of Columbia Law School, where in 1996 he was appointed dean and served in that position until coming to Rice. He is a member of the political science faculty at Rice, and has written in the areas of international trade and investment, torts, privacy, corporate law and human rights. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the boards of the Association of American Universities, COFHE, and the IMAX Corporation. He has also been awarded Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Mérite by the government of France and the Encomienda de la Orden de Isabel La Católica by the government of Spain.
Dr. Neil Frank
Former Director National Hurricane Center
Former Chief Meteorologist KHOU-TV Houston
HESS Club
March 14, 2019
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Dr. Frank was the Director of the National Hurricane Center for 13 years before he retired from the Federal Government in 1987 to accept the position of Chief Meteorologist at the CBS Television station in Houston Texas (KHOU-TV). In June 2008, Neil retired for the second time and is currently living in the Houston area.
Neil started out in life to have a career in sports. In 1949, he enrolled at Southwestern College, Kansas, where he majored in science and played basketball and tennis for 4 years. Upon graduation Neil found the Air Force was looking for science majors to enter their weather program and this was the beginning of his career in meteorology.
Leaving the Air Force in 1957, Neil decided to pursue a career in tropical meteorology. He enrolled in the graduate school at Florida State University where he earned a Master’s Degree and Ph.D. in meteorology. After graduation, Neil joined the National Hurricane Center in 1961.
During his retirement, Dr. Frank has become a manmade global warming “skeptic”. Skeptics are convinced meteorological data overwhelming show CO2 is not a major factor in the global temperature.
Neil and his childhood sweetheart Velma are both committed Christians. They were married in 1952. They have three grown children, ten grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
Steve Vetrano - Avondale House
Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director
Lunch with a Purpose at Avondale House
3737 Omeara Dr., Houston, TX 77025
The mission of Avondale House is to provide individuals with autism the resources, education and training to develop to their fullest potential.
- Avondale House serves children ages 3-22, impaired by autism, in their school and provides support services to the child’s family and referring school district.
- Avondale Residential Services are for adolescents and young adults in small group home settings and where they plan individualized programs for each resident.
- Avondale House Day Habilitation Program provides full day program training in life skills and pre-vocational skills to young adults.
- Community Education and Outreach Services responds to educational, informational and training needs of parents, families, educators, and other professionals.
Steve is well known to The Rotary Club of Houston. He was most recently Chief Executive Officer of the American Red Cross, Texas Gulf Coast Region, since June 2009. Steve has a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from Manhattan College in New York City and an MBA from Penn State University.
ART RASCON
ABC HOUSTON
March 28, 2019
Art Rascon, ABC Houston, has reported on wars and conflicts in Iraq, Israel, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and throughout the World. He has reported on a host of U.S. Presidential elections and 3 Papal elections from Rome. Rascon has covered terrorist’s attacks from New York City to major cities elsewhere and has reported on disasters, from hurricanes along the Gulf States to tsunamis in Asia, and earthquakes, being one of the first to report from Haiti. He has reported on numerous stories out of Central America on the flow of migrant children to the U.S and the deadly drug cartel violence and has produced and reported on several 30-min Special Reports and Documentaries on a variety of issues.
Previously, as a CBS NEWS Correspondent, Rascon covered such events as the Oklahoma City bombing, Haiti's civil unrest, Mexico's guerilla wars, Peru's hostage standoff; Cuba's downing of U.S. planes, TWA, Value-Jet, and other airline disasters. He also covered hurricanes throughout the Caribbean and reported from the heat of conflict in Central America, interviewing such tyrants as Manuel Noriega and Daniel Ortega. During his time at CBS he traveled extensively reporting on a host of domestic and international issues.
At KABC-TV in Los Angeles, he covered such notable stories as the O.J. Simpson case, the Rodney King beating trial, the subsequent Los Angeles riots, the Branch Davidian stand-off, the Menendez trial, as well as earthquakes, fires and floods.
Rascon has been nominated for 27 Emmy awards and has won 20. He is the recipient of more than three dozen other local reporting awards from press clubs in Houston, Los Angeles and Miami and a host of national awards, including two Edward R. Murrow awards, three National Association of Hispanic Journalists' awards, the International Rotary award for meritorious reporting, two National ‘Headliner’ Awards, the RTNDA Award for Continuing Coverage, a dozen Lone Star awards, and 18 Associated Press Reporting awards. Rascon has reported from more than 75 countries, five continents and nearly every State in the Union.
Rascon was once named by The National Hispanic Business Magazine as one of the '100 Most Influential Hispanics in America. A former board member of The Radio Television News Directors Association, former Vice-President of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, former board member of Interfaith in The Woodlands, and Montgomery Co. Medical Clinic. Rascon is a current board member of YMCA International and former president of the Houston Association of Hispanic Media Professionals. He was once named Houston Father of the Year and has received Distinguished Alumni Honors from BYU-Idaho and BYU-Provo. He is also a noted motivational speaker.
Born in El Paso, Texas, and reared in Denver, Colorado, Rascon graduated from Brigham Young University. He also studied Spanish, Humanities, and European Politics/History in Madrid, Spain. Rascon is happily married with 7 children.
Jay Steinfeld
Founder and CEO
Global Custom Commerce
April 11, 2019
HESS Club
HESS Club
As founder and CEO of Global Custom Commerce, Jay was an early mover in e-Commerce. In 1993 he bootstrapped his website, built for just $1500 and operated from his garage, into the world’s #1 online window covering store, Blinds.com. In January 2014, Global Custom Commerce merged with The Home Depot. Jay is still active as CEO, driving and integrating GCC’s platform into Home Depot’s interconnected retail strategy.
His early career was as a CPA, and in 1987 he and his wife started a small brick and mortar retail store selling custom window coverings. They sold their store in 2001 and went online full-time.
GCC has been recognized as The Best Place to Work in Houston, Top 5 Workplaces in Texas, one of the 50 Most Engaged Workplaces in America, the American Marketing Association Marketer of the Year, and many others.
Jay is currently on the Innovation Board of The XPRIZE, whose mission is to bring about "radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity". He is an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, has earned a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Houston Technology Center, and writes a column for Inc. Magazine. Jay is a popular speaker on how company culture and authentic core values drive profitable growth.
The Rotary Club of Houston is a group of business leaders working together collaboratively to impact positive change in our community and around the world, operating consistently with Rotary's motto of Service Above Self. Some of our service projects include:
- Rotary Distinguished Citizen Award is presented annually to someone in Houston who exhibits high ideals, leadership and philanthropy. The funds raised support the club’s on-going service activities.
- Camp Enterprise is an annual activity that introduces business and business ethics to 75 high school juniors. The funds for this event are raised with an annual golf tournament.
- Burnett Bayland Outreach has delivered personal support and mentoring to at-risk children at the county run resident.
The club also works actively in many other areas including mentoring elementary school youth, giving assistance to ex-offenders, and international projects, including Polio Plus.
The object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:
- FIRST - The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
- SECOND - High ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve society;
- THIRD - The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business, and community life;
- FOURTH - The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.
From the earliest days of the organization, Rotarians were concerned with promoting high ethical standards in their professional lives. One of the world's most widely printed and quoted statements of business ethics is The Four-Way Test, which was created in 1932 by Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor (who later served as RI president) when he was asked to take charge of a company that was facing bankruptcy. This 24-word test for employees to follow in their business and professional lives became the guide for sales, production, advertising, and all relations with dealers and customers, and the survival of the company is credited to this simple philosophy. Adopted by Rotary in 1943, The Four-Way Test has been translated into more than a hundred languages and published in thousands of ways. It asks the following four questions: "Of the things we think, say or do:
1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOOD WILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
AND AS THE ROTARY CLUB OF HOUSTON SAYS
5. Will it be FUN!
