In Review...

Our May 5 meeting day was a beautiful, sunny and warm spring day. Club President Jennifer Bennerotte got us started with a warm and touching story from the Depression Era about Mayor LaGuardia of New York, in which he presided as judge over a case involving a widowed grandmother who stole a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren. Jennifer told the story as an example of the meaning of the word “grace," and gave one definition as “When someone with superior power shows kindness and mercy to another." 

 

Greeters were Steve Buettner, Val Burke and Toni Gerard. Jim Ryman handled front desk duty.

 

Dan Mott did a nice invocation based on a quote from Mother Teresa of Calcutta, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and Four-Way Test. Next we got a rousing rendition of the “Walleye” song done to the music of the “Rawhide” tune by Bill Lindberg from the Eagan Rotary Club in honor of the fishing opener on May 14.

 

After the “Walleye” song, Keith Benson made a presentation to the Majestic Hills Ranch of a donation in the amount of $3,000 from our Edina Rotary Foundation to pay for a riding rake for the ranch. We learned that the Majestic Hills Ranch conducts equine therapy for disabled and challenged children, as well as for injured military service members through a program called “Heroes on Horseback."

 

Next, John Buttolph introduced the guests. After John’s guest introductions, Meg Boehne gave her classification talk centered on her family, faith and career, all of which provided various means for her to pursue her substantial interest in helping poor women and children in Africa. Meg is now pursuing an encore career at Edina Realty and working harder than ever. She gave us one fun fact: that she had been given a student award by a Rotary Club exactly 39 years to the day before our May 5t club meeting, and she had the award along to prove it!

 

After Meg’s classification talk, Dave Hatzung, wearing some very snazzy Pippi Longstocking socks (really!), got up to introduce our speaker. Our speaker was Kelly Schuller from the Viracon Company located in Owatonna, Minnesota. Viracon, together with Harmon Glass, is owned by Apogee Enterprises, a publicly traded company. Kelly told us that Viracon was a world-class company “right in our back yard” that not a lot of people knew much about.

 

Viracon is the leading glass fabricator in the Americas, dealing only in the commercial building market, and providing the widest variety and highest quality window possible. Viracon does not actually make glass. Rather, it fabricates glass made by others, and customizes it using a variety of proprietary coatings. Viracon is currently approaching $400 million in revenue, and has approximately 2,200 employees worldwide, of which 1,500 are employed in Owatonna. The company works on approximately 500 commercial building projects per year involving some 50 million square feet of glass, and holds a 70 percent market share in the commercial building glass market. The company was founded in 1970 and its Owatonna facility is approximately 1.5 million square feet, soon expanding to approximately 2 million square feet. It is the second largest glass fabrication facility in the world (the biggest one is in China).

 

According to Kelly, Viracon’s success derives primarily from its proprietary glass coatings, unique manufacturing processes, very low defect rate, high on-time delivery rate (95 percent-plus), and by providing the best technical resources to architects. The company has participated in many premier projects in the Twin Cities metro as well as globally, including the Vikings stadium, One World Trade Center in NY, as well as major projects in Chile, Singapore and many other places.

 

Viracon will soon be able to handle “jumbo” sheets of glass measuring about 10 feet by 20 feet. Each and every sheet of glass sold by the company is shipped in its own custom made wooden crate. Lumber is the second largest raw material used by the company, after the glass itself.

 

Paul Peterson did a great job as the closer, and Jennifer reminded us to sign up for the District Conference on May 12 and 13, as well as the Fireside Chats, which are getting underway with the first one at Josh Sprague’s house May 11, then at Gordy Lewis’ house May 12, and then at John Flynn’s home May 17. Stay tuned for more Fireside Chats, which will be announced soon.

 

Jennifer closed the meeting with a quote from Caroline Myss emphasizing the importance of “grace” in our lives, and got us out into the warm sunny day at 1:30 p.m. sharp.