The Monrovia Rotary Club was pleased to have Zanaida Robles as its guest speaker yesterday, March 1.  She was here to speak about her passion, the San Gabriel Valley Choral Company, of which she is the artistic director.

The San Gabriel Valley Choral Company (SGVCC) was founded by Dr. Thomas M. Miyake in September 1995 to provide local singers the opportunity to “stretch their minds and vocal chords.” The ensemble is comprised of singers from the San Gabriel Valley, the Inland Empire and other local communities. Their repertoire has included music from the Renaissance period to works of the late 20th century. Along with more traditional selections, music performed has included avant-garde, jazz, a Broadway musical review, and staged productions.

Zanaida is a singer, conductor, composer, and music instructor born, raised, and educated in Southern California. She is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions including the USC Scholar’s Symposium Fellowship, the Young Musicians Foundation Gladys Turk scholarship, the USC Choral Department Scholarship, the USC Black Alumni Association scholarship, two L.A. Artist of the Future awards, the NFAA Young Arts level one award in classical voice, two Charles “Dolo” Coker Jazz Awards, the KCET Emerging Young Artist Grand Prize, the Cal State Long Beach 4-year Dean’s Scholarship for Distinction in the Arts, and the NAACP ACT-SO national gold medal for music composition. She holds a Doctor of Music Arts degree from the USC Thornton School of Music, a Master of Music degree from CSU Northridge, and a Bachelor of Music degree from CSU Long Beach.

The Monrovia Rotary Club is pleased to present Mr. Richard Ashworth as its guest speaker on Tuesday February 1.  Mr. Ashworth holds the position of Vice President, Private Client Advisor at CitizensTrust.

Mr. Ashworth earned his BS degree in Business Administration from East Carolina University at Greenville, NC.  Over the past 17 years Rich has worked at Wells Fargo Securities in various positions focusing on fixed income and broader investment sales throughout Arizona, California and Nevada.  Prior to that, Rich was with Kidder Peabody & Co. and First Interstate Bank for five years and six years respectively.  He has worked actively with clients spanning individual wealth management, municipalities, water districts and corporate market segments.  He has the sales experience, proven performance and depth of investment knowledge to address the needs of those broad groups in a superior manner.

The Monrovia Rotary Club will welcome Nic Fetter on January 26th at its regular club meeting.  

As the Director of Marketing, Nic oversees the leasing of the company’s office portfolio, as well as being intimately involved in the planning of new developments in the San Gabriel Valley. He will bring the club up to date on developments at Station Square.

Nic graduated from Willamette University with a BA in Politics in 2003, and received a Graduate Certificate from Portland State University in Real Estate Development in 2006. After graduation in 2003, he worked for DDRM on a five-star hotel project in Park City, UT, and spent two years in the customer service department of WebMD while attending graduate school.

Nic recently co-chaired the 2012 For the Love of Youth Gala benefiting the Boys and Girls Club of the Foothills. He also served three years as a board member for the Levitt Pavilion Pasadena organization, and is a member of the Urban Land Institute. Nic currently resides in Pasadena with his wife and three dogs.

The Monrovia Rotary Club is pleased to announce that Sandy Burud, Ph.D. will be the featured speaker at the regular meeting of the club on Tuesday, January 19th at noon.

Sandy  is the Co-Project Director of the Monrovia Legacy Project. She is a writer and certified graphic designer who recently turned her talents to researching and documenting personal histories. Last year she produced a series of family history books for Betty Sandford, helped her write a memoir of her 88 years in Monrovia, and organized her life’s worth of papers.  Prior to that Dr. Burud was a researcher, writer and project manager.  She is a former Visiting Scholar at Claremont Graduate University’s Schools of Management and of Educational Studies. She has co-authored two noteworthy books – the Human Resource Academy’s ‘Outstanding Book of the Year 2004’ — and in 1984 the first book on employer-supported child care, which sparked that trend. Following the early book, she established a boutique consulting practice that designed and/or operated work-site child care facilities for Disney, Universal, Mattel, Apple, PG&E and others. She was later Chief Strategy Officer for a company that produced flexible work software and lead projects for the Dept. of Defense, Procter & Gamble, American Express, and John Deere.  She has received grants from the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, David & Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Women’s Bureau.  She is Past President of the Alliance for Work-Life Professionals, a professional association for the work-life balance field. She has lived in Monrovia for twenty years and followed Monrovia’s evolution closely since her uncle, Bob Wilcox, was Executive Manager of Monrovia’s Chamber of Commerce in the early 1970’s. She holds an M.A. from Pacific Oaks College in Human Development and a Ph.D. in Education from Claremont Graduate University, where she serves on the Board of Visitors.