Welcome President Harlan Bost

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

WE MEET RIVER CITY BREWING COMPANY

Lunch begins at noon - Meeting begins at 12:30 p.m.]

Harlan Bost

2013-2014 President 

South Jacksonville Rotary Club

Harlan Bost was born and raised in North Carolina and received a BS in Forestry from NC State University.  He moved to Jacksonville in 1988 and has sold building materials to builders for nearly ten years.  Harlan and wife, Patty, bought Florida Custom Marble, Inc. (FCM), a cultured marble vanity top and tub manufacturer, in 1997.  The solid surface facility was added in 2002.  In February 2007, Florida Custom Marble, Inc. opened the stone counter top fabrication facility.

Harlan is President of Florida Custom Marble, Inc. and is very active with several community and trade associations, including the:  Northeast Florida Builders Association and The Marble Institute of America.

Harlan enjoys spending time with his family, playing golf, and working on remodeling projects.

 President Harlan will lead the first club meeting of the Rotary year and he will outline our club's goals for the new year.

Industry Talks

Rotary began in 1905 in Chicago, Illinois.  Paul Harris invited three friends to explore his idea that he had been developing for several years.

The idea - a club of business and professional people who could and should be friends.  Harris was a lawyer, his friends were a coal dealer, mining engineer and merchant tailor.  The aim of the first Rotary Club was the encouragement of friendship, fellowship and mutual assistance.  It is significant that each of the first members of Rotary was a comparative stranger from a small town who had come to the great metropolis of Chicago to go into business.

An "Industry Update Talk" is an original idea to help members stay current with trends in all represented professions and businesses.  It is also an opportunity for the club to learn information about you that isn't on a resume or C.V. and to inform the club about your job in your industry, business or profession.

There is no set format for an Industry Update talk.  The following outline may help you organize your presentation to make it informative and interesting.

1. Our goal is to learn more about changes in each member’s business or profession.   

2. Focus solely on an issue in your particular industry - not on yourself or your specific role.  For example, an Architect could address what is driving the current housing resurgence.  A Banker could share what the Dodd-Frank regulation means to the banking industry.   A member in a related field may want to give us the effect of the Affordable Care Act on the Medical Profession or its effect on the Health Insurance Industry

3. Describe what's happening in your industry.  Members are always interested in what is changing or what you see is changing from an historical view of your business or profession.

4. Please remember to keep your presentations POLITICALLY NEUTRAL.

5. LIMIT your talk to no more than FIVE (5) minutes.

Industry Talk Schedule

  

Charity Recipient

Congratulations to this year's South Jacksonville Rotary Club Charity Recipient, Episcopal Children's Services.

Surprise Visit

PP Vicki-Lynne & Rod enjoy a surprise visit from their youngest grandson.  Fun time!





Literacy Mentors Wanted!!!
South Jacksonville Rotary Club is seeking Literacy Mentors for the Kindergarten class at San Jose Elementary School for the upcoming school year.  The goal is to have 10 mentors.  Training will be available in August.  Contact Richard Dow - (904) 955-9966  rdow53@msn.com 


In the Community (or on the tube!)

PP Odette Struys was seen for more than 8 "Live" TV hours in June on WJCT's 50th Anniversary Auction. She co-hosted the show with Mandarin Rotarians Jim Akers and Gary Saltzgiver, working alongside downtown Rotary's Michael Boylan (CEO of WJCT). Guest hosts who worked with PP Odette include Charles Griggs (Dept of Health) and Mike Goldman (Dept of Transportation) see photo above.

Photo's from June 25th Meeting

More Photo's from the Hail & Farewell

Welcome Asok Chaudhuri

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

WE MEET AT RIVER CITY BREWING COMPANY

Lunch begins at noon - Meeting begins at 12:30 p.m.

Meet Asok K. Chauduri

Principal, Heritage Capital Group

Asok  K. Chaudhuri is a principal of Heritage Capital Group and its sister company, Business Valuation, Inc. (BVI). His primary areas of expertise are M&A transactions in the U.S. and abroad, valuation, economic consulting, strategic planning, corporate turnaround, and shareholder value creation.  He has experience in several industry sectors including transportation, logistics/distribution, manufacturing, health care, and information technology.

Mr. Chaudhuri hails from India where he earned a B.S. degree in physics followed by an M.S. in physics and an M.S. in applied statistics. He came to the U.S. in 1975 and earned an M.S. in operations research and a Ph.D. in operations research and planning, both from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. He has taken several executive programs in economics, corporate finance, and business management. His Ph.D. dissertation on multiple objective optimization in planning and budgeting was the first place winner in an international competition of Ph.D. dissertations in the field of decision sciences. He has been inducted to the Decision Science’s Hall of Fame.

Prior to joining Heritage Capital Group and BVI, Mr. Chaudhuri was a senior executive at CSX Corporation, a $12 billion dollar transportation and logistics company in the U.S. During his 26 years at CSX, he held increasingly responsible positions including senior vice president of corporate development, vice president of finance, vice president of financial planning and analysis, vice president and CFO of CSX’s intermodal business unit, and chief finance officer of CSX’s automotive business unit. His responsibilities involved mergers/acquisitions/divestitures, strategy development, business and capital investment planning, risk analytics, corporate performance improvement, and shareholder value creation.

Mr. Chaudhuri was a key player in the strategic transformation of CSX from a multi-modal transportation conglomerate to a rail-based company through the divestitures of several non-rail businesses and acquisition of a large rail business. The most recent transaction, which was led by Mr. Chaudhuri, was the sale of CSX’s global container port business, CSX World Terminals, in early 2005 to Dubai Ports International (DP World) for $1.2 billion, which represents a record 15 times EBITDA. This transaction was to sell off terminal businesses in nine countries on five continents involving complex business, legal, structural, tax, and JV partner issues. As the parent company’s senior vice president of corporate development, and over a period of three years prior to the transaction, Mr. Chaudhuri positioned the company for a successful sale through prudent investments in attractive markets of the world and disinvestments in other markets.

As the vice president and CFO of CSX’s intermodal business unit, Mr. Chaudhuri quarterbacked its turnaround and acquisition-driven growth in the late 1990’s. The unit’s operating income grew from $30 million to $180 million in eight years. He was one of the principal architects of CSX’s performance improvement in the mid-1990’s that increased the rail unit’s operating income from $600 million to $1,275 million in five years. This corporate-wide initiative involved a thorough understanding of the key drivers of shareholder value, benchmarking against the best in and outside of the industry to establish performance gaps, and a rigorous execution process to close the gaps over time. Mr. Chaudhuri was responsible for introducing several new ideas and initiatives at CSX — shareholder value based management using an EVA framework, establishment of a new automotive business unit to bring focus to its standalone income statement, transfer pricing mechanism between various business units and the parent company, product and geographic income statements and performance metrics, comparative analysis versus competitors, and cooperative business arrangements with independent shortline rail operators.

Prior to joining CSX, Mr. Chaudhuri worked at British Petroleum (Standard Oil of Ohio) as a market research analyst, primarily developing retail gasoline sale forecasting models. He has also consulted in the health care, pharmaceutical, telephone, retail, and manufacturing industries on projects involving statistical quality control, inventory management, industrial/production engineering, forecasting, zero-based budgeting, and simulation games. As an adjunct faculty, he has taught MBA, executive MBA and other graduate level courses on decision sciences, operations research, managerial statistics, investment analysis, corporate finance, operations and supply chain management at Cleveland State University, Case Western Reserve University, and Baldwin-Wallace College. He has offered short courses and lectured at several institutions including MIT, Yale, University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of Munich (Germany), International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (Vienna), Hong Kong University, Indian Institute of Management, and Indian Statistical Institute. He actively participates in professional meetings, often as an invited speaker.  He frequently consults on industry issues as a Leader of GLG Expert Network.

Mr. Chaudhuri served on the Board of Directors of TTX Company, a $1 billion rail equipment and service provider based in Chicago. He continues to serve on the advisory board of Innovative Scheduling, a technology company which develops optimization and decision support  software for the transportation and supply chain industries. He has served on the academic advisory council of Jacksonville University’s Davis College of Business and as an industry liaison to MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics.

Mr. Chaudhuri is active in the Jacksonville community, having served as the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce International Business Strategy Committee, member of the Stage II (Grow Florida) Business Advisory Board, member of the Mayor’s Logistics Education Committee.  He is a member of the Rotary Club of Downtown Jacksonville.

Sophia Williams

Mike and Sandi Christiansen welcome their 5th grandchild, Sophia Williams.  Born June 11th weighting 7 lbs. 9 oz.

Hail & Farewell Photos

Hail & Farewell

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

NO LUNCH MEETING

HAIL & FAREWELL COCKTAIL PARTY

THE RIVER CITY BREWING COMPANY

 

The Rotary Club of South Jacksonville will be hosting a "Hail & Farewell" Cocktail Party in honor of President Jim Lanahan at the River City Brewing Company, Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 6:00 p.m.

Charity Recipient

Congratulations to this year's South Jacksonville Rotary Club Charity Recipient, Children's Home Society.

 South Jacksonville Rotary 

Meeting Assignments  2013-2014

If you are unable to cover your assignment, PLEASE arrange for a
 replacement.  Mark your calendar Now! 

Recap of the June 11th Meeting

Greeters:   Stevan Jones

The Pledge & Prayer:  Stevan Jones

Craft Talk: Stevan Jones

Blue Badge Recipient: Stevan Jones

Presentation to Charity Recipients: PP Lee Mercier

Introduction of Visitors & Guests: Doug McCullough

Few words to say "Thank You": Anna Zimmermann & Mentari Rania

Introduction of Guest Speaker:   PP Vicki-lynne Gloger

 

 

                                                  Guest Speaker: David Daugherty
                                                     Wounded Warrior Project