This week: January 23, 2026 - Bob Webster - Lviv Construction and Recovery Fund in Ukraine
The Bylaws of the North Bethesda Rotary Club specify that an annual meeting of the club shall be held every December for the purpose of electing officers and directors for the next Rotary year. A Nominating Committee is appointed by the current club President to select nominees. The slate of new officers and directors for the coming year is as follows:
[note color=”#fbfbef”]The current President-Elect, Alexis Martinez, automatically assumes the office of President on July 1, 2013
Dave Fitzwilliam was last week’s breakfast speaker, and we thank him for contributing his own synopsis of a very complicated topic.
“My talk was on James Rickards’ book Currency Wars. Ben Bernanke’s Fed printing of dollars (through quantitative easing to pay for the deficit) will bring a global crisis and a risk of the collapse of the dollar, The economies of the U.S., Euro, and China’s yuan are tied in a complex way and are 60% of the world economy. When the Fed devalues the dollar to prop up the US economy, it has a negative effect on China and the Euro. It causes inflation of the Euro and the Yuan. US treasuries are paid back in cheaper dollars. Abroad it causes pressure to cut costs to maintain exports and causes higher unemployment. Commodity prices (ie oil, nat, gas, gold, soy beans, corn, etc.) are inflated. As the debt increases and more $;s are printed, the sudden collapse of the dollar is at risk.
Last week’s breakfast speaker was Samantha (“Sam”) Follit, daughter of Past President Rob Follit and a 2011 graduate of Vanderbilt University. She works for the Advisory Board Company in D.C.
Sam’s area is with hospitals where Big Medicine must be introduced to combine quality control, cost control and innovation in order to provide affordable health care for delivery to millions. In reinventing health care we are essentially “moving from a Jeffersonian idea of small guilds and independent craftsmen in Hamiltonian recognition of the advantages that size and centralized control can bring. “For the changes to live up to our hopes— lower cost and better care for everyone —liberals will have to accept the growth of Big Medicine, and conservatives the growth of strong public oversight.” Patients just wont look for the best specialist anymore, they’ll look for the best system. Nurses and doctors will have to get used to delivering care in which their own convenience counts for less and the patient’s experience county for more.”
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