Every week I’m going to choose one show to put a spotlight on and provide the transcription. A big thank you to our new sponsor Karen Galambos with Right Type Pro who does all of our transcriptions. You can findher and her team at www.righttypepro.com
These week’s show is one of Amy Otto’s Atlanta Business Radio shows talking all about the importance of giving back and serving your community.
You can listen to the show here or read it below.
Atlanta Business Radio
Sandy Springs Rotary Special
Guests: Eric Stotts, Justin Daniels, Fran Farias and Bill Snellings
July 1, 2009
Amy Otto:
Good morning and welcome to the Atlanta Business Radio Show. I’m Amy Otto and my goodness, this morning I’m joined by Eric Stotts. It’s kind of weird not to have Lee Kantor as my co-host.
Eric Stotts:
Very strange I’m sure.
Amy Otto:
I don’t know that I can do it without him. This is a first time for me Eric. You’re very special. After 100 shows, I now have a new co-host for the day.
Eric Stotts:
I feel very special.
Amy Otto:
One hundred shows. We had our anniversary a couple of weeks ago, and out of 100 shows I counted it up, we had over 438 guests come through our station.
Eric Stotts:
Amazing.
Amy Otto:
In the seats you’re sitting in now. Although we have upgraded our studio a time or two, it’s amazing all the business owners that we have with us. I’m excited about our show today because Eric when you came to me and were telling me about the Rotary Club, I didn’t really know much about it. It’s a very rich organization with a lot of tradition, so I’m excited about our show today to learn more about Rotary, learn more about the four businesses that represent the Rotary today and also just to have a little round table discussion and inform our listeners to how Rotary may help their business and kind of give them a snapshot of what its all about.
Eric Stotts:
That sounds great.
Amy Otto:
So let’s get started. This morning we have with us Bill Snellings from Snellings Walters Insurance Agency. Welcome.
Bill Snellings:
Thank you.
Amy Otto:
We also have Justin Daniels. Justin is, goodness, he’s got a wealth of knowledge in a lot of things. We’ll let him tell us more about that in a little bit. Welcome.
Justin Daniels:
Thank you.
Amy Otto:
And Fran who is with State Farm. Welcome to the Atlanta Business Radio Show.
Fran Farias:
Thank you.
Amy Otto:
And Eric, tell us what your business is.
Eric Stotts:
I work for Advantec. It’s a professional HR organization and typically we work with businesses who are quite frankly frustrated with the growing number of things cutting into their profitability. Typically we find they are people or employment related. Going into the Rotary organization has given me a wonderful foray into meeting folks like Bill who was my sponsor into the Sandy Springs Rotary and just building those relationships and fostering those networking partnerships has really helped all of our businesses.
Amy Otto:
Wonderful. So Bill you’ve been in Sandy Springs and in the area a long time it sounds like.
Bill Snellings:
Oh yeah, I’m an old Atlanta guy. I grew up in Atlanta and I’ve been living with my family in Sandy Springs for 25 years so it’s very much home to me. Our business has been in the Sandy Springs area, of course in Atlanta for 56 years, but in the Sandy Springs area for 17 years. It’s very much home to me and that’s why the Sandy Springs Rotary Club was a natural in terms of joining a group that does so much good work in our community and in and around Sandy Springs.
Amy Otto:
Now Justin, tell me what is it that you do. I know you’re with a law firm, maybe give us a snapshot of your business and then we’ll go around and talk again a little bit more about how Rotary impacts your business.
Justin Daniels:
Sure. My business is I am an attorney. I represent either serial entrepreneurs or emerging middle market companies. My areas of expertise are corporate and commercial real estate law. Since my office is in Sandy Springs I am involved in several activities that are in Sandy Springs, one of which is the Rotary. And I’m involved in Rotary because the immediate past president Bill Holden, and of course Bill Snellings, suggested that I get involved. I’ve enjoyed the people that I’ve met in Rotary and what our mission stands for. So I’ve been a member now for a year and now I am the Director of Community Service.
Amy Otto:
Now Fran, again you’re business is very relationship driven as well. It sounds like you have a rich history in the Sandy Springs area. Tell us a little bit about your business. I understand a lot of times when people think of State Farm they only think of one type of insurance. I understand there is financial services and other things that go along with that. Give us a little overview of it.
Fran Farias:
Thank you Amy. I’m Fran Farias and I have been in the Sandy Springs area since 1980. I’ve seen a lot of changes that have happened and my association with State Farm began in 1990, so I’m approaching my twentieth year. I’ve seen a lot of changes not only in Sandy Springs but also with State Farm. You’re right, we did start off with auto and home and life and health, but about ten years ago branched into banking and financial services. So I wear a mortgage broker hat, an insurance hat, as well as a registered rep hat.
Amy Otto:
That’s a lot of hats.
Fran Farias:
It is.
Amy Otto:
One thing I do notice about all four businesses is that they’re very much relationship driven. Nobody is going to trust you with their finances or their insurance or their life or their legal matters if they don’t have a relationship with you. Can ya’ll just give me a little bit of a briefing on how the relationships develop at Rotary Club, or maybe we should even just back up and talk about the richness of it and the founding of it and then we can dovetail into the relationship part. So Bill, I understand you’re a past president, right?
Bill Snellings:
Yes, yes.
Amy Otto:
What does that mean? Are you elected?
Bill Snellings:
Well, yes. You kind of volunteer. Our club in Sandy Springs has been around since 1973. Rotary, as an organization, has been around almost 100 years and was founded by three men in Chicago. Fran, Chicago? Where were they?
Fran Farias:
Yes. It was actually Paul Harris. Paul Harris was the founder and he approached three other business leaders in the community of Chicago saying “What can we do?” in 1905 and saying “How can we help our community?” It started out, one person was an attorney and another one was, well I don’t recall all the…but Paul Harris was an attorney, that was for sure. They created this relationship. They moved from one office to another and that rotation kind of triggered the name of “Rotary”.
Amy Otto:
Okay. So I understand with over 32,000 Rotary Clubs around the globe there’s more than 1,200,000 men and women that belong to Rotary. That’s huge. I also didn’t realize it was international. I’ve got to be honest, I actually thought it was all men.
Bill Snellings:
That changed a long time ago.
Amy Otto:
Did it?
Bill Snellings:
Yeah, Rotary was men only until the early ’70s.
Amy Otto:
Fran, aren’t you so glad they let us in?
Fran Farias:
That’s true. And it was actually in the late 1980’s that women in the Atlanta area started moving into Rotary and so it was certainly a target area for me. My father was in another service organization and it’s really been a part of my whole lifestyle of being involved in service relationships and so forth.
Amy Otto:
So you’ve touched on service. Can one of you please address just how they go about service in the community? Rotary is geographically divided, correct?
Eric Stotts:
That’s correct. In Georgia we’re in District 6900, or at least in Sandy Springs. For instance, Fran is at the District level and she heads up community projects all throughout the District. So a lot of the clubs, about 100 of them, roll up to Fran and look to her for guidance and leadership for community service opportunities for Rotary International projects, and really to provide best practices information to how to utilize the club’s funds the best way on a domestic and international basis.
You asked about international projects. Rotary takes on, I think the first international project we really took on was to eradicate polio. At this point we’re about 99%, polio has almost vanished but there are still some pockets in Africa, for instance, that are very difficult to reach. But through the long arms of Rotary, and through our 1,000,000+ members we’re able to go into those localized rural areas in Africa, for instance, to immunize children at a young age which is when polio really sets in. So that was really one of the first initiatives on an international scale.
Amy Otto:
Okay. Justin, can you maybe give us a snapshot of some of the service projects you’ve been involved in?
Justin Daniels:
Certainly. In the past year I’d say one of the biggest facets of what we do is community literacy. A lot of people may not realize that with the public schools we have around there’s a lot of kids there who are at risk for reading. So some of the programs that we do, we have a big program, it’s the Dictionary Project for Kids. So we’ll go around to several of the local schools and we’ll provide the kids there in the elementary schools with a dictionary, which for some of them is the first book they get. It has the Rotary 4 Way Test and we go around to the different schools and we give that to them.
Another program we’re going to have this year, which is a first time program, is the First Foundation where we’re going to provide books to kids and families so that the parents, it may be the first books they have, can read to kids from zero to five years old. So the idea is that if you have parents reading to you at night as a child that you’re going to grow up and you’re going to enjoy reading. Once again that goes toward literacy.
I think for me personally I participated in the Graduation Coach Program where people like myself will go into the school and talk to kids who are at risk for reading and math to explain to them why math is important or why reading is important. Like a guy will be playing his little PlayStation and I’ll be like “Do you know how they write the software?” and he’s like “No.” I’m like “It’s because of coding and math. That’s why you want to have math. Wouldn’t you like to write one of these games someday.” The kid is like “Oh yeah, I can see why understanding math or reading might be important.”
Amy Otto:
That’s an interesting project and I think that reading in our schools is probably down a lot given the test scores in Georgia. To have supplemental programs like yourself going into schools sounds like a valuable asset. Fran, what are some of the other programs that you can shed light on that might be going on right now on the service end?
Fran Farias:
Just to piggy back off of what Justin was saying, the Dictionary Project that was started four or five years ago in Sandy Springs goes out to each one of the third graders. Two years ago we started with the Words of Government that was a spin off of that which really became an educational opportunity. It was during the election so kids got involved. The Spalding Elementary School in Sandy Springs was the first school to pilot that. I think we’re going to into a second school this year, I believe. Justin, is that right?
Justin Daniels:
Um-hmm.
Fran Farias:
To expand off of that, and Eric mentioned that I was the District Director for Service Projects with our 77 clubs in District 6900, our focus this year is primarily on water and sanitation, it’s on literacy and education, maternal and child health, also economic and community development, as well as hunger. So whether it’s local projects, also partnering with international projects. It’s a great opportunity to meet people all over the world.
I was in California last week visiting my daughter and stopped in at the Orinda Rotary Club and of course it’s a club of 60 years. Sandy Springs is 37 or 38 so it’s interesting to see the things that they do. We all do a lot of the same things but there’s some other things that you pick up new ideas and that’s really what it’s all going to be about.
I will also spin off with one other thing that our District Governor this year is wanting to host a District Projects Fair which will be in Columbus in August. It’s an opportunity for all the Rotarians to see some new ideas, bring it back to their community, share. This Dictionary Project is something that spread across the whole state now as well as the country. I’m going to give up the mike a minute.
Amy Otto:
Bill, I would love to know, you’ve been in Rotary quite some time. Walk us through maybe a memorable service project that you’ve been involved in.
Bill Snellings:
I’ve been in Rotary for ten years and several different ones. One night I spent the night with about 60 foreign students on the floor at North Springs High School. That was one of my first Rotary events because our club, we sponsor a student every year from a foreign country to learn about the U.S. and to go college. We pay for that and then the other clubs around our District also sponsor students and so we end up with 70 or 80 foreign students in the U.S. for a year, ages 18 to 21. So I spent the night on the floor in the gym with these 80 children. They didn’t sleep at all by the way.
Amy Otto:
And what about you?
Bill Snellings:
No. (laughing)
Amy Otto:
Not so much?
Bill Snellings:
Not so much. They played basketball all night. But other things, meaningful things. Tutoring a 9 year old girl from Africa whose parents don’t speak English, for an hour and a half over at High Point Elementary School the past few months ago was very meaningful to me. It was a simple little thing but it was so neat to watch this little girl read English because she didn’t have anybody at home to help with that.
Amy Otto:
Right, I bet that was special. And what is your contact with someone like that in the tutoring program? How often are you with them?
Bill Snellings:
Well, you don’t really tutor the same child each time. We volunteer for a couple of hours and this is going on every week. Actually, the Sandy Springs Mission has a bus and they bring the kids at risk after school actually over to a church where this goes on for a few hours. Then the bus takes them back to the Sandy Springs Mission. The Sandy Springs Mission, also by the way, is a huge project for our club and we have a lot of involvement with them, here again, heavily about literacy because these children, getting these kids reading and especially as they get older, that means they graduate from high school, and if they graduate from high school they don’t go to jail. If you look at the percentage of youth or young adults in jail today, the numbers that didn’t finish high school is huge. So something in our community that we work on very hard is this literacy issue that Justin was talking about a few minutes ago.
Amy Otto:
How do ya’ll decide on these projects? Is there a governing body? Do you just sit around and think about what would be good in the community or are these projects offered from another level to the local Sandy Springs level? Anybody have an answer for that?
Bill Snellings:
It’s local. The president and the board decides. We look at the leadership of Rotary International and the theme of the organization from the top down and they usually create a theme and then we try to follow. But it really comes down to our club and our leadership deciding on which projects we want to do based on the money that we’ve raised and what we have to spend. A lot of them are ongoing year after year. Literacy is something that just continues. We meet projects that repeat year to year and then we add and take away some.
Amy Otto:
Eric, is there an acceptance process if one of our listeners is interested in the Rotary? I mean, what do you have to do?
Eric Stotts:
Well, really we are about right around 70 members. We are certainly looking for top prospects who are civic or business leaders inside the Sandy Springs community preferably, but they can really reside in any community, especially if they work here. A lot of times, like I was sponsored by Bill and we’re recommended for membership. There are certain classifications of businesses within each Rotary Club, but I would say it’s a fairly easy process to get involved. If someone comes with the, I would say, proper mindset of Service Before Self, which is our motto, and they would like to give back to the community, I would say it’s a very easy process. So what we like to do is invite them to come to two meetings, then there is a vote to induct them or sponsor them into the membership, and basically they jump right in and get involved with service.
Amy Otto:
How many hours a week do ya’ll feel that you might spend on Rotary? Maybe we should say how many hours a month? It sounds like you could get really involved. Fran, maybe this one is directed at you.
Fran Farias:
Well, it certainly is. I have three passions: one is my work and my family and Rotary. Well, maybe four – church and choir and so forth. But you’re right. You can spend a lot of time. I spend probably 10 to 20% of every day dealing with something to do with Rotary.
Amy Otto:
Wow.
Fran Farias:
Now that scares off a lot of people and it shouldn’t because again it’s where your passion is. I see so many different things that can be accomplished there so I don’t have just one focus, even though International was the real key that brought me to the table. I like the diversity of the members and that’s what Eric was talking about. Our membership is limited to 10 percent of each particular field so you have attorneys, you have insurance people, you have mortgage people, you have HR folks. You have all the different types and they bring on a very interesting mix of how they do business and what you can learn from each other, whether serving on projects or just sitting at fairs and sharing Rotary.
Amy Otto:
Interesting. So Justin, in the time you’ve been with the Rotary, have you made business relationships? Have you fostered things that have actually helped your business through service?
Justin Daniels:
Well, I think since I’ve been in Rotary, obviously I think there is a business networking component to it, but I mainly got involved in it because I wanted to be more involved in the community and I liked the message of the organization. The business networking part, sure, there is a big component of that. I mean I sit in the room with people who I know very well through business and through Rotary, but the primary focus of what I was looking to do is I wanted to be involved in an organization, do good things in the community. To kind of talk about the question you asked before about how much involvement, last year I was simply a member and I participated in some projects. You come to our weekly meeting which is about an hour, but it’s once a week. But this year, now that I’m on the board and I’m Director of Community Service, now I’m learning skills such as I have to manage 10 projects, a budget of $15,000, I have to make sure that the people below me are doing what they need to be doing and the projects are getting done. What I would suggest is that these are skills that as an attorney sometimes I’m used to micromanaging because I feel responsible for what I do and it’s required that I get out of my comfort zone and learn some other skills of delegating, having a budget, things that I may not get in my job, but will make me better at it. I think there are skills such as that that you can get from doing things like Rotary that you don’t ordinarily get. It’s an opportunity for people to see you in a different capacity and that’s how you make a lot of long term friendships and business relationships.
Amy Otto:
Absolutely. Definitely a lot of value in that. Eric, how about you? How much time are you spending on Rotary?
Eric Stotts:
I spend two to three hours a week, I would say, depending on the level of service projects going on at one particular time. I’m also the Club photographer.
Amy Otto:
Hence the photos.
Fran Farias:
And a very good one at that.
Eric Stotts:
That has actually turned out to be a godsend because I’ve met a number of members through a number of different events and I’m always encouraged to participate in the after hour events or the community service events or anything relating to Rotary and it’s afforded me the possibility to meet a lot of different members. That’s what Rotary is all about, giving back to the community, building long term friendships really, and if it turns into business great, but if doesn’t I don’t think that’s the primary purpose of everybody’s attendance.
Amy Otto:
Sure, sure. It doesn’t appear to be. I mean everybody that comes to Rotary, their heart is really about the service and about their community.
Fran, one more question for you. You’ve been doing this a long time and it’s obviously a passion of yours, can you maybe walk us through the leadership course? You can be just a member, right, or if you aspire to be more and to get your feet wet in other areas, how does that work?
Fran Farias:
Sure. As Bill mentioned earlier, he said the opportunity is the word volunteer. Anytime you’re involved in a service organization you’ve got to be able to step up and the only time that we say when you join Rotary that you can say “No” is when you join. After that you’re always supposed to say “Yes”, at what level is what one person is able to do. I’ve been involved in community service, vocational service, international service, hosted the international student, I did have the opportunity of bypassing Treasurer and Secretary because I said I was not going to do that. So I skipped over to Vice President and later on President and that was several years ago. After that you’re always kind of encouraged to be involved in the district level and worked on several foundation committees, and this year was selected to be a District Director.
We’re encouraging members…this has been going on for about five years, the Rotary Leadership Institute, and I’ve just completed my certification as a discussion leader. It’s an opportunity for Rotarians, no matter how many years they’ve been in Rotary, you can always learn something. There’s three levels, or three different courses that you can get involved in. Of course that just provides you a lot more information so we’re going to encourage our members, not only those that are aspiring to be President, but also others that are interested to learn more about Rotary and how to serve.
Amy Otto:
Great. Bill, any of our listeners that this is resonating with them, they think I want to get involved in my community or I would love to do more service, where do they start?
Bill Snellings:
The website is a great place to start. Just the Rotary International website and from there you could go to our website and/or find a Rotary club close to where you live and work. There are many, many clubs around metro Atlanta of all sizes. We have 70 members, there are clubs that have 15 members and clubs that have 400 members. So you need to find one that suits your style and size. There are clubs that meet at lunch, there are clubs that meet for breakfast, there are those that meet for supper, so there’s lots to choose from.
Fran Farias:
Give our website.
Eric Stotts:
Our website is www.sandyspringsrotary.org. So please, if you’re interested in coming by on a Monday at noon to just have a bite to eat, learn more about Rotary, just go to our website, click on Contact Us or show up at Hammond Glen on Monday afternoons at noon, and we’d love to have you for lunch.
Amy Otto:
That sounds great. I might have to check that out.
Eric Stotts:
Please do.
Fran Farias:
We don’t have anyone from radio by the way. (laughing)
Amy Otto:
You don’t have anyone from radio? Hmm, I might have to check that out.
Fran Farias:
And that’s that the diversity.
Amy Otto:
So if I come to a meeting it’s just a check it out meeting, right?
Eric Stotts:
It’s a free lunch on us.
Amy Otto:
Can’t beat that.
Eric Stotts:
Can’t beat it.
Amy Otto:
Sounds like a win/win.
Eric Stotts:
There is such a thing as a free lunch.
Amy Otto:
And it also sounds like a great way too to focus your service efforts. I mean there are so many people looking to get involved and it can be fragmented where you’re doing a little service here, a little service there. It would be nice to have it all under one umbrella and have those that are like minded working with you.
Justin Daniels:
One thing I would say from a new member’s perspective is you are allowed to be as involved as you want to be and Rotary is one of the most well oiled machines or well organized organizations that I’ve ever been a part of. It’s phenomenal when you look on to a domestic and even local level, but when you get into the international projects, the level of impact we have to small rural communities in Uganda or Venezuela or South America or anywhere else; where we are actually purifying water for villages to allow them to live and have a sustainable life. It’s truly remarkable.
Fran Farias:
And just to piggy back on that, our Rotary Foundation, which the powerhouse that is behind that, we’re nonpolitical, we’re nonreligious, so we can get beyond those borders. We can do the polio projects, we can do the clean water projects, we can do all these things and they welcome us. Rotarians around the world in 163 countries, and how many of them are there in the United Nations, and we do partner a lot with the United Nations. That also is a factor.
Amy Otto:
Any final thoughts? Justin?
Justin Daniels:
I would just add one other thing. I think like any other organization, you get out of it what you put into it. Really the rewarding part is obviously we meet every week for lunch, but the real value in what we do is really getting involved in the service projects, the Literacy, the Coach for Kids, and getting out in the community because that’s really where our organization is rewarding for the members who are a part of it.
Amy Otto:
Terrific. Bill, any final thoughts from you?
Bill Snellings:
Well, I can only say that the ten years that I’ve been involved have been very meaningful to me. I wanted, like Justin talked about, to join something that did something in the community and this has been a wonderful experience. When they asked me to be President a couple of years ago, I agreed and what was so gratifying is the fact that Fran said a few minutes ago is when you ask people to do various projects, they say “Yes.” I’m in a business where I have 35 employees where you tell people what to do. In this organization you’re asking people to do on their own time because it’s the right thing to do. Like Justin said a little while ago, developing the skills of dealing with volunteers is a new skill set and a wonderful one that I’ve gotten better at. It’s been a great, great time for me.
Amy Otto:
Wonderful. I hate to say this Eric but we are out of time.
Eric Stotts:
It flew by. So I guess we’ll see you and Lee on Monday.
Amy Otto:
Yes. You know Mondays are good for me too. That’s usually my office day so by noon I’m ready to get out and have lunch and be with folks and learn more about service.
Eric Stotts:
Fabulous.
Amy Otto:
Thank you all for sharing your experiences with us today and the Rotary experience especially because we would love to have some of our listeners engage in this community service and the Rotary Club.
Thanks for being with us today. Until next week I’m Amy Otto with the Atlanta Business Radio Show.