Thursday, June 14, 2012

June 5, 2012 Irvine Rotary Club meeting notes

Welcome to our newest member and now blue badger, Kathleen Mellon.
Annabell also received all of her rotary accouterments--hat, jacket, etc.  She's a red badger now!

Member Eric McGrath Craft Talk
"The journey of 1,000 steps starts with a swift kick", a quote from Eric's dad.
Eric's grandfather was a North Carolina Rotary Club president, that was Eric's introduction to service.  Eric grew up in Raleigh, N.C.  As a kid, soccer was his passion and played it through high school and college. 

He's a business minded guy, and started a company while in college in the 1980s, a home bottled water treatment program.  It was so successful, he built a sales team that went house-to-house testing water.  He left college in pursuit of building the best company in his class.  He moved to New Jersey, joined the top company, and expanded his role there to training sales staff around the country.  While living in Des Moines, Iowas, he married, and together with a newborn, he and his wife moved to Las Vegas for his wife's job.

In LV, he started Spider Advertising, which he eventually moved to Southern California.  His passion is his son, now 13, "he's the love of my life."  The marriage ended, and he sold his company and went to work for the Rapport Leadership International company, where he met Mary, his bride of two years.  Together, they started "Driven for Life", a training and motivation business catering to large companies.  They help companies grow their culture, developing team, not just making money.