President Jerry Winges opened the meeting just after 12:15pm. Jerry Kuehn led the Pledge of Allegiance. Jesus Nava gave the invocation.
Guests of the Club were introduced—the new principal of Burlingame High School, Lauren Kelly, was introduced by former Rotarian Jen Fong. And we welcomed former member Mary Murphy.
Jesus Nava, Doug Person, Jonnie Dukes, and Mary Murphy gave Happy Dollars.
President Jerry acknowledged the most recent members of his President's Club: Joe La Mariana, Christine Krolik, and Jeff Krolik
Upcoming community events were announced, including:
Wine Walk—July 31 on Burlingame Avenue
September 19—Coastal Cleanup at Coyote Point from 9am-12pm
September 19—Jackie Speier Foundation Diaper Drive at Sequoia High School from 9:30am-12:30am
Rotary Scholarship Student Presentation
Nancy Ferman-Avila, a third-year student at Chico State and recipient of the 2024 Rotary Scholarship, shared her academic journey and how the scholarship helped her pursue nursing. She discussed her participation in the EOP Summer Bridge program and her recent completion of a Certified Nurse Assistant program.
Program:
Burlingame-Hillsborough’s own Dan Conway, author of Confessions of a Crypto Millionaire
Dan provided an overview of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, explaining the fundamental concepts of Bitcoin and Ethereum. He described how blockchains operate through decentralized networks with trustless consensus mechanisms that prevent fraud.
DIGITAL GOLD
Bitcoin
The original cryptocurrency. Engineered primarily as a decentralized, secure, and sovereign store of value.
WORLD COMPUTER
Ethereum
A programmable blockchain network. Powering trustless consensus, smart contracts, and decentralized apps.
Dan also discussed how Ethereum enables decentralized applications and noted his personal experience using Mirror, a decentralized platform that allowed content creators to monetize their work through NFTs. He emphasized that while crypto can be used for speculation, it also provides tools to bank the unbanked and enable transparent prediction markets.
Dan shared his personal journey into cryptocurrency, describing how he invested in Ethereum during the 2016 bull market and all of the ups and downs in the subsequent years.
Daniel Grossman will share stories from his new book, Seeing Red: Spies, Lies, and My So-Called Life as a Diplomat. As a U.S. diplomat in the USSR in the 80's, he did everything from ducking the fallout from the Chornobyl nuclear explosion to protecting U.S. Senators from sex traps. You'll hear firsthand what it was like to serve on the front lines of the Cold War during one of history's most consequential decades!
