Special Event: Rotary Resolution Run

January 16, 2010 was Addison Midday Rotary hosted the Rotary Resolution Run and it was a fabulous success. We had over 600 runners on a lovely Saturday morning (okay, it was a little rainy, but the weather was overall very nice - Thanks Ron!!). It was a near record turnout. It was a lot of fun from the set up on Friday to the early morning last minute rush on Saturday (okay, getting there that early was not so fun, but once the runners started showing up...)! It was great, we had fabulous pizza and beer (ask Chris, there might be some left...).

We were able to raise money for a fabulous cause, the Mary Kay Foundation. Once again, Neil pulled everything together and while it might not seem like it will work it always does. I think everyone who contributed should give themselves a big round of applause!

Next Speaker:  Michael Newhouse

Michael Newhouse has marketing in his blood. He started his own lawn care business at age 12, M&M Landscaping with his friend Michael (hence the M&M), they sold their service by handing out flyers with bags of M&M's® attached. He now owns his own marketing firm, Mike Newhouse Enterprises where he serves as an internet marketing consultant, helping businesses with search engine optimization, social media marketing, email marketing and other unique projects.

Next Speaker:  Bob Epstein, Texas Homeland Security and The Civil Air Patrol

Bob Epstein is a Plano Rotary Club member and a First Vice President with Merrill Lynch in Dallas as a Wealth Management Advisor. He has an MBA from the University of Arlington and a B.S. from the University of Richmond.

Bob talked to us about border security and the war on drugs. It was very interesting finding out about how many people are smuggled in and all the drugs that are smuggled in and what Civil Air Patrol is doing to help stop the influx of people and drugs come across the border. Every week the Civil Air Patrol is going to run "missions" to help police our border.

The Civil Air Patrol is also still tasked with Search and Rescue where the pilots work with a ground team to locate and finding missing people. All in all it was quite an interesting talk about what Homeland Security is doing and how the Civil Air Patrol, an all volunteer group mostly comprised or ex-military, is helping in keeping our country safe.