Speakers

There will be no regular noon meeting on Tuesday, June 19.

Instead, please join us for the President’s Celebration, honoring our Lady in Red, President Diane Tebelius,at  6:00PM, at the Embassy Suites, 3225 158th Avenue SE, Bellevue. There will be a no-host bar, dinner, and free parking. Dress is business RED. Wear something/anything RED!

Slade Gorton began his political career in 1958 as a Washington State representative; he went on to serve as state House majority leader. In 1968, he was elected state Attorney General. He served three terms, during which he argued 14 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He focused on consumer protection, closing down shady car dealers, exposing pyramid schemes, reducing vehicle pollution and preserving public access to ocean beaches. On his watch, the office tripled the number of citizen complaints it resolved. He was active in organizations to improve the training of law officers, creating a base of support from law enforcement that lasted through his Senate
 career.

Slade’s strategic skills were highly valued during the three terms he served in the Senate. When complicated legislation came to the Senate floor with members squabbling over elements of a bill, they regularly turned to Slade, who calmly worked with competing viewpoints and found solutions that allowed needed legislation to pass. His intellect and ability to create compromise earned him a spot as formal counsel to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, and he was a key strategist in passing major welfare reform and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.

Dennis Moran began his career in the Alaska commercial fishing industry as a processor during the 1984 Bristol Bay salmon season. He earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington in 1987 and a Juris Doctorate in 1990.

Mr. Moran spent the next 23 years working as a maritime attorney and advisor to fishing companies in Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, the UK, the Russian Federation, South Korea, Mexico, and French Polynesia.

Recycling has been in the news lately, and Gregg Brummer is Bellevue’s leading expert on the changes in the international recycling markets.

Gregg joined Republic Services in 2014, from a leadership position at BlueLinx Corporation.

Mar Smith Brettmann, PhD, founded Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking (BEST). For ten years, Mar worked as a professor at universities in the United States, Malaysia, and the West Indies, where she taught courses in philosophy, ethics, and religion and published articles on human rights topics. In her research, she found herself increasingly concerned about the brutal exploitation of children, women, and impoverished laborers that takes place through human trafficking.

In 2011, Mar participated in a conversation of experts on human trafficking who were seeking to identify effective interventions to proactively prevent this victimization. The group recognized that businesses were absolutely key to prevention yet they were largely missing from the national response.

Since starting Cre8ive Empowerment in March of 2013, Saul Spady has “been blessed to work with an incredible range of companies,” including Dick’s Drive‑In, Mary’s Place, Uber, ReachNow, Lyft, Arizona School Choice Trust, Community Forums Network, Pilgrim Africa, and many more.

Shiv Batra has been a Bellevue Rotarian since 2000 and a resident of Washington State since 1979. Prior to coming to Washington, he and his wife attended the University of Nebraska. They have 2 children and 4 grandchildren, and they all live in the Seattle area.

In 1983 Shiv co‑founded an Engineering Company called INCA Engineers. Since the 1990’s, the Company has been heavily engaged in the planning and design of several locks and dams on the Columbia, Ohio, and Mississippi River systems, and also on the Panama Canal.

Phil Talmadge is a graduate of West Seattle High School, as a National Merit scholar. He has a B.A. (magna cum laude) from Yale and a J.D. from the University of Washington, where he was on the Law Review.

Phil served in the Washington State Senate from 1979 to 1995. He chaired the Judiciary and Health Care Committees in the Senate, where he was a leader in court reform, alternate dispute resolution, crime victims’ rights, domestic violence prevention, public health, mental health, and health care reform. He served on the Washington Supreme Court from 1995 to 2001. He promoted the judicial information system, privacy of court records, and court reform.

Patti Skelton-McGougan has been the Chief Executive Officer of Youth Eastside Services since 1997. She holds a degree in Social Work/Sociology from Washington State University, and is a graduate of the University of Washington’s Cascade Public Executive Program and Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business’ Executive Program.