Newsletter - Current  Feb 1, 2012

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Editarian: Jerry Allen   

Asst. Editarian: Gene Spanarella                                                                     

Club Photographer : Brad Mikel    

Next Week

February 8, 2012

How to Network Confidently with a Giving Attitude

David Lampe

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President Howard Hall welcomed everyone including many elected officials, military guests, and city employees.

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Bill Rapp delivered the invocation.

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This Week

February 1, 2012

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State of the Base

Lisa Buckley, Chair of the Chamber Defense Council, introduced

 Col. Dan Dant, Commander of the

460th Space Wing.

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 Col. Dant briefly reviewed the history of Buckley Air Force Base. It was named for John Buckley, an airman from Longmont that died in WWI.

In 1946, the base was opened as the Colorado Air National Guard Base.

In 2001, it became an Air Force Base and the home of 83 different organizations and a Joint Force Base which hosts 3 foreign contingents.  It also provides services for 83,000 retirees.

Buckley employs 13,000 people.

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 Col. Dant explained that operating Buckley is like running a small city.

For the last 8 years, Buckley has received the most Milcon, construction money.  This will end as Buckley has been mostly built out.

Buckley has 4 main tasks:

Missile Warning

Missile Defense

Technical Awareness

Nuclear Detection

It does this through the operation of space satelites, one of which is in highly elliptical orbit and one of which is in geosynchronous orbit.

The task has been enormoustly complicated by the proliferation of countries with ICBMs.

Buckley is a premier air base and winner of the Aldrich Award for the best base.

The base is operated with these guiding principles:

-The base is at war 24/7

-People are essential and theiir training is important as is their retention.

-Community - to be good neighbors with Aurora

-Budget- More has to be done with less.

Buckley has a yearly impact of $1,000,000,000 to the local economy.

Full House 

205 guests attended the event

Non-Walking Wounded

Past President Tom Nicholas took a bad fall down some stairs.  He broke his hip and will be out of commission for some time.

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 Good News

The Economist Magazine reported that India has recorded one year of no new polio cases.  It credited the efforts of Rotary.

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Wendy DeBell has collected 19 nominations of outstanding students from the two school districts.  She has conducted board voting and will make the students of the year awards on 2/15.