The meeting started at 12:15 with a ring from Emily’s great grandmother’s bell.
Michael Kimball led the 33 participants in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Paul Watermulder gave the invocation—a pray for the pandemic. He encouraged us to “wrap our arms around each other and find ways to ways to be the loving embrace of humanity. And, to our neighbors, be aware, be accepting, be supportive, and please be kind.”
Guests of the Club
- Lisa Lillelund, speaker, from Proterra
- Matt Southward, colleague of Joe La Mariana, from Rethink Waste
- Grant Ligon, colleague of Joe La Mariana, from Rethink Waste
Announcements
Jim Shypertt’s sunshine report had the good news that Emily’s father is doing very well.
Marilyn Orr thanked the many members who have paid their dues and reminded those who haven’t to please pay them online (there’s a link on the home page of Club’s website) or send a check. She also asked that members check their primary contact information in ClubRunner and update it as needed. Due to the pandemic, many offices are closed, so if members have their office address as their primary contact, they may want to change it.
Doug Person reminded members that two member applications were approved by the Board last week and have been sent out to members for review. If there are no objections, Donna Colson and Bobba Venkatadri will be introduced at next week’s meeting. Fritz asked if he could object to a current member. Emily jokingly took umbrage at the jab.
Newcast+
Fritz Brauner admitted that shelter in place has led him to even more online exploration. He’s taken to Googling Rotarians. One that caught his attention was Mike Heffernan. In LinkedIn, three Mike Heffernans come up in search—CEO of Heffernan Insurance Brokers, Heffernan Lawn Management, and Co-Chief Flamingo at Flamingo Friday Associates.
Co-Chief Flamingo was just too good not to pursue. Fritz asked Burlingame Rotary’s Mike Heffernan to explain himself. It came down to cocktails—a monthly neighborhood gathering. It started when Mike’s Co-Chief told the story of a group of friends in a trailer park who gathered on Fridays for happy hour. They knew where to go, because a flock of flamingos was in front of the trailer that was hosting that week. The duo decided to bring that to San Francisco’s Cole Valley. It was a hit and continues today with social distancing and masks. It also kicked off what has become a years-long hunt and procurement campaign—the quarry being flamingo kitsch. (Thanks, eBay.) Mike admitted that his garage is filled with thousands of flamingo items, including 100 flamingo wine glasses. Could there be a flamingo fundraiser at Mike and Jo’s post C19?
Tales of flamingo follies was the perfect segue to Wendi Upchurch’s announcement.
Wendi and her team of flockers are selling Home Flockings. “What the flock?” was the reaction from members. Wendi explained that Home Flockings are the perfect gift for nearly any occasion—birthdays, anniversaries (nothing says love like a flocking), get well wishes, or just for the flock of it. For $75, a flock of 20 flamingos will fly to lawns in Burlingame, Hillsborough, San Mateo, and Millbrae at night. They’ll stay for the next day and fly away that evening. 100% of proceeds from Home Flockings go to the Club.
Order info is on the Club’s website—link on home page or go to www.burlingamerotary.org/page/Fun-Flock. Members are encouraged to send a flock flying and to join the team of flockers—contact Wendi.
Program
Emily introduced Lisa Lillelund, director of channel sales at Proterra. Proterra is a leader in the design and manufacture of zero-emission electric transit vehicles, and Proterra Powered electric vehicle technology solutions for heavy-duty applications. Since 2004, Proterra technology has been proven through more than 12 million miles on the road in our purpose-built electric transit buses.
A few stats about Proterra:
• 575+ employees, with strong transportation expertise
• 95+ customers
• 950 vehicles sold
• >55,000,000 pounds of CO2 emissions avoided
• 2 million gallons of fuel-burning avoided
Proterra is located in Burlingame with headquarters on Rollins Road. It also has offices and manufacturing in Los Angeles and Greenville, South Carolina. Its battery manufacturing is done in Burlingame, and bus manufacturing is done in LA and Greenville.
Proterra has sold over 700 buses to more than 90 customers across 39 U.S. states and 2 Canadian provinces. These fleets include school buses, coach buses, and double-deck buses.
These buses are built with Proterra’s heavy-duty technology platform. Power is supplied to Proterra’s buses via custom-built charging stations, but use “universal plug-in” design for chargers.
Proterra developed battery technology to meet the requirements of heavy-duty vehicles with industry-leading energy density for maximum range. Its batteries have been road-tested over more than 12 million. Proterra batteries
are designed to fit within a wide variety of vehicles, and they’re big—the size of a door and weighing more than 1500 pounds. They have also been ruggedized so they can withstand harsh environments. Safety is a high priority, since Proterra manufactures buses, which carry lots of people. One of Proterra’s test environments is a thermal machine with temperatures ranging from sub-zero to 130 Fahrenheit. One customer had them to ballistics testing on the battery. Yep. What happens when you shoot the battery.
Proterra has also developed a connected vehicle intelligence system, Proterra APEX. It’s a cloud-based platform that provides historical and real-time information about the fleet to optimize bus and charging operations and reduce costs. It includes vehicle monitoring, remote diagnostics, preventative maintenance, and charger management.
Proterra’s vehicles have help fleet operators abandon fossil fuels, improve environmental quality, and reduce operating costs. Together with its customers, Proterra has prevented more than 55 million pounds of greenhouse gases from escaping into the atmosphere and avoided burning some 2 million gallons of fuel.
Lisa answered a number of tough questions from the audience showing her depth of knowledge about the company and its products.
Emily thanked Lisa for coming, and the meeting was adjourned with a ring of the bell at 1:24.
Q&A
Joe M. asked the first questions hiring and staff. Joe are you looking for a new job or auditing their garbage service plan. Joe then followed up with question about what happens to the used/old batteries. I think he is deep into a Proterra refuse audit and is preparing a RED TAG to be delivered after our meeting today.
There were other questions about whether Proterra was going to go public, who their partners are, expansion plans, etc.
Pierre was concerned with how the batteries got into the busses. It’s the F _ _ _cking Flamigos, Pierre.
Jim S. was trying to help Lage with his legal expertise into becoming a patent attorney and when challenged by Lisa invoked Barry Parker. Come on Jim! At which point our fearless President jumped back in to put the train back on the track.
Fritz could not let the Flamignos go and the F word is back!!!!!
Watch the Zoom Recording by clicking Here!
Password to access the recording is: *&HHxw.7
