Crete Rotary Club
Crete, Nebraska
We had an excellent meeting Wednesday. Because we had a special speaker whose program would run close to an hour, we kept our "business" portion of the meeting shorter than usual. The club was reminded of our next regular meeting coming up on February 8th and of two service projects scheduled for the week of February 20th. Those projects are the annual Elementary Bookfair on the 20th and 23rd and the Scout Pancake Feed on the25th. We will have a signup sheet available at the meeting on the 8th. Jenn Lampila updated the club on our Golden Wheel Award recipient Russ Sears with a thorough accounting of his generous volunteering spirit.
The following is Janelle's recap of our speaker's program:
Rob Simmon, who some of you may know as lead Assistant Governor for the district, and a member of the Glenwood, IA Rotary club, has quite a notable history that we were lucky enough to hear about at the meeting on Wednesday. Rob served as the National Security Agency Representative to STRATCOM (U.S. Strategic Command) from January 1999 to September 2005 when he retired. His jobs were to ensure the Command and its components received the information and intelligence required to accomplish missions, but also to protect the Command's nuclear command and control, communication, and information systems.
He began his career as an Air Force analyst flying combat-support missions with SAC out of Offutt AFB, but also served in leadership positions at Ft. Meade, Maryland and overseas. While he served at Offutt AFB, he had the pleasure of welcoming Former President George Bush Jr. to Omaha after the 9/11 attacks in New York and the DC Area. All flights were grounded, and it was deemed unsafe to return to DC. After making a couple stops along the way, he ultimately came to Offutt AFB because it was the best place to get the information and intelligence he needed to make the best decision at the time. Rob, along with his boss Lt. Gen. Mike Hayden, and the CINC Strat Admiral Rich Mies ensured President Bush had the space and information needed to address the country at the press conference that evening and make critical leadership decisions in the next days and weeks.
Rob and his team played a crucial role not only that day, but throughout his career, and it was recognized by the President as he was leaving. We'd like to thank Rob not only for sharing his experiences with us, but most importantly for his service to our nation throughout his career.
He began his career as an Air Force analyst flying combat-support missions with SAC out of Offutt AFB, but also served in leadership positions at Ft. Meade, Maryland and overseas. While he served at Offutt AFB, he had the pleasure of welcoming Former President George Bush Jr. to Omaha after the 9/11 attacks in New York and the DC Area. All flights were grounded, and it was deemed unsafe to return to DC. After making a couple stops along the way, he ultimately came to Offutt AFB because it was the best place to get the information and intelligence he needed to make the best decision at the time. Rob, along with his boss Lt. Gen. Mike Hayden, and the CINC Strat Admiral Rich Mies ensured President Bush had the space and information needed to address the country at the press conference that evening and make critical leadership decisions in the next days and weeks.
Rob and his team played a crucial role not only that day, but throughout his career, and it was recognized by the President as he was leaving. We'd like to thank Rob not only for sharing his experiences with us, but most importantly for his service to our nation throughout his career.
