–presented by Bob Sorge, Member Recruitment Officer
Our Member Recruitment Committee continues to encourage all of us to think about individuals in our circle of friends, work colleagues and family members who would make good additions to our Rotary Club.
The committee created an award several years ago to recognize a member who is exceling at sponsoring new members into our club since this is key to maintaining the size of our club. The award is named the Mitch Javid Award to honor Mitch who holds the club’s record for sponsoring the highest number of new members. Since 2014, we annual recognize the member who has served as the primary sponsor to the most new members for the past 3 years–and who are still in our club.
For those who did not know Mitch Javid for which the award is named, Mitch was a member our club from 1968 until his death in 2021. Mitch sponsored 56 members and co-sponsored another 10 members. This distinguished and very busy member who was chairman of the UW Department of Neurosurgery used to say, “I love Rotary. It is very dear to me. I believe in it and so I want to share it with other good people.” Mitch received the first award in 2014. Melanie Ramey and Rob Stroud are past recipients as well as Susan Schmitz who received it for 3 years.
This year’s recipient, for a second year in a row, is Ron Luskin. Ron joined our club in 2014.
Since joining, Ron has been active on the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Ethics Symposium, Program, Rotaract and Swarsensky Award Committees. He also chaired our Vocational Opportunities Committee and is a mentor to one of our Rotary scholars. Ron also served as our club’s Member Recruitment Officer last year.
Ron has served as the primary sponsor to 11 new members since 2019. They are:
Kalvin Barrett, Jason Beloungy, Shawn Carney, Bill Connors, Baltazar De Anda Santana, Rebecca Dopart, Jason Fields, Peter Gray, Alan Klugman, Kyle Nondorf and Jeremiah Robinson.
Congratulations, Ron, on receiving this year’s Mitch Javid Award!
Rotary Club of Madison, Wisconsin 