Our Avenues of Service Awards recognize members of our club for their contributions to our Club, to our community, to youth programs, to international programs, and for sharing their vocation.
Valerie Renk has been selected for this year’s Club Avenue of Service Award.
Professionally, Valerie Renk retired as CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Dane County in 2023 and presently owns her own development consulting business.
Since joining Rotary in 2012 she has extensively served our club in a variety of ways. In addition, to serving on our Club’s Board of Directors for two years, she has served on several committees that include Budget and Finance, Member Engagement, Fund Drive, International Projects, Personnel, Photography, and as chair of our Rotary News Committee. She has been a Rotary Scholar Mentor, including hosting our Rotary Scholar mentor picnic with her husband at their farm. She and her husband have also hosted a number of our Dinner and Discussion Fellowship Group events. She has served on our Madison Rotary Foundation, including as President in 2023-24. Currently she chairs our Foundation’s Major Gifts Committee.
It is an honor on behalf of our club, to thank Valerie for her extensive contributions with the 2025 Rotary Club of Madison Club Service Award!
Scott Strong pictured here with DEI Committee Co-chairs Sara Eskrich (left) and Rebekah Pare (right)
In 2015, our Club was the first large Rotary club to establish a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Our strategic plan states that we will achieve diversity, equity and inclusion through recruitment, education, member engagement and community service. It’s an overarching theme that guides all we do as a club for our members and for our community.
Last year, we created a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award to recognize a member whose commitment helps in advancing these guiding principles.
Juan Jose Lopez, who passed away in 2023, would have been a valid candidate for this award. During his 26 years of membership, he served on our club’s board of directors, on our foundation board of trustees, and he chaired our scholarship committee. Juan was a strong advocate for promoting inclusivity and creating change in our community. As we recognize a member with our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award, this year we will add Juan Jose Lopez’s name to the title.
This year’s recipient is Scott Strong. Scott is executive director of RISE Wisconsin, and he joined our Rotary Club in 2008.
Scott has been a member of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee for 8 years and has co-chaired it for 2 years. He has led DEI sessions at the Rotary Tri-Con events. Scott has also served on our club board of directors, as Sgt-at-Arms and is a long-time member and past chair of our Youth Awards Committee.
For Scott’s leadership efforts in advancing the principles of our club’s commitment to our DEI goals, we are presenting him with our 2024 Rotary Club of Madison Juan Jose Lopez Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award. Thank you, Scott, for continuing to help us advance the successes of our committee’s work.
Congratulations, Scott, on this well-deserved award!
Our Member Recruitment Team 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 in 2014 to recognize a member who is excelling at sponsoring new members into our club. The award is named after Rotarian Mitch Javid (jah-VEED) Award as a way to honor him for holding the club’s record for sponsoring the highest number of new members. We annually 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.
Here’s a little background on Mitch Javid. He 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 said, “I love Rotary. It is very dear to me. I believe in it and so I want to share it with other good people.”
Ron Luskin (right) pictured here with Club President Charles McLimans
This year’s recipient, for a third year in a row, is Ron Luskin, who joined our club in 2014.
Since joining, Ron has been active on the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and is a past co-chair. He has been involved in planning our Ethics Symposium, Program, Rotaract, Rotary Scholar Mentoring, Vocational Opportunities and Swarsensky Award Committees. Ron is a past Member Recruitment Officer for our club as well.
Ron has served as the primary sponsor to 12 new members since 2020. They are:
Kalvin Barrett, Jason Beloungy, Shawn Carney, Bill Connors, Baltazar De Anda Santana, Kai Gardner Mishlove, Jason Fields, Peter Gray, Alan Klugman, Kyle Nondorf, Jara Rios-Rodriguez and Jeremiah Robinson.
Let’s congratulate Ron, on receiving the Mitch Javid again this year!
From left, Ellie Schatz, Club President Charles McLimans and Regina Millner
It was 1994 when Regina and I, already friends, joined Rotary. The professional element of membership is part of her story, but the friendship element prevails for me. It gives me great pleasure to be part of honoring Regina with the Joseph G. Werner Meritorious Service Award.
This award was established in 1974 in remembrance of Joseph G Werner, a dedicated Rotarian, who served as club president in 1953-54, district governor in 58-59, and a director of Rotary International in 69-71. He was in line to become Rotary international President at the time of his death in 1973. Throughout his life, Joseph G. Werner epitomized the Rotary objective and vision of “Service Above Self” at home and abroad.
Regina has been active in so many city and Rotary groups and committees that I can highlight only a couple of areas in which she has made major contributions.
First, her role in the creation of Monona Terrace. She believed that having a cultural center would be a catalyst for resurgence in downtown Madison. She helped make clear to developers the economic and fiscal benefits of such a center and then brought Rotary into the picture by encouraging members to serve as guides.
Second, her service on the Board of Regents. At the time the legislature was pushing to eliminate tenure. Regina was among those who fought for policy-driven tenure. This provided UW-Madison faculty the freedom to pursue bold research and teaching agendas, and ensured that scholarship was allowed to flourish.
In both the Monona Terrace and tenure track debates, Regina says her role was to promote an understanding of longterm traditions and how to align those with current ideas for needed change. She says, “I throw out ideas because I want to get things started. I then surround myself with people who will take up the dialogue.”
In Rotary, Regina is proud to have promoted the growth of our scholarship committee. Early on the vast majority of applicants were girls and thus awards to boys were sadly lacking. That situation may not be as dire as it was back then, she says, but giving scholarships and mentorships is the most important thing we do, and the role of maturation must be examined as applicants are being considered by school leaders and Rotary committee members.
As club President in 2006-07, Regina’s first focus was to bring in good, new members. Then she concentrated on advocating for excellent programs. Her leadership is now focused on the Program Committee. She feels strongly that the podium in not a pulpit. Bringing in entertaining as well as thought-provoking programs is most important.
Last but not least, Regina points out the power of Rotary International. She recommends following her commitment to Rotary while traveling. It was through visits abroad, she says, that she came to understand the common goal of “service above self” in clubs around the world but with different local goals that express cultural individuality.
In 2008, Regina and I were a part of a Rotary delegation to a project in Peru called Cecade. We visited schools, shared stories in English, Spanish, and Quechua, and interacted with children, who are wonderfully alike worldwide. Our hosts invited us to their home, took us into the mountains, and insured that we got to see their native citizens at rest, at work, and at play.
And finally we were driving home at something like 1-2 o’clock in the morning after a flight that had been rerouted from Peru to Panama because someone had died on board. We’d spent hours in a closed airport in the middle of the night because our large plane blew out 2 tires landing on a short runway and the replacement tires had to be flown in from Atlanta. Regina had her car at her son’s house not far from O’Hare and offered us a ride home. Needless to say we were all a little wobbly after a harrowing flight. We were nearing home when red lights and a siren were upon us from behind. In answer to the officer’s question as to why we were on the road, Regina said, “We’ve just come from Peru.” Evidently there had been a game at Perdue that day, because he exclaimed Perdue! “Not Perdue,” Regina replied, PERU. He let her drive on, warning us to stay alert.
So here’s to Rotary, friendships, the Werner award and the well deserved 2023 recipient, Regina Millner!
Teresa Holmes pictured here with Club President Charles McLimans
In 2015, our Club was the first large Rotary club to establish a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. In doing so, we were ahead of Rotary International by five years.
Our Club’s strategic plan commits us to achieving diversity, equity and inclusion through recruitment, education, member engagement and community service.
The importance of this commitment brought our Club’s Board of Directors to create a new annual service award to recognize a member who has contributed to our Club’s DEI endeavors. I am pleased today to announce that Teresa Holmes is our club’s first DEI Service Award recipient.
Teresa has chaired our DEI Committee, served on our Board of Directors, was our Club president for the Rotary Year that began on July 1, 2020, and spearheaded a strategic planning/governance task force that has resulted in streamlining and creating continuity within our club’s committees and leadership. In each of these roles, she shared her insights about how our Club could achieve our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion goals. Teresa is recognized as a leader who diligently worked to align our values with our practices. We are confident that she will continue her DEI commitments as a Board member of Rotary District 6250 while she serves a 2-year term on its Board which began on July 1.
Congratulations, Teresa and thank you for your Rotary service!
From left: Joyce Bromley, Jim Christensen and Club President Paul Hoffmann
The Member Recognition Committee was established by our Board of Directors to annually recommend members who have exhibited outstanding service in one of Rotary’s Five Avenues of Service: Service to our Club; Service to the Community; Service to the international community; to vocational service; and to youth service.
On behalf of the Rotary Club of Madison, I am honored to announce that Jim Christensen has been selected to receive the Community Service Award.
In the 30 years that Jim has been a member of our club, he has served us well in a variety of ways.
He has served on our club’s board of directors, has been a mentor to several Rotary Scholars, has been a regular volunteer at our annual Ethics Symposium, and he currently chairs our Member Retention Committee.
We see him at work within our Club and on behalf of our club in the community. He has been involved over the longest period of time with the Community Projects Committee, where he has served as its chair and regularly volunteers in its group activities within the community. He helps organize and contributes to our holiday gift project for children in need. He has organized and participated in a number of tree planting projects at area schools.
Additionally, he volunteered at Ironman, at Habitat for Humanity, and the picnic we held at Concerts on the Square for One City School students. Jim is a champion in helping our Rotary Club make a difference in our community.
For Jim’s continual service over 30 years, our Club has made a $200 gift in his name to The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International for his Community Service.
Rotary Club of Madison, Wisconsin 