Speakers

Mary Beth Schaye is a zero waste consultant and worked for Collective Resource Compost Cooperative, food scrap hauling cooperative based in Evanston, Illinois for 14 years. She continues this work after their recent merger with The Urban Canopy. Their Compost Club is one branch of this unique, Chicago-based business, which has 7 branches, all related to keeping food production and food waste management local and sustainable. 

Mary Beth will give an overview about how diverting food scraps from landfills helps to mitigate climate change and explains how the container-swap commercial composting service her company provides helps both residential and commercial customers to be a part of the solution. Other related services of facilitating zero waste events and recycling of hard-to-recycle items are also covered.

Kendall Crist is a Managing Partner at Triple Point Strategy, a crypto research and investment firm. He brings nearly a decade of experience, having started investing in crypto in 2017. Kendall has a longstanding commitment to service, from running a 24-hour race to raise money for Make-A-Wish to volunteering at his local food bank. Kendall will tell us about the human side of cryptocurrencies. In this talk, Kendall Crist explains why digital assets like Bitcoin can be a better solution than traditional options for responding to humanitarian crises. From the 2022 invasion of Ukraine to drought response in Kenya, this educational presentation is designed to show you what cryptocurrencies can make possible for real people around the world.

Anthony Auston has been working in libraries for over 30 years. For the past 20years, Anthony has been a public library administrator including 8 years as Director of Wilmette Public Library. Originally from Minneapolis, he relocated to north Evanston in 2001 to complete his Masters in Library and Information Science at Dominican University.

Director Auston provides an overview of Wilmette Library’s recent achievements, long range strategic vision, and how today’s libraries are becoming more responsive and vital to communities than ever.

Dick Farkas is a fascinating speaker who always presents lively topics. He will tell us about an unusual, unlikely, and forgotten hero of world war 2. This brief talk will focus on the person that Yogi Berra called the smartest ball player ever. This character is clearly among the handful of men who affected the outcome of the war. 

 

Chief Brian Lambel began his fire service career in 1990 as a firefighter in Lincolnshire and then Village of Mount Prospect in 2000, where he was appointed fire Chief in 2016. Chief Lambel retired from the Mount Prospect Fire Department in April of 2021 and began a new chapter in his career as the Fire Chief for the Wilmette Fire Department. 

Chief Lambel has an AAS in Fire Science, a BS in Fire Science Administration and an MPA from NIU. Brian is associate member of our Rotary Club and also a member of the River Cities Rotary.  He is currently the President of the Illinois Fire Chiefs Association.