Posted by Jeff Benson on Feb 27, 2018
Mary Stewart opened the meeting with the Pledge and an Invocation.
 
Garry Johnson introduced his guest, former Vadnais Heights Rotarian, Jeff Niesen.  Jeff is with Lake Community Bank.
 
President Gerry Tietz inducted our newest member, Mounds View City Administrator Nyle Zikmund.  See photo above.
 
 
Jason Miller had the honor of presenting two Paul Harris Fellow awards today.  Margaret Johnson received her Paul Harris Fellow+1 and Cindy Carlson received her Paul Harris Fellow+5.  Margaret and Cindy are pictured above.
 
Happy Bucks Highlights
- Mary Stewart has returned from her family vacation in Arizona.
- Jim O’Brien has a new great-grandson.
- Nicole Ulrich took the Polar Plunge for Special Olympics, her team raising over $1,300.
 
Beverly Aplikowski reported that 59 tickets have been sold for the Gold Plate Dinner.  Let’s get out there and sell the remaining 41.  John Marg-Patton followed up with the drawing for this week’s GPD ticket sales contest.  Mike Neeley and Jason Miller had each sold three tickets this week and Mike Neeley was selected by lot to receive this week’s prize.  Since next week’s meeting is at the CPY Luncheon, we’ll report on the next two week’s winners at our March 13th meeting.  While you're out there selling tickets, think about restaurants you frequent that might be willing to donate a gift certificate for our "Dine Around Town" bundles to be auctioned off at the Gala.  An information brochure can be downloaded here.
 
Cindy Carlson updated us on the many District 5960 matching grants in process for our District.
 
Gerry noted that the District’s “Conference of Clubs” (formerly the District Assembly) will be held on April 19-20 at Mystic Lake Conference Center.  This conference is a great way to learn more about the many ways that Rotary is a force for good in the world.  Get more details here.
 
Gerry Tietz was proud to introduce his son, Nick Tietz and former Minneapolis Police Chief Janae Harteau to talk about Vitals Aware Services, a new service providing police officers real-time information that may help them approach and calm vulnerable individuals with physical or mental health issues and help prevent overreaction or escalation by police officers.  Nick is the Director of Technology for the company and Janae is the Public Safety Officer.  Nick reviewed some mental health statistics, revealing that 1 in 5 adults will experience a mental health crisis during their lifetime and that 1 in 10 police response calls involve someone in mental health crisis!  Janae explained that police officers are generally well trained to respond to typical situations but each mental health crisis is as unique as the individual who experiences it.  This argues strongly for an individualized police response to each situation.  Vitals Aware Services provides information about vulnerable individuals’ mental health status, including emotional triggers, calming methods and other information to prevent escalation or defuse an already escalated situation.  With an estimated 100 Million vulnerable adults in the U.S. and 1.3 million in Minnesota, it would seem that there is a great need for this kind of service.  The rollout of this service is going very well with subscribers in seventeen communities and five police departments on board so far. 
 
Here’s how it works.  A family provides a detailed personalized profile of the vulnerable person.  This profile is keyed to a “beacon” which is worn or carried.  When this beacon carrying person is within 80 feet of a police officer with a software enabled cell phone, the phone will alert the officer of the presence of the vulnerable individual.  While the individual is within the 80 foot range, the officer has access to the entire profile provided by the family.  All personal data is encrypted for privacy and only police officers can access the profile.  This service is available for just $9.95/month, a small price to pay for the peace of mind it offers.  Nick, Janae and proud poppa Gerry are shown below.