Get fired up for the Centurions Alumni Year 2010-2011. This year the whole alumni program gets a huge kick in the fanny. We’re planning to perform three times the amount of project hours that the actives are planning on and the all-star class of 1980 has volunteered to plan the first of this year’s four benchmarking trips to Tokyo, London, Buenos Aries and the Seychelles. Volunteer positions are available on the alumni board and committees including the following:

1) Heading up the alumni waterskiing tournament
2) Projects Committee
3) Launching the alumni space program
4) Downtown Baseball Stadium Planning Committee
5) America’s Cup Sailing Entry Committee
6) Social Committee
7) Talking Heads Reunification Committee
8) Greater Kansas City Day
9) Head engineer on the alumni Formula One race team
10) Membership and Communications Committee
11) Cold fusion research team
12) Civic Initiatives Committee

Feel free to e-mail or call Paul Fogel, Centurions Alumni Board president elect to discuss any or all of these opportunities.


*Note: The words and opinions of the President Elect do not reflect those of the Communications/Membership Committee or those of the Alumni Board at large.


Upcoming Events

Mark your calendar for these events open to Centurions alumni.

Leadership Up Close with Robin Sterneck I | 8 a.m. | Thursday, May 13, 2010 | Chamber Chairman's Room
Ms. Sterneck is former Managing Director, Site Leader Managing Director, Site Leader for the Kansas City Office and Global Head of Talent Development for Swiss Re. Currently on sabbatical, she serves on the Women's Intersport Network and Greater Kansas City Community Foundation boards.

Centurions Alumni Association Annual Meeting | Noon to 1 p.m. | Thursday, May 13, 2010| Lidia's Loft
Hear from featured guest Dr. John Covington, Superintendent of the Kansas City, Missouri School District. Plus, vote for next year's board officers. Cost is $20 per person. And don't forget: the Alumni Lunch is the perfect time to join or renew your membership to the Centurions Alumni Association. As a member, you’ll have voting privileges in addition to all the rights and responsibilities of a Centurions alumnus. RSVP to Catherine McComb.

Leadership Up Close with Tom Hoenig | 11:30 a.m. | Thursday, May 25, 2010 | Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
Mr. Hoenig is the longest-serving of the 12 current regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents. He is also host to the bank’s annual Jackson Hole economic policy symposium, which is attended by central bankers, policymakers and economists from around the globe.


As this year’s legacy project the Centurions actives have identified the Martin Luther King School at 42nd Street and Indiana Avenue. Groups of actives have “adopted” a classroom, and the alumni are adopting a classroom as well.

Photos

Profile

Devan Case
Co-founder, Pendulum Studio
Class of 2008

Devan Case is skilled at doing well and doing good. In true Centurions style, he has made an art of balancing professional success with community service in a way that is making a real difference.

A co-founder and principal of architecture firm Pendulum Studio, Devan has been developing and refining his design skills and entrepreneurial spirit for almost two decades. Having worked at prestigious firms like BNIM and Populous, he has been influenced by some of the area’s most respected architects. In 2008, he and a former colleague decided to strike out on their own to launch Pendulum, carving niches in both general practice and sports architecture.

The firm has excelled in those areas and has landed a number of high-profile local projects, but an experience in January 2010 caused Devan to reconsider the firm’s focus.
Two weeks after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, when a health problem kept Devan’s father from making a planned mission trip to the disaster-stricken country, Devan volunteered go in his place. Along with seven other relief workers, he traveled there to provide basic aid for a Port au Prince orphanage. He was committed to the aid task but he quickly developed a broader vision for how he might be able to help. The day before he left, he and his colleagues began conceptualizing ways their architecture and design expertise could directly support the country’s recovery. What they came up with was a rough-draft version of what has now become an innovative relief-effort phenomenon: retrofitted shipping containers that would provide earthquake-resistant, hurricane-resistant temporary and permanent structures to replace the country’s shoddy building infrastructure.

During the group’s five-day mission trip, Devan saw devastation like nothing he had ever witnessed. But, perhaps more importantly, he saw an opportunity to help with the recovery in a very real way. As he walked amid the rubble that had once been homes, office buildings and clinics and he experienced the culture, climate and community, he was able to refine the conceptual ideas he and his staff had developed a few days earlier. When he returned to Kansas City, he had both a renewed sense of appreciation for his personal safety and an energized and informed plan for this new opportunity.

Devan and his colleagues got to work immediately preparing formal plans to design and retrofit the shipping containers. Keeping in mind Haiti’s lack of resources like electricity, plumbing and a sewer system, Devan incorporated components like rainwater-collection devices, solar panels and battery backup systems into the design of the units.
Three weeks later, he traveled to Haiti again, this time for two weeks, to meet with political leaders, doctors, business owners and other community leaders to share his plans and earn their support for the development of these structures. His intention, he told them, is to fabricate the structures in Port au Prince and employ Haitians to construct them, with the hope that funding will come from Haitian sources and non-governmental organizations, or NGOs. The leaders enthusiastically embraced his proposal.
During that visit, Devan set up shop for Pendulum’s satellite office, so the firm now has a physical presence in Port au Prince. He will be traveling there again in both May and June. As word is spreading about the work he is planning, he has also been contacted by leaders in Jamaica and Afghanistan.

“There’s a need in third-world countries and disaster areas,” said Devan, “and we have produced a simple solution to fit an immediate need that can have positive impact on the lives of people.”

Devan Case certainly embodies the Centurions’ tenets of learning, serving and leading. We salute him for his masterful melding of business acumen, courageous entrepreneurship and humble leadership.


Maximize Your Centurions Alumni Association Membership

Now is the perfect time to resolve to join or renew your membership to the Centurions Alumni Association. Your hard work and dedication to the program as an active means you have all the rights and responsibilities of a Centurions alumnus. This one-of-a-kind network of your fellow movers and shakers in Kansas City was never more valuable than right now, when keeping in touch can make a big difference in your career. Or maybe you are looking for a nonprofit board to join or for a qualified and motivated Centurion alum to join your favorite nonprofit board. Or perhaps you’re just looking for the friendly faces and social scene that seems to follow Centurions wherever they go.

Being a paid member of your Centurions Alumni Association helps pave the way for alumni communications, events, and projects like:
• Membership directory
• Annual holiday social
• Quarterly socials for alumni
• Mayor’s breakfast
• Annual alumni event (at which current Chamber Chairman and UMB Bank, n.a., CEO Peter deSilva spoke last year)

Plus, a portion of your dues goes toward scholarships for active Centurions who are employed at small businesses.

So take time now, to join or renew your Centurions Alumni Association membership, and make the most of your alumni status. Call Catherine McComb at 816-374-5464 or e-mail Catherine to request an invoice. Do it today!