Meeting was called to order by President Ripley who thanked everyone involved in the Fullerton Rotary Clock unveiling celebration on January 24th, 2024, special shout out to Bill Mathy. Thoughts of the day, “When you clean out the vacuum cleaner, you become the vacuum cleaner.” Today’s meeting keynote speaker was Navy Captain Jessica O’Brien, so President Ripley jumped right to it.

Captain O’Brien led us our Patriotic Moment with the Pledge of Allegiance. For our Invocation, Past President Bob Sattler led us in prayer, “we just want to thank you for such a beautiful day. For this opportunity together as Rotarians and for the goodwill done around the world. Continue to bless us every day, including this wonderful meal, which we are so fortunate to have. Thank you for those around the world. Amen.”

Proposed New Member: Don McFarland, Brother of Randy McFarland, proposed by Bob Sattler

Today’s guests include Chris Lowe, guest of George Lowe. John Kawase, guest and son of Frank Kawase. John took the time to thank everyone for all the heartfelt words to his father during his difficult times. Don MacFarland was present, guest of Bob Sattler and little brother of Randy “the Joker” McFarland, “I’m his brother and he’s my sister,” joked Randy. Dr. John Christensen DDS, guest, and brother of Bill Christiansen. Rob Jahncke, guest, and son of Bob Jahncke. Welcome to all guest to the Fullerton Rotary Club!

Our Songmaster today was the irreplaceable Bill Edman who, alongside his piano, led us to the tune of “Red River Valley” a popular folk song performed by many authors. Wonderful choice of song. Great Job!

Today’s Announcement: Cathy Gach thanked Scott Dowds and Farmer & Merchants Bank for finding a $10,000 credit for our club. “They have saved us $31,000 by being vigilant with checking at our account. Monica Fernandez announced that a get-well card for Wes Warden, “if you guys can write down a little message for him to get him through this hard time.” Rick Crane announced the 33rd Annual Jim Thompson Track & Field All City Championships, Saturday February 24. This event is hosted by the Fullerton Rotary Club and the Fullerton Rotary Foundation. Those with questions, please contact Rick Crane at rcrane@cranearchitecturalgrp.com. President Ripley announced the Fullerton Observer edition of our club’s clock celebration is out today, featuring the new Rotar Clock presentation.

Today’s Recognition/Fine Master was Mr. Howard Minkley, “Ok, let’s start out, Captain Jennifer, give her a big hand, in fact, all the military veterans, please stand and be recognized.” Today’s fines are worth $2, Bill Edman was fined $2 for his choice of song during our Songmaster segment. He acknowledged Duane Greenleaf, Sueling Chen, Miko Krisvoy, and Dan Ouweleen, Mike Oates who are all celebrating birthdays or anniversaries but were not present, “So, we’re going to get them next time, but for today, the fines just went up to $5.” Randy McFarland was asked to stand and be recognized for his 20th Rotary Anniversary. Jeff Hutchison was recognized for his 40th Rotary Anniversary, he was fined $5. He then fined anyone that did not have any Rotary insignia, pins, or buttons, a $5 fine. Dr. Bob Simon had a humble brag that cost him $5, “we celebrated my wife’s birthday, and our wedding anniversary.” Scott Dowds bragged about his daughter's upcoming wedding nuptials in Hawaii, which cost him a $5 fine. Before he ended his time as Fine Master, he said a little “biddy” by comedian/actor Tim Conway, “Spread the laughter, spread the cheer, and let’s be glad we’re still all here.”

Today’s Program at Hand was introduced by Warren Wimer, “In the mid 1990’s, at 18 years old young lady, fresh out of high school from Mississippi, she said goodbye to her friends and family. Since 1997, she has been moving up in the ranks in the military. Most recently, having returned from the Pentagon, Captain Jessica O’Brien served in several offshore deployments, and she now commands the Seal Beach Naval Weapons station. Please welcome Navy Captain Jessica O’Brien.” She received a warm welcome, “I can’t tell you guys how happy I am to be here to talk about what I do but what the amazing sailors and civilians do at Naval Weapons Station, Seal Beach.” Captain O’Brien says she gets excited to hear it’s for a community driven organization that genuinely want to know about what’s going on with their department of Defense within the Navy. Her presentation focused on what is going on right now in Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station, and what the future holds. “These are exciting times for the Navy and it's really exciting times for Naval Weapons Station, Seal Beach.” Captain O’Brien has been in command for 18 months, having recently transferred from the Pentagon to California, and she couldn’t be happier. According to O’Brien, her station is 5,000 acres of land which include some wetlands and bunkers that are visible from the 405 and the 22 freeways. Her base stores all the weapons for the Navy’s surface ships, with an installation of about 8,000 acres in Camp Pendleton, where she stores more Navy ammunition for the United States Marine Corps ships that deploy from San Diego. O’Brien is also in charge of a small detachment in Norco, California, “we’ve got the Warfare Center at Corona.” She refers herself as the mayor of a small city, her base has a Public Works Department, a Fire Department, and Police and Environmental Departments as well. “I’ve got housing, I house both officers and across all branches of the Department of Defense, not just the Navy.” These are her primary objectives as Base Commander but calls Brad Rosen, her boss and the Commander of the Southwest Navy Region. Her peers are the installation Commanders at Naval Air Station Lemoore, California and Fallon Naval Air Station at Fallon, Nevada. Her base takes in ships that come from Hawaii up to San Diego to either load or unload their weapons, “we’ve got over 100 magazines with some being built right now.” In the past, the moving of weapons was done through the use of a rail system, but since they have moved to a more fiscally and environmental way with the use of trucks. Over 100 rail cars are in the process of being recycled through the Navy and re-investing that money back into her naval community, but she says that the process is long, “that money can help the base and improve the quality of life for my sailors.” She talked about the new Economic Impact Study for her base and she has no doubt that the numbers are going to go up significantly, with civilians outnumbering military personnel 2 to 1. Civilians are people that work the cranes at the wharf, and the public works and facilities department, “a lot of these folk are absolutely wonderful civilians that have dedicated their lives to working for the Navy.” Captain O’Brien wants to make sure Seal Beach Station does not go the way of China Lake Base, in Ridgecrest, California, so as the mayor, she is in charge of a lot of tenants, including folks that take care of their building. “You know, I take care of all the infrastructure on the base, the Navy munitions, so I’m commander of that too, so I wear two hats.” She calls the US Pacific Fleet in Hawaii the heart and soul of the Navy, but her base has what she calls a Maritime Expeditionary Squadron, two Marine Units, one Infantry Unit, one Defense Logistics Agency, and an NCIS that are all home to Seal Beach Base. The heart and soul of what they do there is load or unload weapons, conduct maintenance on weapons like surface to air missiles for all of the Navy. Captain O’Brien says that it takes a week to load a ship that is getting ready to go on deployment, and the same time to unload weapons from a ship coming home. Ship maintenance is also something that is done at Seal Beach, “most of those are down in San Diego at some large shipyard,” Captain O’Brien says. “So, we take them, out them into the bunkers and wait for the next ship that needs those particular weapons and we load them back.” She calls this a never-ending cycle. Of those 5,000 acres in Orange County, she is most excited about the wetlands, where she runs in every morning. She has a US fish and wildlife manager that works on base and manages the wetlands section that has been designated as a refuge during the Nixon administration, “he actually signed about1,000 acres of my 5,000 as a fish and wildlife refuge.” The wildlife manager oversees working with the base biologist and environmental team that the Navy employs, “they also have a volunteer organization called Friends of the Refuge, that took a hiatus during COVID, but they are back full course, and they are giving tours on the weekends.” Captain O’Brien couldn’t be happier with the volunteers and the work they do with the wetlands. She briefly touched on the agricultural outlets that are visible while driving on the 405, a farming operation with two plots north and south of the freeway that grew some of the best carrots ever which were sold at Whole Foods and all over Orange County, making her base the last Navy installation to have farmland. A beekeeper works on the south side plot maintaining the bee hives and its honey, “funny enough, this honey is sold at Whole Foods, it does not say it’s from the Naval Weapons Station at Seal Beach.” Anyone interested in touring her facilities are encouraged to sign up given their background check comes back clean. The future of Seal Beach is to continue being the most strategic place for the Navy surface fleet in the Pacific, so most of the Navy’s budget goes into ships and personnel. What keeps her base up to standards is the construction of magazines, weapons storage warehouses, that have been built and are being built, “there’s six that were just completed, and we’ve got four more under construction now that are going to completely finished by March/April timeframe, with more to come in the next three to five years.” Construction for a 12-megawatt solar facility is currently being constructed, which will serve in the event some type of power outage and earthquake disaster event happens. A new pier on the wharf is basically complete and ready for ships to come in on, “we are still working on some of the outline buildings that would be supporting some of our services, but the pier itself is ready to go.” The old pier will be continued to be used until mid-March, and then the new pier will be the primary place that they will be loading and unloading up to two ships at a time. To end her presentation, Captain O’Brien took questions from members present. President Ripley presented her with a Rotary pin, the four-way test, and a certificate in her name to Working Dogs 4 Warriors which rescues dogs and trains them and teams them up with veterans and first responders.

Last thing on the agenda was the 50/50 drawing worth a total of $28, lucky ticket holder ending in 4887 wins the money. “Thank you everyone for coming today. Please join us for next week’s program, University of California Vice Chancellor Dr. Steven Goldstein UCI’s Path to Success. Don’t forget to hit that like and subscribe button. Meeting is adjourned.”