“Surround yourself with good people, treat them right, and make everyone successful.”
We were honored to welcome guest speaker Dale Carlsen, founder and former CEO of Sleep Train as well as the founder of the Ticket to Dream Foundation. Carlsen, the son of a Rotarian, was interviewed by Chair of the Day Elfrena Foord, and he shared some of the values and key lessons that guided him to personal and professional success.
In honor of Mr. Carlsen’s presence, Bryan Murray’s Thought for the Day was on the importance of sleep with tips on how to achieve it.
Josh Pelz, freshly minted head of the meeting sponsor committee, promoted meeting sponsorship as a great way to introduce Rotarians to good work being done by yourself or others while supporting the club! You read that right: sponsorship is a great opportunity to promote your business and how other Rotarians can work with you, and if you’re so inspired you can always donate your time to a nonprofit you support! For $350 you get three minutes to talk about whatever you want. A bunch of Rotarians signed up instantly – Jim Relles, PP Walter Dahl, Bryan Murray, Ted White, Maggie Hopkins, April Javist, Rick Davis, Bradley Schmidt, Paul Keefer. Thank you!
The Sac Century is Upon Us! (What are YOU doing next weekend?)
With just a week to go, your help is deeply needed in the following critical tasks:
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- Unloading the truck from 3-6pm Saturday afternoon
- Unloading the truck from 10-12 on Sunday
- Serving as the volunteer at the SABA (Sac Area Bicycle Advocates) Bike Valet
- Housekeeping during the post-race festival (could probably use more volunteers but big thanks to Megan Laurie, Bryan Murray, PP Peter Dannenfelser and Elfrena Foord for stepping up in the moment).
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Please contact the club if you can help out.
Put Me In, Coach!
Dave McKie celebrated a milestone birthday. Jim Leet celebrated his 35th wedding anniversary, sharing one insight that his younger self learned the hard way: never give your wife a formal performance review. Eric Solis honored his daughters’ college successes.
Club Announcements
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- International Day of Peace – District 5180 is honoring the United Nations’ official Day of Peace this weekend with a speaker series on peace studies at CalExpo. Learn more here.
- Dave Higdon’s memorial – the gathering will take place next Wednesday, September 25, 4pm at the Scottish Rite Temple.
- Brown Bag Day – will be Tuesday, October 8 – the list of participating locations has gone out, so please sign up!
- Hiking – PP Jim Leet is looking to create hiking outings for Rotarians. Interested in being part of deciding where and when? Please contact Jim.
- Dictionaries – April Javist reminded everyone that a signup sheet for dictionary distribution with the Sacramento Literacy Project went out earlier this week.Volunteers will help provide 3rd graders in under-resourced schools with a free dictionary. Where possible, please sign up for slots where one person has already committed to attending. The sign up form is here.
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The club welcomed visiting Rotarian Ndudi Osakwe from the Rotary Club of Jerusalem, who is traveling to promote “Africa is Emerging,” his new book about why Africa represents a valuable new business market.
Dale Carlsen: A culture of philanthropy is the key to success
Dale Carlsen founded Sleep Train Mattresses in 1984 and built it into a 300-store chain. He credited annual employee meetings as key to their successful culture. At these retreats, he would say, “Ask yourself, ‘what is the company that, if it existed today, would put us out of business? And then, let’s go become that company.’”
At the 2010 annual meeting, Carlsen unveiled an employee stock ownership plan, allowing all employees to have an ownership stake (about 25% in total) in the company. Over the next four years, the company’s valuation increased by 800 percent, due greatly to the energy and enthusiasm generated by employee ownership.
In 2014, Carlsen exited Sleep Train and invested the proceeds into a new passion, launching the charitable foundation Ticket to Dream to transform the lives of children in foster care. Today Ticket to Dream has boosted more than 200,000 youth. Carlsen and his wife remain on the board to this day.
With a higher number of people working from home, Dale said building a corporate culture of philanthropy is an essential tool to motivate employees – it shows that the company cares about others and invites everyone to ask, “How do we give back?”
President Bobby thanked several Rotarians who powered the meeting. The wine sponsor was Golden Pacific Bank, a division of SoFi Bank, with Latif Yusufi and Ali Hunt pouring libations. Our greeters were Doug Stephenson, Jeff Stone, Elke von Schlosser and Bruce Hester. Our photographer was Jim Henderson, and Megan Wygant was Pulse reporter.
Next week, mayoral candidates Dr. Flo Cofer and Assemblymember Kevin McCarty will join us for a candidate forum. See you then!
