Events

Not a meeting to be missed! The Golden Valley Rotary Club members will have a discussion on membership, leadership opportunities, grants, and future projects, etc. You'll definitely want to attend this Rotary meeting to contribute to the important Club conversations. Look forward to seeing you there!

William Heathershaw's life was very much focused on community service when he was in college by overextending himself in student organizations. Volunteering for the 2008 Beijing Olympics was his last real volunteer engagement for quite a few years while he lived in Beijing. Then later in the Bay Area as life became much more focused on career. Despite growing up in a lower middle-class situation, William is blessed that he's been provided the opportunities to experience so much in life including traveling to nearly 40 countries on four continents. He's spent most of the past eight years focusing on his own small businesses, though he decided to recently join a decades-old family-owned business in Plymouth within the business technologies industry – their primary offerings are business telecommunications and an emergency management platform for school districts, college campuses, governments, healthcare systems, and large venues. William is also dedicated to promoting the life-changing college and CTE scholarships offered by the Horatio Alger Association, one of the largest private funders of needs-based scholarship – they changed his life in 2004 when he was one of two recipients that year in Iowa for a National Scholarship. For the past five years, William has been alongside his now life partner (wife), Ann, and they have a beautiful and spunky toddler Josie who somehow simultaneously drains and recharges them.

Karen Wojahn was raised in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin School of Business with a degree in Accounting. She worked in government and public accounting and has actively volunteered with many non-profits, including the Embroiderers’ Guild of America. In her spare time, she enjoys embroidery, traveling, reading, golf, and cross-country skiing. Her love of embroidery has developed over many years.

In April, 2024, Karen and 40 Rotary E-Club Global Travelers and their families/friends went on an amazing trip to Egypt. They combined service and learned about grant opportunities with incredible sight-seeing.

Regan Birr is the founder of the Lupus Research Foundation, along with her husband, Todd Birr.

Regan is the executive director of the LRF team, comprised of people passionately working towards a cure.

Regan is a lupus survivor. With a diagnosis several years ago of severe kidney involvement due to lupus, she was facing a grim future. Her health needed immediate attention. The treatment was 2.5 years of a breast cancer chemotherapy called Cytoxan (even though Regan did not have breast cancer). The goal was to suppress her over-active immune system and prevent it from attacking her kidneys. Early diagnosis, and the right diagnosis, saved her life: the Cytoxan, along with high-dose prednisone, put her into remission and her lab results eventually returned to fairly normal levels. However, she still felt very ill. Daily, she experienced severe joint pain, the kind that kept her up at night and caused her to walk with a cane, and she dealt with extreme fatigue. Her fatigue was such that trips to the grocery store would exhaust her, and all she could do was buy groceries – not unload the car. Some days a load of laundry was too much; other days making a meal was all she could do. This period of time was mentally grueling. She is a mechanical engineer, and is always analyzing and problem-solving, so having a weak body only amplified the frustration and at times she was feeling depression and desperation. Her journey towards health took almost a decade. But because of the early diagnosis, along with diet change and exercise, she did recover, and now enjoys a high quality of life and remission. But she realizes that most others aren’t so lucky. That is why she is passionate about finding a cure, because that’s the best way she can help people living with lupus.

Together, with Todd, who is a competitive curler, they are focusing on the NEXT 5 years towards a cure. For more information about Regan and Todd’s teamwork towards a cure, visit “Lupus Spiel USA” and “Curling & Lupus”.

Dr. Teri Staloch has a long and distinguished career in K-12 education, which includes previous experience as an English teacher, assistant superintendent at Osseo Area Schools from 2012 to 2015, all the way up to a district superintendent, serving at Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools between 2015 and 2022. Most recently she was the Director of Engagement and Strategic Partnerships for PartnerED Consultants and a Senior Educational Consultant for SitelogIQ. She began as superintendent of the Robbinsdale Area Schools on July 1, 2024.