February 5, 2025
Reporter: Tiffany Bloss
Wednesday, February 12th meeting:Kate de la Garza, Executive Director
Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services (INHS)
COLTIVARE and on Zoom
WELCOME & TRADITIONS
NOTE: you can watch previous meetings by going to our YouTube channel!
President Angela Sullivan called the meeting to order at 12:17 PM and then asked members and guests to join her in the Four-Way Test—which was followed by Angela’s fifth element, “Will it be fun?”
Angela introduced our guests from the podium:
- Clay Converse
- Ben Brown
- Dott Donnelly, Cayuga Health (CH)
- Gary Grossfeld, CH
- Melissa Tourtellotte, CH
- Ami Stallone, wife of our speaker
- Dr. Martin Stallone, CH, speaker
- Aouton Teribury
- Mike Homighaus, Scouts
- Matthew Bull, guest of Stacy Hall
- Kellie Amlin, guest of Stacy Hall
- Aarti Patel, guest of Mary Kane
- Brian Greene, guest of Mary Kane
- Stanley, RYE from Taiwan
- Matthew Simon, guest of Nick Romo
- Austan Diiorio, guest of Tiffany Bloss
- Filip, RYE from Sweden
- Mike Stoll, Scouts
- Isa, RYE from Mexico
And we had one visiting Rotarian: Ed Pasto from the Sunrise Club.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Angela Sullivan shared that Coltivare has closed its restaurant service, and Adam’s Corner’s Café provided lunch for February 5th. Rotary meetings will be held at Coltivare through February while a new home is being scouted; we hope to report a solution at the next meeting!
President Angela announced that CNY Rotary is holding a Rotary Birthday Extravaganza on Sunday, February 23rd from 2 to 4 PM. EIGHT sites across our district are hosting, including Ithaca. Hosted by Angela and Kathy Taylor, celebrate Rotary’s 120th birthday at the Hilton Canopy. And cupcakes will be provided!
Via email, Mary Kane announced that we plan to continue our sorting sessions at the ReUse MegaCenter! Because Rotarian Todd Nau is the manager at this facility, we can have evening sessions to have greater impact in fewer hours. The first and third Thursdays each month (5–8 PM) are scheduled: Feb 20; March 6 and 20; April 3 and 17; May 1 and 15; June 5 and 19. Get in on the fun and sign up
HERE!
BIRTHDAYS & ANNIVERSARIES
Those celebrating birthday in February include: Leslie Tabor & Megan Omohundro 2/4; Jim Johnston 2/10; Cal Walker & Emily Parker 2/13; Angela Sullivan 2/14; Larry Thayer 2/17; Gertrude Noden 2/10; and Ron Provus 2/28. President Angela led those in attendance in the Happy Birthday song.
Our membership milestones for February are: Sophia Darling & Sarah Mirabile 1 yr; Eric Howd Machan 2 yrs; Juliet Gibbs 6 yrs; Paul Martin 8 yrs; Geoff Dunn 10 yrs; Joe O’Leary 12 yrs; Roger Segelken 16 yrs; and Tony Pesco 20 yrs.
NOMINATING COMMITTEE
As chair of the Nominating Committee, Dale Flinn again presented the slate of officers for the 2025–26 Rotary year. At this meeting, we voted unanimously to accept the slate!
Secretary: Juliet Gibbs
Treasurer: Kati Flynn
President: Mike Katz
President Elect: Paul Martin
Vice President: Katie Marks
The committee will return in a few months to elect Members at Large to the board.
SPECIAL PRESENTATION
It is with great pride and appreciation that the International Fellowship of Scouting Rotarians (IFSR) awards this recognition to exemplary Rotarians and Scouters in the name of Dr. Clifford L. Dochterman who was presented with Cliff Dochterman Award Number One by IFSR Chairman David A. Judge at Rotary International Convention in 2005 (Chicago).
The Cliff Dochterman Award, a bronze medallion hung from a gold and blue ribbon, may be awarded by a local Rotary Club or District Governor to an active Rotarian who has rendered exemplary service to Scouting.
On behalf of the Ithaca Rotary Club, President Angela Sullivan and Stacy Hall were honored to present this award to our fellow Rotarian Mike Brown. The award recognizes a Rotarian who acts as a role model and renders distinguished and dedicated service to Scouting through active service, leadership, or other exemplary contributions to the Scout Association. Mike has offered service to the Scouts for the past 47 years and has been a Rotarian since 1992, as well as a Paul Harris Fellow.
LAST WEEK'S PRESENTATION
Frank Towner introduced our speaker, Dr. Martin Stallone who is President and Chief Executive Officer of Cayuga Health System and CEO of Centralus Health, which includes Cayuga Health, based in Ithaca, and Elmira-based Arnot Health System.
Dr. Stallone joined Cayuga Medical Center as the Hospitalist Medical Director in 2009. He held a senior administrative role in the multispecialty physician group and held a senior hospital leadership role prior to assuming the role of the Cayuga Health System CEO in 2019.
Dr. Stallone negotiated the affiliation of Cayuga Health and Arnot Health to support the health system’s ongoing strategic transformation from a collection of independent organizations into a trusted and highly coordinated integrated delivery system that provides equitable care to patients in the Southern Tier, Finger Lakes, and beyond.
Service, excellence and innovation are foundational to Dr. Stallone’s commitment to improving the health of the communities Cayuga Health serves. As a commissioned U.S. Air Force Officer since 1998, Dr. Stallone has held leadership positions as a Health Administrator, Senior Flight Surgeon, Medical Group Commander, and currently as the New York State Air Surgeon. Dr. Stallone is board certified in Internal Medicine and continues to practice on the CMC hospitalist service.
Dr. Stallone and his wife Ami are active in our community. They enjoy Scouting, music, and high school sports events where they encourage the interests of their six sons.
Centralus Health is an affiliation of Cayuga Health and Arnot Health. They are focused on coordinating care. They have approximately 6,500 employees and provide $1 billion in medical services annually. This includes 1,800 births, 15,600 hospital admissions, 86,400 emergency room visits, and 847,000 outpatient appointments each year.
The merger was completed in January 2025 and includes five hospitals in the Southern Tier (Ithaca, Montour Falls, Bath, and Elmira). It also includes two employed medical groups (Cayuga: CMA with 225 providers; Arnot: AMS with 250 providers). The coverage area is approximately 10 counties and over 395,000 lives.
Centralus Health unites these five hospitals and two medical groups as an Integrated Delivery Network (IDN) that spans the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions in New York State. Centralus Health provides full-service health care across the continuum of care with an array of service providers, including a multispecialty medical group, a home health care agency, an addiction recovery organization, multiple skilled nursing facilities, a durable medical equipment company, an emergency medical transport service, and more.
The mission of Centralus Health is to deliver high-quality care, empower our teams to succeed, and improve the wellbeing of the communities we serve. This will be accomplished through the cultural framework and shared values of: people-first, integrity, compassion, excellence, and stewardship.
On March 22, 2025, the organization will go live with the best-in-class electronic health record, Epic. This will improve the workforce experience, improve patient outcomes, and improve the patient experience. This is an investment of $80M to implement across all systems.
Question from Mary Kane: When looking ahead, what headwinds are in short order? Response: There is fragility in all components. We need to make the complex operational. Problems may be financial—not operational problems. Need to deregulate some regulatory facets of healthcare.
Question from Frost Travis: What is the sustainability for the size and geographic imprint? Response: We need time to digest and make all components work. We will gain efficiency. There are currently no further expansion plans.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Being a Canadian native and seeing Canada in the news lately, Sherrie Negrea wanted to share some Canadian quotes:
- “Canada is the only place where you can have frostbite in the morning and sunburn by the afternoon.”
- “Canada: Where ‘sorry’ is a greeting, an apology, and a way to end a conversation.”
- “Winter in Canada is when your breath freezes before it leaves your mouth.”
- “In Canada, you don’t fight over politics, you fight over who makes the best maple syrup.”
- “In Canada, even our wildlife has better manners than most people.”
- “Canadian politics: Where the biggest scandal involves someone not holding the door open.”
- “Canadians invented hockey because we got tired of shoveling snow without a purpose.”
NEW MEMBER APPLICATIONS
Membership Type: Corporate Affiliate
Employer: TST BOCES
Primary Member: Delmer Padgett
Position: Director CTE
Affiliate Member: Heather Cooper
Position: Business Liaison/Job Developer
Affiliate Member: Christine Alexander
Position: Principal TST P-Tech Academy
Affiliate Member: Matt Hartz
Position: WBL Coordinator
Sponsor: Paul Martin
Membership Type: Individual
Name: Aarti Patel
Position: Physician, Cardiology and Cardiac Electrophysiology
Sponsor: Mary Kane
Membership Type: Individual
Name: Brian Greene
Sponsor: Mary Kane
Membership Type: Corporate Affiliate
Employer: Suicide Prevention & Crisis Service of Tompkins County
Affiliate Member: Austan Diiorio
Position: Community Relations Coordinator
Sponsor: Tiffany Bloss
UPCOMING MEETINGS
02/12 Kate de la Garza, Executive Director, Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services
02/19 Amy Kremenek, President, Tompkins Cortland Community College, “TC3: Your
Community’s College for 50 Years and Beyond”
03/05 Liz Kreitinger, Executive Director, Cayuga Lake Watershed Network
03/12 HANWASH, Haiti National Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Initiative, “How
Rotary partners with the government and people of Haiti to address critical
needs” (via Zoom)
03/19 Dr. La Jerne Terry Cornish, President, Ithaca College
03/26 No formal meeting
06/18 Paul Debbie, Director of Research, Boyce Thompson Institute
THANK YOU ROTARIANS
Newsletter Reporter: Tiffany Bloss
Program Chair: Beverly Baker/Frank Towner (February)
Photographer: Mike Brown
Greeter: John Chilkotowsky
Newsletter Editor: Loralyn Light
Setup/Teardown: Al Vazquez, Nathan Lyman
Cashier/Kettle Watcher: Kati Flynn
Audio/Visual Setup: Bez Thomas, Mike Brown
Recording Archive: Paul Martin; click
hereClub Service Facilitator: June Losurdo
