Tracking Professor Novak

02.28.08, Half Five PM, Day #4.

Matt, I mean, Professor Matt Novak, was the star today. But, before I get into that, let me start at the start…

Our day started with a hand off from Canterbury Club to Hawthorne/Kew-on-Yarra Club. We were off to spend an informative few hours at Parliament House learning about Australian government. Highlight of the tour: Sitting in the viewing booth of the Upper House. Now, if they televised the question session on C-Span, I would add it to my TiVo list. We were there for the question session – translation, lots of arguing and debating and talking out of turn – not like any government function I’ve ever seen in the U.S. Needless to say, it was unbelievable and interesting and fabulous, all at the same time.

We went off to lunch at the Treasury Deli (fantastic), walked through the park (lovely) and met up with Matt who was separated from us right before lunch. This takes me to how we were made aware of Matt being the star…

While the rest of the team sat at the deli and had a fabulous lunch with great food and great conversation (it’s hard, but we somehow manage to pull through), Matt was attending some sort of workshop/lecture/something-something (I’m not a lawyer, so forgive me for not knowing the technical jargon). As we waited for Matt to join back up with the group, we saw him emerge from the stairway with his newly found rock star status. Imagine, our Matt, surrounded by a group of attorneys, vying to chat with him and shake his hand. The rest us, bystanders though we were, puffed out our chest with pride. After the fans dissipated, we were off to the Supreme Court. We arrived in the Supreme Court Library, and again Matt was greeted with great enthusiasm and revere. The rest of us were introduced as Aaron, Judy, Christine and Jen…but not our Matt. He was introduced with the entire title: Professor Matt Novak. After we got over being impressed (OK, so we giggle a bit…OK, a lot). Of course, the rest of the team mocked, but it was all in great fun…because we loved basking in the glow of Matt’s fame.

After our Supreme Court experience, David (the observant Rotarian that his is) realized we were in need of nourishment (translation: Australian wine). We headed off on a forced death march and found a delightful little bar in an Arcade (imagine an alley filled with little cafés and shops) and rehydrated ourselves with Australian beer and wine. Prior to our journey, Jen and I had a little agreement – since she was a petite little thing, I would “take one for the team” and drink any beverage (alcoholic) that she was unable to finish (after all, we wouldn’t want to waste anything or offend anyone by not finishing cocktails). I thought we’d be a few weeks into the trip before the first hand off. Well, I was wrong…Jen made it four days. That’s right…I totally took one for the team and helped her finish her red wine…I’m a giver.

A Day Away

This is very delayed, but I did want to give a brief recap of yesterday here in Melbourne. Christine will check in with today’s entertaining details. Yesterday was our first vocational visit, so the team didn’t get to spend anytime together (for the most part). According to reports, there were some outstanding visits. Judy spent the entire day with Red Cross and had a long day, but a fabulous experience. Christine was down at Melbourne University (or Melburn Uni as the locals call it). Matt spend the day with some colleagues and actually had an interesting day with a fellow professional who had spent a number of years in the United States. Jen and I also had valuable experiences.

Judy had perhaps the most unusual day. After spending the entire day with the Red Cross, she had to alter some plans after some disturbing news from her host family. David Robinson was hospitalized with chest pains, so she left the family to deal with their emergencies and spent the day with me and my host family, Brian and Debbie Bloomer. Brian and Debbie were some of the best hosts you could ask for and threw some “shrimps on the barbie,” along with lamb, chicken and steak. It was quite the spread. Of course we also worked on some new Sparkling Shraz from the Chandon winery to cap off the evening. A productive day, but kind of odd considering all the time we spent apart.

Healesville Sanctuary

Sanctuary_5546, originally uploaded by Barnstorm Creative.

G’day!

Our first full day in Victoria, Australia took us to the Healesville Sanctuary where we got to see all the Aussie critters – Wallabies, Kangaroos, Platypus, Dingos, you name it. The weather was fantastic and the group had a terrific time. Oddly enough, we had our official welcome banquet in the evening, only to be fed those critters for dinner. Several of us had our first kangaroo steak (others chickened out and had fish). Very lean meat, a little tough and not a ton of flavor, but still an enjoyable experience.

The banquet was a “smashing success” as they would say here. We had nearly 150 people attend and our presentation went smooth. It was held at Milano’s Hotel, which is right on the beach, so it was a beautiful night.

We had the opportunity to meet the out-bound GSE team from Australia that will be visiting Nebraska next month. They seem like a very fun group. We are definitely looking forward to hosting them.

In all, It was a late night. We didn’t finish the banquet until about 10 p.m. Today marks our first of about 10 Vocational Days. Everybody is visiting a business that relates to their field. I will be visiting the P.R. Department at Quenos – a chemical plant, from what I understand.

This evening should be a nice quiet evening with our host families, but things can change in a hurry!

Cheers!

We Made It!!

Greetings from Melbourne!

Well, we have just concluded Day 1 in Australia, despite having left Nebraska two-plus days ago. Our trip went as smooth as can be, and we arrived in Australia on time and in one piece. We walked out of customs in Melbourne today around noon to be greeted by a dozen of our gracious hosts. It was a very warm reception and was a pleasant sight after taking off from Omaha 29 hours earlier. Speaking of warm receptions, the weather did not disappoint as temperatures must have been in the mid 70s and was a paradise after enduring the Nebraska cold for the past several months.

I think the group looked quite well (you can judge for yourself from the pictures) after spending all that time on a plane. Everyone handled the flight differently – Matt managed to survive despite not sleeping a wink on the trip, while I slept at least 12 hours of the trip. Judy, Christine and Jenny all fell somewhere in between.

After decompressing in a hotel lobby with our friendly hosts, the group split ways with each of our host families. After getting settled in at our respective homes, we showered and killed some time before convening at our first Rotary event. We managed to get our first presentation off without a hitch, which was surprising to us all. The group had a number of questions for us and was quite interested in our upcoming elections, educational system as well as our agricultural business structure.

Tomorrow we are all meeting at 8:30 a.m. to head out to the Healesville Sanctuary where we can check out some live kangaroos and koalas. Afterwards the plan is to have lunch at a winery before having a huge district welcome event tomorrow evening. This presentation will be on a slightly larger scale, as we’re expecting nearly 200 people at the Milano Hotel on Brighton Beach.

We’ll report more later, but the trip is off to a roaring start!

Cheers!

Ready for Australia

Ready for Australia, originally uploaded by Barnstorm Creative.

 

Ready for takeoff

Ready for takeoff, originally uploaded by Barnstorm Creative.

 

Our fearless leader?

As team leader, I’m feeling the pressure to get my story posted. You can tell that this team is very energetic and likes to have fun. One of the team members questioned whether I was a “fearless leader” or a “fearful leader.” I’ll report on that later!

Here’s a bit of personal and professional background information about me. I am Judy Peschio. I was raised as the oldest of four children on a 16,000 acre cattle ranch and farm located in South Dakota. I have one sister and two brothers. My brothers remain on the ranch and farm and their children represent the fifth generation of my family to work this land. We were raised to work hard, have fun, make do with what resources we had and make decisions on our own. All of these lessons have served me well.

I left the farm to broaden my horizons – I went to the big city. I earned my undergraduate degree in Early Childhood Education from a small college in St. Paul, Minnesota. After graduation I met and married my then husband and taught first grade until our first son Eric was born. Two years later, he was joined by his brother John.

We then moved from the big cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota to a small Nebraska town where my husband and his brother started an electrical contracting business. Shortly after that our third son Andrew was born.

Sometimes our life’s plan gets altered by unintended changes, which mine did. My marriage ended in divorce and I abruptly became the single mother of three young sons living in a town with a population of less than 2,000. Depending on how you manage these unintended changes, they can be a good thing or a bad thing – but relying on the lessons learned on the farm, I made this change into a good thing. I returned to teaching, followed by a short stint working as a bank teller and then in the bank’s insurance agency. After three years I created an opportunity to move my family to Omaha, the largest city in Nebraska so that I could advance my career and better support my family.

I began with a sales position for a financial services firm which resulted in a branch manager’s position which I held for ten years until the company was sold. In the meantime, I had met my husband, Tom, along with his three sons. We married in 1989 and together we have raised our six wonderful sons. We now have had almost 19 years of a wonderful life together. We have five daughters-in-law and eight wonderful, delightful grandchildren.

Following the branch manager’s position, I joined Farm Credit which is a US agricultural lending organization. I was responsible for creating a sales and marketing program for the credit officers to promote credit life and crop insurance products to their customers.
Two years later I was recruited by a global software company, ACI Worldwide that built the software that banks used to process ATM and POS (point-of-sale) transactions. I managed their Corporate Communications department. The company targeted the top 300 banks in the world and had offices worldwide, including Melbourne and Sydney Australia. Working for ACI provided me with the opportunity to travel to Tokyo, Singapore, Australia, Italy, and England which was a wonderful experience – and I am excited about the opportunity to return to Australia for a visit. Unfortunately, that adventure came to an end with downsizing of the company’s personnel in 2000 – a post Y2K phenomena. I was one of many who faced the challenges of finding a new position.

The following May, I went to work at the American Red Cross Heartland Chapter in Omaha to manage the Health and Safety department. A year later, I was named as the CEO of the chapter. During my 5 years as CEO of the Heartland Chapter we balanced our budgets, trained and retained 1,200 volunteers, survived 7 major disasters including Hurricane Katrina, honed our staffing and substantially increased our fund raising. In March of 2007, exhausted, I retired so that I could begin to enjoy the next chapter in my life.

One of my favorite things to do is travel and since March I’ve enjoyed trips to Belize, Italy, California, Oregon and Florida. Sailing is another favorite pastime—my husband and I spend about 20 week-ends a year living on board our sailboat. Yes, there is enough water in our part of the country for sailing—it’s a man-made lake on the Missouri river in South Dakota. We now have a second home in Florida where I will spend the winter months away from the ice and snow in Nebraska. That’s where the real water is—our home is just a few blocks form the Atlantic coast.

The new-found freedom of retirement has allowed me to spend more time with my family and our grandchildren. I’m enjoying gardening, cooking and reading. I’ve had several friends ask me what I do with all of my time now that I’m retired. I tell them that I don’t know, but that it takes me all day to do it!

Rotary has been an important part of my life. I joined the Suburban Rotary Club in 1988 and served in many leadership positions including club president. Since hosting our first GSE team members many years ago, I have dreamed of leading a GSE team, and I thank all of my fellow Rotarians who helped make this dream come true. Now we are off on a great adventure that fits well with how I want to enjoy the rest of my life.