Rotareminder for the Rotary Club of Kent

Meeting on October 20, 2026

 

Acting President (AP) Rebecca welcomed the group by calling the meeting to order at ~12:10pm.  Our patriotic song was the   

 Battle Hymn of the Republic  performed by Christie with our tech team of Roger and Bill controlling the screen.  Christie Anderson also delighted us with the tune The Erie Canal, followed by the pledge of allegiance.

 

The Invocation for today’s meeting was offered by Ryan, with Melissa handling photos, and Brian as the newsletter author.  

 

There were no visiting rotarians.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                           

 

 

A:  There were differing opinions that fall between 1978 and 1989 – Rebecca decided it was the latter.

 

Q: How much cumulative investment has Rotary made to date to combat polio?

A:  $2.9B

 

Q: Which two countries continue to experience polio incidents?

A:  Afghanistan  and Pakistan.

 

Q:  What key date is world polio day?

A:  October 24, 2026.

 

 

Also, PARTA will be conducting a food drive called Stuff the Bus, on November 15^th in the parking lot of the Ravenna Walmart from 10-2pm.The food raised from this drive will be donated to local agancies such as Center of Hope, Kent Social Services, etc…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                        David Myers introduced our speaker,

                                                                           John Sankovic, PhD, MBA, PE

 

Dr. John Sankovic is currently the interim dean and professor of the College of Aeronautics and Engineering (CAE) at Kent State University, where he leads a college  of nearly 1,600 students pursuing unique industry driven degree programs across the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels. 
Students can specialize in aviation focus pathways, like professional pilot, air traffic management, and aviation science, or pursue advanced technology fields, including aerospace engineering, mechatronics, cyber security, and industrial systems engineering.

 

 

“Today, I would like to talk a little bit about the research happening in our college. One of the things we're very proud of is that we're now a Research  One university or, having achieved the highest standard level of research accepted by our peers in the research spaces, something we are very proud.  We're running now recognized as a high research university. And so, that's really a product of these institutes that we have.”

 

“Our Public Communities Research Institute, all of which are combined, are interdisciplinary university activities that bring together different colleges. So we're quite proud of those.”

 

“You may be familiar with our Liquid Crystal Institute - now it's the [largest] Materials of Liquid Crystal Institute. 
[Many}  of the innovations that you see in your iPad really came out of Kent State.   The Environmental Science and Research Design Institute, is actively  utilizing much of our campus, which encompasses the  900 + acres that we have .  The Brain Health and Research Institute, with which I'm also affiliated, has abilities to use function in your infrared spectroscopy, basically shooting a visible light laser into your head and looking at the oxygenation of different parts of your brain to look at activation.”

 

“Now I want to describe some of the research that is going on in our college. 
Presently, CAE is focused on the aeronautics side of the school with approximately 50% of our enrollment, and about 50% related to the school of engineering (approximately 800 students on both sides).  Our curriculum’s design is to focus on smarter sustainable, safe and secure, accessible technologies, and to bring those technologies into the activation, or operational use [phase].”

 

“Today, CAE
has one of the most unique air traffic control programs in the nation. We are one of only a few  universities in the entire nation that has the full breadth of air traffic control simulation, all the way from tower, then to hand off to the different segments of the air trafficking control system, and then come back down. In addition, all of our pilots [experience]  that [as well]. So [many] times it can be very intimidating for the pilots to talk to air traffic control.   And this is a way that they get to relieve some of that stress and understand what's going on behind the scenes.”

 

“In addition, we have our professional pilot program, which is really ours, our program that we've had for years.  
So if you come to Kent State, instead of [needing] to have 1500 hours of flight experience to get to the airlines, you'll need [only] 1000 because the FAA has improved our program because of the quality.”

 

“[Many don’t realize that Kent State also has an engineering program, which surprises people when we say we do.]  [In fact], we have some of the top engineering programs in the state. We have an engineering program, an aerospace engineering group and an aeronautics program.”

 

“There is also a  cybersecurity engineering program where we're teaching the fundamentals; industrial systems engineering; and then one of the first programs in the country, a mechatronics engineering program which brings together the electrical and mechanical engineering.  So, as people are looking to onshore and reshore industry and it's manufacturing, we'll be starting again with the recapitalization of industries.”

 

 “All right, where are we going in the future? 
So, we're looking at expanding our professional pilot programs, so right now we enroll about 100 students a year.  There are about 400 in the program at any given time, and as I mentioned, those students have direct pathways to the [commercial airlines] JetBlue, Delta, United, Republic. 
And we're quite proud of that. We just had a ceremony. We have a pilot pending ceremony, so after they get their first professional license, their first private pilot license, and then their instrument rating, they get pinned by an alum. 
And so we had fifty [alum] pilots coming back. They do that every year to give back. “

 

“With that, we would  like to expand that program. 
I‘d like to get at least 125 next year and then expand that, hopefully to 200 at some point. We're also looking at launching a maintenance program because you can't fly planes unless you can fix the planes, [which]  is our current bottleneck right now. 
Our old bottleneck was a lack of maintenance. So every one of those planes, I mentioned [have] 20,000 hours, they have to have service.  So everyone of those planes [with] fifty hours has to have some type of service check.


 

 “Then the other part we're looking at is advancing innovation and economic opportunity by looking at things [such as] advanced air mobility, sort of like flying cars, drones, and advancing new technologies aviation. So we have a center of advanced air mobility, and we’d like to be home to that.”

 

“So it's really a three-part expansion that we're looking [towards].  I mentioned to you our expansion will come in  three parts to the tune of $45 million dollar , so if anybody would like to donate, any amount is welcome.  The first part is to do all the ground infrastructure and then build in a new maintenance anchor. 
[Presently], if you've been to 1Gold 3 its maintenance hangar leaves a lot to be desired, you can only put two planes in there at a time. So our new maintenance hanger would allow four planes to be to be handled in there, and then it would take care of the expansion of the runway. So we need about an eighteen foot lift to be able to flatten that area.”


 

“The next set allows a redo of the existing maintenance hangar to be a training facility for the maintenance and repair. And then, the last stage would be to build a new terminal, followed by the center of advance airmobility. So all told it’s about a $45 million dollar investment.” 

 

“[To date],we've had very positive support so far. We received a $2 million from Jobs Ohio. Then received a $1.5 million dollar donation from the Timken Foundation. 
We have invested some from the college on the design, and then we're going in for $2.5 million dollars from the federal government for the economic development administration. Finally,  we've asked for support from our legislators through the FAA for $6 million dollar improvements at the airport.”

 

“So, we are a public airport. By taking FAA money, we need to provide public services.  So if somebody wants to land their plane we must accommodate that.  In so doing, it also serves as a revenue  sourcesfor the airport.”

 

Past president, Tom Myers, retired engineer and pilot, was asked to provide a response to today’s speaker.

 

 

 

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

Brian K Bialik

 

 

Information in this eBulletin comes primarily from the Rotareminder, board meeting minutes, and stories submitted by members.