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General News
4/5/2004
The Group Study Exchange Team from France is in the midst of visiting District 5610.
This week the GSE Team from France will be paying a visit to Rotary West on Friday, April 9 at 11:45 a.m. at the Westward Ho Country Club, Sioux Falls.
Club member Bert Olson is scheduled to offer his member bio and introduction.
Bernard Dumont leads the French Group Study Exchange Team. Dumont is 60 years old and is married to Michelle who is a teacher. He has one child. After a university degree in mechanical engineering and one in business administration, he joined the Shell Petroleum Company as a sales engineer then joined the lighter division of the Swedish Match group as plant manager and became industrial manager in charge of production and development for the division worldwide. In 1983 he joined the sewing machine division of The Singer Company as general manager for industrial operations in France. In 1987 he took over a small company specialized in plastic injection molding and composite materials. He sold it in 1995 and then acted as a consultant in production and logistic. Recently he started up a payphone factory in Mexico and closed one in Denmark. He has been a Rotarian since 1981 and was president in 1995/1996. He is passionate to know the rest of the world and the different cultures that make the very same human beings act and think somewhat differently.
Other team members are: Sophie Dezandez, Pascal Griglio and Marc Rossignol.
Dezandez lives near Lyon. She is single and has a daughter Matilde who is 8 years old. She works in a large garden center and is responsible for the seasonal products department such as Christmas products, garden furniture, etc. She is also an adviser for customers on pet plants, bed plants, seeds, fertilizers, spring and autumn bulbs, diseases and so on. She studied agriculture in accordance with her liking of nature and environment. She received a technical degree of horticulture and is specialized in flowers growing in greenhouses. She further obtained a degree in finance, sales, and marketing of horticultural products. She worked in Holland in an orchid production facility and was at a time a shop assistant in a DIY large center. She is eager to travel in the USA to get used to current techniques in marketing and managing similar businesses there. She wants to know more about biological control agents used in the US. She will appreciate South Dakota for its rural areas, wild landscapes, horses, and wild flowers. She wants to make friends.
Pascal Griglio is 38 years old, studied at Lyon University for 8 years to become a doctor. He worked for 4 years as a substitute doctor in different places, especially in rural areas. At the same time he started working near Chamonix in a hospital for patients with alcohol and other addictive substance problems. He then decided to continue working in this special field, doing so over the last 8 years. He regularly undergoes specific alcohol abuse study courses.
He lives in the French Alps were the hospital is. It is a beautiful area, and he participates in a lot of sports: skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing in the winter and lake swimming and hiking during the other seasons. He has played piano since childhood and loves to travel and meet people from other cultures. He is a pupil of Linda Dubosson, from New Zealand, who teaches English. She is the wife of Gerard, the president of Chamonix Mont-Blanc Rotary club.
Marc Rossignol is 29 years old and single with one little 4-year-old boy.
He holds a marketing technical diploma. The Rotary Club awarded him the "Price Rotary Drill for Professional Teaching" rewarding his work and involvement in the world trade. While looking for his first job in the right firm, he worked in multiple positions to gain experience, and now he works at Fondital Valsir France, a company specialized in heather and drainage system for used water. He is in charge of preparing the orders. He found his way in this firm and managed to improve and consolidate his position from team leader of customer care services to manager of all the logistic system for one of their stock centers, dispatching their goods to customers all over France. For his personal accomplishment as a young father and his career accomplishment as a manager, he feels the need for the opening on the world that would give him this trip to America.
The Group Study Exchange Team from France will be visiting District 5610 through April 23rd when they will make their return trip to France.
For more information on the French visitors, please contact Group Study Exchange Chair, Bert Olson of Rotary West at 605-335-5219. |
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