Rotary Club of Marana
 
                                                                            
 
 
   After two “dark” weeks to celebrate the holidays, we rang in 2020 with a joyful breakfast meeting featuring lots of warm greetings and guest speaker Jana Jorgensen, FBI special agent for the New York Field Office.
    John Dooling subbed for President Richie Benner to run the show. We also welcomed Alaska Rotarian Martin who has recently moved to the Silver Bell and Ina area, and is looking at local clubs.
   Announcements included the following:
• Dan reported that he’s likely finalized the Tour de Cookie route. We need more sponsors, but the ride is coming together. It was suggested that we order Marana Rotary t-shirts to wear so that riders know who we are.
• Mary reported that our Global Grant totaling $33,000 for the Cameroon project got fully funded! John thanked Mary and Randy for their “tremendous efforts in shepherding it through.” Great work, Mary and Randy!
• The Rotary Leadership Institute will be January 25th. Sign up to register here: https://rotaryd5500.org/event/rli/
“Happy Bucks” were offered for the New Year, for holidays spent with family, for winning at “high stakes” poker (John), for her daughter’s recovery from being kicked by a horse (Beckie), for everyone who made the holiday season special, and for our guests Jana and Martin.
   We were thrilled that member Don Jorgensen used his special connections to score a very special guest, FBI Special Agent Jana Jorgensen. Jana delighted us with her story about how she decided to join FBI after serving as a prosecuting attorney in Seattle. The two-year FBI application process required three interviews, three physical fitness tests, and a lie detector test. Her training at the FBI Academy at the facility in Quantico, Virginia (https://www.fbi.gov/services/training-academy) included being pepper-sprayed, tactical training, and classroom training.
   Special Agent Jorgensen explained that the FBI has 56 field offices, plus satellite offices. After graduating, the new agents rank the field offices by preference. Jana was assigned to New York City, the biggest field office. Specifically, Jana has worked the Metro Safe Streets Task Force, and her team conducted the search of Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion after his arrest. We won’t mention the super-creepy stuff the team found, but I think we all can agree it was super creepy, and the world’s a better place without that person being in it.
   Special Agent Jorgensen also kindly disabused us of the notions that FBI trainees at Quantico wear stylish training outfits (as seen on tv), that the FBI barges in and takes cases away from local law enforcement (story arc as seen on tv), and that FBI field offices have state-of-the-art technology with touch-screens and fancy graphics (as seen on tv). It was a gentle reminder that separating fact from fiction simply requires talking with a first-person source!
   All in all, it was a grand start to the new year and the new decade. Happy 2020!