26.04 Community Services Director Cory Styron & New Zealand Friendship Exchange

Greeting Rotarians and Friends,

What a week it’s been for our club! Our club spent Saturday morning cleaning out brush and performing necessary repairs on the PEEC treehouse. This effort helps prepare the nature center for the upcoming Earth Day Festival this Saturday, April 18.

Our club also attended the District 5520 Conference this weekend in Santa Fe. The weekend provided a wonderful platform for fellowship and inspiration, featuring keynote addresses from Alan Mallory and Raj Sisodia. Beyond the networking opportunities with Rotarians from across the district, the conference included leadership workshops and a showcase of youth programs, reinforcing our shared mission and providing fresh ideas for our own club’s growth. Here’s a fun video of our exchange students performing and sharing their experiences.

While the conference offered plenty of formal inspiration, my personal highlight was much less traditional. I had the unique opportunity to head out onto the Santa Fe trails for a few hours of mountain biking with our keynote speaker, Alan Mallory.

There is something about the shared effort of a climb and the focus of a descent that opens up a different kind of conversation. As we rode, we talked extensively about life and resilience—topics Alan knows intimately from his family’s journey up Everest. It was a powerful reminder that whether we are navigating a steep switchback or a complex community project, the “summit” is often less about the destination and more about the grit and fellowship it takes to get there. I’m returning to our club feeling recharged and ready to apply that same resilience to our local initiatives.

This Week’s Speaker

Cory Styron serves as the Community Services Director for Los Alamos County, where he oversees critical quality-of-life divisions including Library, Recreation, Parks & Open Spaces, and Social Services. Under his leadership, the department achieved prestigious CAPRA accreditation in October 2024—making Los Alamos the first community in New Mexico to earn this distinction—and was recently named a finalist for the 2025 National Gold Medal Award for excellence in park management. With over 20 years of experience, Styron also contributes to the field nationally as the Secretary for the Academy of Parks and Recreation Administrators and a board member for the non-profit GP RED.

Thanks to Chris Sierk and Kathy Landshulz for providing lunch for us today! Linda Bullock will also be presenting results from the scholarship review.

If you can’t make it in person, you can join us online. And if you missed our past meetings, check out the recordings on our YouTube channel.