Blog

Happy 2025

Greetings to all you beautiful Porsche people,

It is a new year and as a result a new face staring back at you from the President’s Desk. My name is Gary Lea and I have been elected as your new President. 

I have to say this is a serious honor and also a bit terrifying to come in behind Reid Smith who was a phenomenal President. I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the tremendous job and the amount of work that Reid gave to this club. I have been involved in a number of groups in my years and I cannot say I have ever seen a more dedicated and committed president than Reid. That is not to disparage anyone else that has held the position in this club. As a matter of fact there have been other great people who have held the office, I just never had the pleasure to work with them as I have with Reid the past couple of years.

That being said we are moving ahead with new faces on the board. Term limits are healthy and lead to new and different perspectives in leadership.

Our new officers in case you missed it are as follows:

President Gary Lea

Vice President Mark Coronado

Treasurer Umberto Perkins

Secretary Marnie Cameron

Membership Val Dodd

Director Jordan Godorov

Director Peter George

Director Jed Weintraub

Northern Rep Craig Shanklin

Northern Rep Ken Hollman

Member at Large Tony Afronti

Member at Large Ed Handford

There are many more people who support the board with volunteering and chairing certain activities. It takes a village to raise a club as they say. If not for everyone listed and others we would have no events, no drives, no social activities. In essence……NO CLUB. Volunteerism will be one of the battle cries this coming year of the board. 

One of the most important changes this new year is the addition our friends in the St. George are to our group. Arguably overdue and so wonderful to finally see this transition taking place. As many of you know we have developed a very strong bond with and a strong affinity for our neighbors to the north over recent years and have held a number of cores area events. They are far closer to us than the Utah Region 5 hours north of them. the alliance makes far more sense and will be beneficial to both groups too now be one big happy family, I would like everyone to celebrate and welcome the addition of everyone from souther Utah. You will see two names above. Craig and Ken have long worked diligently to make the southern group of the Utah region a stand out and have done a great job. Now they will be part of all our planning and involvement in the coming years and I for one could not be happier to welcome the entire group to our family. Thanks to this move we have now grown the LVRPCA to over 1000 total members and adding everyday. 

I also want to acknowledge Michael Dugan who is retiring as the Treasurer. Michael has done an outstanding job for the club and we are forever in debt to his dedication and attention to detail in one of the tougher jobs on the board. We are grateful and very thankful for everything you have done over the years Michael and you now deserve a good long rest! don’t forget about us while you are traveling the universe.

We will be hosting more drives, tours, DE experiences and cooperative events with California and Arizona. We all have so much to learn from each other. Every Region in Zone 8 has great events and are now hungry to branch out across dividing lines and do much more together. April 12 will see a coming together of AZ, UT andNV members for a very special event that will be revealed later. Exciting changes and more fun to be had. After all isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing? Having fun!!!

Stay tuned to Desert Drives and our email blasts for upcoming event news.

Thank you all for the honor and the opportunity to be your President and for the support I know all our members will give the board, committees and other members as we move into a new phase for the club. 

As a final note please consider helping by volunteering for some of our committees chairs that are still open:

Social Media

Drive Meister

Brunch

Helpers for all events

We need our members to be involved and to experience all that the club has to offer and no better way to do it than to get involved with one of our events helping out.

Bless you all your families and till next month………….

Gary Lea

President

LVRPCA