September 21, 2017 Meeting of West Bay Rotary

Rick Tasker gave a classification talk, having given his first in 1991. He's now retired from financial advising, so shared some stories of service opportunities starting when he was graduated from college in 1971, where he was assigned to Hyannisport as part of a domestic service project for two years. He returned to his home state of Connecticut and started his work in banking in 1975. He was a credit analyst for the $1m and up loans. He then managed a branch in Hartford, worked in mergers and acquisitions, and did some residential lending as well. He worked in financial education throughout the community, and was asked to join a group starting a bank that grew out of a Rotary meeting, resulting in the first federally chartered bank since the depression in the Boston District of the Federal Reserve. They committed to give 1% of profits to charity. Then in the late 80's when he moved to the Camden area he joined WBR and found many service opportunities.  Having a degree in art, he joined the board of what was then Maine Coast Artists of which his wife later became executive director. He was on the NE Health (Now Pen Bay) Foundation board, which was then selling some of it's artwork to support the hospital. He also helped run Ducktrap Bay Trading Company and at the end of 1994, he went to work for Chris Rector. When Gary Walker sold his insurance agency, the new owner was required to have a financial services representative and recruited Rick to do that which he did for 3 years. In 2004 he moved to Florida to be closer to his father, who is now 93. He returned to financial services there, and was involved in a United Way program in Jacksonville that involved the IRS training people to help low income people with their tax returns. He continues in that, and in AA in which he has been a member for 35 years.