District 5150 Rotarian of the Month: Dennis Pettinelli

District 5150 Rotarian of the Month for December, 2015 is Dennis Pettinelli, a long-time member of the Rotary Club of Belmont & Redwood Shores.

Dennis is a major donor of The Rotary Foundation and a significant contributor to his club. Personally and through his firm, Pettinelli Financial Partners, he supports Rotary Clubs in addition to his own. His son-in-law Jonathan Nicolas is a member of San Carlos Rotary.

Dennis has been a member of Belmont Rotary since 1984, and served as a President, Treasurer, and Foundation Chair. He inducted Belmont Rotary’s first woman member. He has frequently assisted with the club’s Gretchen Ross Legacy Teacher Mini-Great program and has been a strong financial supporter of that program. He has chaired many casino nights, pancake breakfasts, and blood drives. Years ago, when 12-year-old Lance Turner was kidnapped, Dennis researched and brought to Belmont a program to help teach children and parents safety habits. The program utilized coloring books and was funded by Belmont Rotary.

This year, Dennis initiated a fundraiser on behalf of Be The Match Foundation, a unique nonprofit that delivers cures to blood cancer patients. Every fur minutes someone is diagnosed with a life-threatening blood disease like leukemia, lymphoma, or sickle cell anemia. For many, the only chance for a cure is a marrow transplant from someone outside of their family. The fundraiser, a golf tournament held in August at Peninsula Golf & Country Club, was in recognition of an advisor who has been with Dennis’ firm for nine years, during two of which he has battled a rare lymphoma requiring two stem cell transplants.

On the district level, Dennis has served as Vocational Service Chair, and he and his wife have hosted a number of Rotary youth exchange students/young professionals, including “Rosie” from Venezuela, who spent four months living with the Pettinelli family. The Pettinelli’s have been contact persons for college students over the years and hosted them in their home many times, sometimes serving as “emergency” hosts for students/young professionals who missed their air connections in San Francisco.

Dennis Pettinelli exemplifies the very highest principles on which Rotary is based, and this recognition provides and important example to other Rotarians and to the community of the tremendous value of being involved in Rotary.