Meet Alicia Flatt, classification Technology, proposed by Jane Tornatore and Michele Centanni.   Alicia was born in White Rock, British Columbia, a dual citizen of both the U.S. and Canada.  Her father is a professional drummer, her mother works in education, her brother and his wife own a CPA firm specializing in cross-border taxes, and her sister is a music teacher. Following the family music tradition, Alicia spent three years at Western Washington University where she majored in music.  Her instrument was the trumpet which she played in a rock/ska band, The Crawdaddies, for five years.

Alicia soon changed course and attended Seattle Central Community College, graduating with a culinary arts degree. While she loved cooking, Alicia quickly realized working in a restaurant just wasn’t a good fit for her.  She returned to college, graduating from UW-Bothell with a Bachelor of Science degree in computing and software systems.

 

Alicia spent seven years at Greenpoint Technologies managing VIP interior completions and Air Force One interior upgrades. From there, she went on to work at F5 Networks before finding her dream job at Qumulo, an enterprise hybrid cloud file storage startup, as senior program manager in engineering and customer service.  

 

Although Alicia has been the happiest at Qumulo than at any other job, meeting her 10-year career goal wasn’t as fulfilling as she expected.  Alicia wanted something bigger that inspires her to wake up every day and live life with purpose.  Can you recall a life-changing moment in your life?  Alicia can.  She told me about 22-year-old Terry Fox, who in 1980 started the Marathon of Hope. He ran 26 miles per day across Canada, raising money and awareness for cancer research even though he had lost his right leg to cancer. After 143 days and 3,339 miles, Terry’s cancer had spread and he had to quit, but not before he became a national hero inspiring an entire country with this message: “Being self-centered is not the way to live. The answer is to try and help others.”

 

Terry Fox was Alicia’s inspiration for service. She is choir director at St. Nectarios American Orthodox Cathedral, she volunteered with ArtsFund, and she is a speaker and mentor at Year Up, a one-year program that connects young adults who need opportunities with companies who need their talent.  So when Alicia heard about Rotary’s mission of Service above Self, she was all in.  Along with her husband, Jay, Alicia looks forward to meeting each of you as she dives into Rotary, helping and inspiring others, just like Terry Fox, and Rotarians like us all around the world.