Spending the day in Salina

Last  Friday Rob spent the day in  Salina and had this to say:

Our trip began with a meeting with executives at the Philips lighting company plant off of the highway.  Dan Mendicina, who runs the plant, explained to us how Philips employs over 400 people in the Salina area.  He also gave us a tour of the facilities and explained their vision of what being a “green” company really means.  The Alto II series is setting a pace for others in the industry to follow in terms of lowering the amount of mercury used in the lights. 
 
After our first stop we met with Tim Rodgers and Lt. Col. J.J. Jordan at the Salina Airport Authority.  I  has worked with Tim extensively over the years to help the Salina Airport Authority secure funding for the runway and various other initiatives at the Airport.  Tim and Lt.Col. Jordan talked to us about the work that they are now doing to develop Unmanned Arial Systems (UAS).  They have built a ‘Crisis City’ to test rescue operations using UAS.  Rob, Lt. Col. Jordan, and Tim also had an indepth discussion on FAA regulations.
For lunch,  we stopped at Napoli’s and our Leadership Team member and President of the Salina YMCA, Phil Guries, set up a meeting for us with Tom Mulhern, the Director of the Saline County Commission on Aging.  Over a delicious meal,  we discussed some of the challenges facing senior citizens in Salina.
In the afternoon We stopped by the Wasinger Catholic Center.  The Wasinger Center, which houses Catholic Charities in Salina, partners with many other charitible organizations to provide services to the people of central Kansas.  The women there were happy to see us and we had a brief discussion of some of the issues facing the people that recieve services there. 
Finally in the evening we attended a reception hosted by the Kansas Republican State Committee.  There, we were able to talk with many county chairs and reunite with our friends from the Brownback office.