Speakers

Tracy Claudio, is one of our Rotarian members along with her service dog Hannon.
She is a US Navy Veteran who works here in Bedford at the VA.
She has been at the Bedford VA for over 17 years and held many important roles.

Today She is a Health Science Specialist for a clinical center in the Mental Health Research Department called MIRECC (Pronounced: MY RECK), where she manages all the Research Assistant Teams and leads recruitment for VA researchers as well as co-author research publications in Psychology journals to help others understand Veteran issues.

Many years ago she Volunteered to be the Special Emphasis Program Manager for the American Indian and Alaskan Native Program.  She is the one and only, who has planned all the Powwow events at the VA for many years and to this day.

Outside of her VA role- She represents the DAV State of Massachusetts as a Board of Director for District 4 and is the Senior Vice Commander of her local DAV Billerica Chapter 47.
She is also a National spokesperson and advocate for Canine Companions on tv, promotional materials and on social media.
For fun, she has worked as a part time actress with Boston Casting, with some very minor roles in large films, some music videos and tv commercials.

Today she is going to share with as all the information she thinks is helpful for us to know in and out of the VA to help Veterans so that maybe the Rotary can assist where they see fit.

Westford Rotarian and the Past and Youngest Rotary club president perhaps in the world will be talking about her fundraising venture as a through hiker, hiking from Springer Mountain, Georgia 3,771 ft to Mt. Katahdin, Maine, 5,260 ft.  Total length of the trail 2,194.3 miles.  Nicole is an ICU nurse in Concord Nh presently but worked as a travel nurse around the country for the last two years working with Covid-19 patients. She is an experienced hiker with over 3000 miles of Thru-hiking with 4 long distance trails under her belt. She tackled her longest trail yet, the Appalachian trail this past year. During her hike, she raised over $16000 for Pegasus House and Woman’s view two treatment and recovery programs for woman struggling with substance use disorders, Alcohol use disorder and/or mental health disorders.

Geno is involved with nearly every club in the district so his history is at least 50 times.