FogHorn March 22, 2018  - SHOP TALKS - Arancha Casal and Dianne Bobko

Arancha blames the Rotary bug on her father. She was born in San Sebastian which is Spanish Basque country. Her father worked in a number of different countries, and she spent years of her childhood living in Spain, Mexico and Cuba. Her college career started in Bristol, England. She had aspirations of becoming an astronaut so she studied aerospace engineering. She received a Fulbright scholarship to Stanford where she met her husband François, and 27 years later she is still here in the United States. She was a professional student picking up two Masters degrees and a PhD over the course of 10 years. Her studies were in the field of robotics. Unfortunately, because she was not an American citizen, she didn’t have access to security classifications that would allow her to continue working in that field. She did work in patent law for several years.

 

Arancha has 2 children who are now 14 and 11. When her second child was born, she stopped working because the eldest child needed homeschooling. Her children are now at Jamie’s school (Main Street Scholars) here in Half Moon Bay, and she loves the school. François died in a car accident two years ago; and at that point,  Arancha and the children moved to Half Moon Bay from La Honda.

 

In January Arancha participated in an expedition to the Kalahari desert in Africa. She was so affected by the experience that she is returning for another expedition, and we have been promised a program when she returns.

Dianne’s shop talk was an example of the organizational and presentation skills that she possesses. My favorite part of her presentation was a series of passport pictures that she displayed covering what must be the last 40 years. We have all heard about Dianne as the wife of an astronaut, and we’re used to her missing meetings because of various astronaut related events around the world, but this talk was not about that, but about who Dianne is at the core. For Dianne the core was “finding her own identity”. She was born into a family where it was understood that she would graduate from college. She has a B.A. summa cum laude from Loretto Heights College in Denver. She was a Graduate Fellow in English at St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri; and she has an M.B.A. from the University of Houston in Houston, Texas.

 

She formed F Dianne Bobko and Associates. She provides management and technical consulting. One of her first global clients was Mobil Oil. She has worked in the energy, chemical, solar, aerospace, biotech, medical, judiciary, college faculty and arts organizations fields. She facilitates training in  leadership development, interpersonal and intergroup communication, and business project interventions as well as strategic planning retreats.  She strongly believes in “trusting the processes” she has developed for these areas.  Her consulting practice has led to extensive travel. She has consulted and facilitated in the United States on the East Coast, central United States, Southwest, West and Alaska. She has worked in Canada, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, the Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, England, Indonesia and Nigeria. Currently, she has pared her practice back to energy consulting in Southern California and aerospace consulting. She says that although she has worked with people from all different cultural backgrounds at the core we are all the same, and she faced the same challenges whether in Indonesia, Africa, the United States or Europe. She summarizes her business as follows “Ms. Bobko has a continuing commitment to help people develop their full potential in their professional lives. She creates a challenging and supportive climate in which people can learn, grow and become more effective.”

 

Footnote: Dianne also has a long history of directing choir music programs.