Hello Optimist Members and friends, I am Thomas D. Lloyd, II (Tom) and a member of the Optimist Clubs of Des Moines and Noon Western Des Moines, Iowa. I am asking for your support to serve as your representative and voice on the OI Foundation Board of Directors. I have been an Optimist member since September 1984.

I would be an asset to the OIF Board due to my extensive management experience working with diverse groups of people, my love for this organization and its principles, and my passion for making a positive impact on the communities, children we serve, and most importantly, our members. I have been a supporter of the US Foundation to a high level for many years including becoming a President’s club charter member and a member of both the Christian D. Larson and William H. Harrison Society.

I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, Masters in Business Administration (MBA) with an emphasis in Technology Management, and a Masters in Business Leadership. I have a diverse background of working with and serving on the boards of several not-for-profit health agencies and I served as the Chair for Community Health Charities Iowa (CHC), a federation of health agencies. One of the many accomplishments during my tenure with CHC was to increase the fundraising from approximately $140,000 per year to just over one million dollars annually. This was in a large part due to contract negotiations that I was an instrumental architect in getting created and implemented.

I have 24 years working with a major financial institution (Wells Fargo). I have a varied set of experiences comprised of: 2 years network engineering, 14 years overseeing application development, 6 years managing a $300 million hardware inventory. 2 years of technology change management. My teams have ranged from 11 to 75 people during these various work groups. Early in my career, I worked for a national insurance company for 3 years as a staff accountant; 3 years for a CPA firm, primarily focused on accounting systems and business practices; owner/operator, for 7 years, of a software training and business consultancy firm focused on accounting software setup and support, and network design and installation.

I served as the Iowa District Foundation Representative during the 2000/2001 campaign. Our District was ranked 18th in Optimist International that year. My passion is for this organization and ensuring its on-going health and success. One of the ways to ensure that success is to maintain a very healthy and vibrant Foundation. If each member engaged in the “One More/One Less” concept, our Foundation’s corpus would grow tremendously. This concept is based on providing one more dollar and one more activity to the kids and to OI, while only moving one dollar from their normal activities. That means one less high-end coffee every other day or one less soda every other day. We will hardly notice the difference in our personal lives, but the difference to the kids and the organization will be noticed quickly.

I appreciate your support and your vote.