Speakers

PLENARY SESSION I
Martha (Marty) Peak Helman, TRF Trustee
Rotary Club of Boothbay Harbor, Maine

Marty Helman spent her career as a writer for business executives and as a magazine editor at McGraw-Hill and the American Management Association.  Later, she served as president of the Otto and Fran Walter Foundation, a nonprofit that has helped build schools in developing nations, provided scholarships for at-risk youth, and supplied humanitarian aid to Holocaust survivors, among other initiatives. The Walter Foundation partnered with The Rotary Foundation to fund     the new Rotary Peace Center that will be located at Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul. Helman and her late spouse, Frank, joined the Rotary Club of Boothbay Harbor in 2003. She has served Rotary as chair of the Peace Major Gifts Initiative and on the working group to select a site for the new peace center.  A keen fundraiser for The Rotary Foundation, Helman initiated an effort to support the Sakuji Tanaka Rotary Peace Fellowship, which raised $1 million for the Rotary Peace Centers. Helman is an Arch Klumph Society member, and she chooses to support Rotary as a member of the Paul Harris Society and PolioPlus Society. She and Frank were charter members of the Legacy Society of The Rotary Foundation.

PLENARY SESSION II
Tom Gump, RI Director-Elect
Rotary Club of Edina Morningside, Minnesota

Tom Gump is a proud member of the Edina Morningside Rotary Club in Minnesota, USA.  Tom served as the Aide to Rotary President Stephanie Urchick during 2024-2025.  He is a Rotary Director Nominee and will be an International Director in 2026-28 representing Zones 25 and 29. Tom is passionate about growing Rotary membership and will chair Rotary International’s Membership Growth Committee in 2025-26.  He was his Club’s President in 2016-17 and District Governor in 2020-21.  He is chairing the Host Organizing Committee for the 2028 Rotary International Convention - Minneapolis.  His favorite part about Rotary is the friends he makes. His wife Catherine and son Andrew are also very involved in Rotary!
 

PLENARY SESSION III
PDG Kelly C. Atkinson
Rotary District 5420
Rotary Club of West Jordan, Utah
 

Kelly C. Atkinson is a native of Utah and has lived in the Salt Lake City Valley his   entire life.  In 1986, he became the first member of his party elected to the Utah House of Representatives from his area since the Great Depression. He served in the Utah Legislature from 1990 to 1996. During his tenure in office, the Deseret News named Kelly as "one of the most effective legislators" on Capitol Hill for each term he served. That same year, Kelly was approached by Bob Ladenberger, a hospital administrator, to help form a new Rotary Club in West Jordan, Utah.  Kelly became a charter member of the club, established in 1987. In the centennial year of Rotary, Kelly was the District Governor for Utah.  He was the chairman of the House of Friendship for the 2007 Rotary International Convention held in Salt Lake City. Kelly also served as Zone 27 Rotary Coordinator from 2016-2019.  He and his wife Penny are both Arch Klumph Society Members as well as members of the Paul Harris Society. In 2010, Penny, Kelly's wife of 53 years, was elected as the first woman Governor in the history of District 5420. Kelly and Penny are among just a handful of Rotarian couples in the world that have both served as District Governors and the first and only couple to do so in Utah. Together, the Atkinsons have hosted 31 Exchange Students from all over the world. The Atkinson’s have two sons. three grandsons, and one great granddaughter!