By Rebecca Lomax, Ph.D.
I
first met Rachan Ponchevin as the Twin Towers in New York City
were crumbling following the terror attacks of 9/11. I had just
reported on my visit to the U.S. at a meeting of Rotary Club
Chiang Mai West, and the possibility of international health and
welfare projects was promising. Rachan, a relatively new club
member, was alarmed by the breaking news. I will always
appreciate his sympathy and concern, but he’s quite an unusual
young man.
Rachan grew up in Chiang Mai and graduated
from Montfort College. He went to Chiang Mai University and
studied industrial engineering. After completing a bachelor’s
degree, he went to work in Lamphun for Hana Microelectronics.
Graduate school stayed in the back of his mind, though, and a
few years later he went off to the United States to study at
Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Nashville is the capital of Tennessee, but
you may know that it is also called Music City, USA, where the
world’s country music lives and breathes. Most locals also
know it as the country music capital of the world. The Grand Ole
Opry lives there, broadcasting live country music every weekend.
But Nashville is also known for its many colleges and
universities, and the cream of the crop is Vanderbilt. Built on
a gorgeous 330-acre campus that is also a national arboretum, it
was founded in 1873. Seventy other Thai students were studying
at Vanderbilt, most on government scholarships. Rachan and his
friends began the arduous task of soaking up the local culture,
exploring a little of America and mastering their academic
subject matter.
They traveled to Atlanta, visiting museums
and seeing the CNN headquarters. They went to New York City over
the Christmas break, and were disappointed to find many of the
landmarks closed. But they toured the city and saw the big
skyscrapers – engineers enjoy that sort of thing – then
drove on to Niagara Falls. They saw the aquarium in Baltimore
and even took a trip to Disney World in Florida. They loved
driving in the U.S. with its interstate highways and internet
accessible door to door directions from place to place. Despite
the difficult academic work, time went quickly and Rachan
graduated with a master’s degree in management technology. He
was back in Thailand in 1999, and back at Hana in Lamphun.
Three years later he became an ISO
consultant, helping companies gain certification. He found it
very gratifying as he watched the quality of products improve.
But there were other things going on in his life, too. He had
met Sailuk, another CMU graduate. She worked as an insurance
agent for a local life insurance company. When he wasn’t busy
as a consultant, he helped her out at work, and eventually
selling life insurance became a part time job for him. We
attended their wedding reception three years ago. There was a
beautiful slide presentation on the stage, photographs of Rachan
and Sailuk growing up together, as young adults, and finally
getting married. What the presentation couldn’t show was the
newest addition to the family, a beautiful baby girl born a few
days ago, and so treasured by her parents that she has been
nicknamed “Pethproud”. The name stands for the color of
diamonds, and tells us all how important she is to her proud
parents.
After he met Sailuk, a Thai friend invited
him to visit his Rotary Club. Something about the club
“clicked” and Rachan became a very active member. This year,
he’s the club secretary but that doesn’t mean he takes the
minutes of meetings. It’s a very responsible job that requires
many organizational skills and a lot of time. He sets up the
meetings, including any special ones, he organizes parties and
other functions, and he serves as a liaison between the Thai and
western members of the club.
But more follows. At the age of 33, he is the
president-elect of Rotary Chiang Mai West. It’s a very young
age for such a responsible job. But we’ve no doubt he can do
it. “Service before self” is the motto of Rotary
International this year, and Rachan is already planning his year
of service. His club is bringing almost 19 million baht in
international grants into Thailand this year, building sanitary
facilities, schools and water treatment plants to help
orphanages and hospitals. The grants will not be completed when
he takes office, and more applications are on the way. He wants
to increase membership in the club, and to encourage old members
to return when they can. His favorite projects are the school
lunch projects, small programs that supplement the money given
to schools by the government. He likes visiting the schools and
meeting the children.
Rachan doesn’t work all of the time,
though. With a new baby, he isn’t so likely to swim or work
out at the health club anymore but he jogs and rides his bicycle
in the neighborhood. He loves country music, both Thai and
American, but he’s confined to singing it at home right now.
He and Sailuk want to travel more. They visited South Korea two
years ago during the spring, and saw the beautiful flowers. They
want to go back during the winter to see the snow. Romantic
movies set in Korea are popular now, and they’ve chosen
several places they want to visit.
We return to talking about Rotary. What he likes about being
a part of an international service club is that “clubs from
many countries work together”. It isn’t just about developed
nations helping developing nations. When the tsunami struck
Thailand, Rotary clubs sent money and supplies and people to
help. And when the hurricane struck New Orleans and the coast of
Mississippi, Rotary clubs sent money and supplies and people to
help. “Rotary is for the world”. With Rachan’s positive
outlook, I think he would find a way to help people in difficult
circumstances regardless of which international service
organization he served.
