Arnold Olt: A Remembrance

 

If Arnold Olt had made a list of the things that were the most important to him during his adult life, it's likely that Family would have been number 1; his heating-oil business would have been number 2; and Rotary would have been number 3.

That says a lot about Rotary. And it says a lot about Arnold.

Arnold Olt loved Rotary. He loved the fellowship of the weekly meetings at Tavistock. He loved the personal interactions at the Oyster Supper, the summertime picnic, the Mystery Tour, and the Golf Tournament.

He also loved the many opportunities that Rotary provides for service to others – locally, regionally, and internationally.

Arnold Olt was, in every respect, the living embodiment of the Rotary Club of Haddonfield's motto: "Doing good, and having fun doing it."

Arnold became a Rotarian in 1992, sponsored by his good friend Gene Ferry. An avid golfer, he immediately joined the Golf Committee and helped organize the annual tournament that raised thousands dollars for programs in Haddonfield schools – programs designed to help students avoid making destructive decisions, especially with respect to alcohol and other drugs.

His embrace of Rotary, and our club's acceptance of him, were so rapid that before long he was elected to the board of directors, and he became our club's 72nd president in 1999.

When he rang the bell at his first meeting as president, calling members to order, he said: "Good afternoon and welcome to the Rotary Club of Haddonfield, the best little club this side of Podunk, Iowa." That set the tone not just for that meeting but for the year to come. Arnie began each meeting the same way, and he would spend the entire week between meetings scouring an atlas for ever-more-obscure towns around the country to use in his weekly welcome.

He was particularly proud of discovering Intercourse in Pennsylvania. That's the town of Intercourse, in Lancaster County. I'm not suggesting he was fond of ... Well, maybe he was.

"Doing good, and having fun doing it." Arnold loved visiting third grade students in Haddonfield schools, to distribute dictionaries. He loved going to Fellowship House in Camden, to see how Rotary's financial support was helping to sustain an oasis of hope in one of America's most distressed cities. And he was particularly proud of an international project that he inaugurated – funding the drilling of a water well in a small community in Africa.

Unfortunately, Arnold also loved telling jokes – lame, corny, terrible jokes. His favorite joke was about a dog named Sex. I've probably heard it a half-dozen times, but I can't remember it. Frankly, I don't want to remember it.

He also loved pranks. Once, when the club president skipped a meeting to take his family on a vacation, his trusted deputy – vice president Arnold Olt – arranged to sell the Rotary Club to our arch rivals, the Lions Club. Arnie even had John Reisner draw up a contract of sale. When President Mark Ruggerio returned the following week, he found officers of the Lions Club sitting at the head table, Lions banners on the wall behind the podium, where Rotary banners normally hung, and the Lions president with a gavel in one hand and the contract of sale in the other. On the piano there was a fish bowl with some guppies in it. Why the goldfish? Well, the contract had an escape clause: If President Mark would swallow a goldfish before the meeting ended, the contract would be null and void. With just minutes of the meeting time remaining and Mark looking really uncomfortable, Arnie rose slowly from his chair. With a smirky grin on his face, he strolled across the room and handed Mark a packet of Goldfish crackers. Mark gobbled some down and a potential disaster – entirely of Arnold Olt's making – was averted. The Lions left Tavistock with their tails between their legs.

Don't get me wrong. Although Arnold was a prankster, he was also a dedicated and conscientious leader of our club. To this day, we benefit from initiatives that were taken during Arnold's first term as president. They included:

Moving the venue for board meetings from the president's home to the board room at Archer & Greiner. Overnight, the meetings became more business-like and more productive.
Laying the groundwork for winding up the Geographic Society and creating the Rotary Club of Haddonfield Foundation.
Adopting new bylaws to provide guidelines for the effective organization and management of our club.
Creating a new structure for the club's budget, to keep project funds separate from operating funds.

Arnold was one of four club members who formed the organizing committee for the District Conference in Philadelphia in 2002, during Bill Bromley's term as District Governor. Appropriately, he chaired the Social Committee.

He served as a trustee of the Rotary Club of Haddonfield Foundation and as our club's liaison to the Haddonfield Municipal Alliance. He was a Paul Harris Fellow, as was his wife, Peg.

In 2009, right before she was due to be installed as president, Norie Wisniewski suffered a stroke. Vice president-elect Vince Mayher agreed to take on the top job a year earlier than scheduled. Knowing that he needed someone he could rely on to serve as his vice president, Vinny turned to Arnie. And that's how Arnold Olt became only the third person in the history of our club to serve more than one full term as president.

Those were difficult years. The repercussions of the global financial crisis were being felt by service clubs around the world. Membership was dropping dramatically, and fundraising was a real challenge. Arnie's response was predictable: he focused on doing good and having fun doing it.

One Wednesday, upon arriving at Tavistock and settling down to lunch, members noticed that there was a flip-chart next to the head table. That was an ominous sign. Arnold loved flip charts. After the meal, Arnie rose and announced that because things were tight financially, and returns on investments had plummeted, Rotary International had asked districts and clubs around the world to cut back on expenditures and programs.

"The board discussed this matter at length," Arnie said, "and we've decided to impose a 25% cut across the board. This is where we're going to start."

Arnie lifted the top sheet of the flip-chart to reveal the words: The Three-Way Test. "A 25% cut," Arnie said. "From now on, the Four-Way Test will be the Three-Way Test."

He flipped the next sheet: #1 – Will it be fun?
The next sheet: #2 – Will anybody get hurt?
The next sheet: #3 – Can we get away with it?

In the year 2001, Arnie established a secret Presidential Performance Evaluation Committee, of which he was the chairman and only member. At the end of each Rotary year, he would present the outgoing president with a certificate proclaiming that their performance had met the committee's highest standard – Adequate. It was awfully corny, but it was fun, nobody got hurt, and he got away with it. In every respect, it met the Three-Way Test.

Arnold loved to be the master of ceremonies. For me, the enduring image of Arnold Olt will be of him standing before an audience with a microphone in his hand. Now Arnie didn't hold a microphone the way normal people hold a microphone, a few inches in front of their face. Arnold held the microphone so it touched his chin. And as he spoke, he would move the microphone ever so slightly from side to side, gently caressing his chin. It was ... his blankie.  

Arnold Olt actually served a second term as the Rotary Club's president, in 2010. When that term was about to come to an end, someone on the board of directors suggested we should give him a ceremonial gavel as a memento of his time in office. But that didn't seem quite right. So we gave him a ceremonial microphone instead. He loved it.

There are more than 46,000 Rotary clubs around the world, in almost every country. And 1.4 million Rotarians. There's no way of knowing if there's a Rotary club in Heaven. But if there is, someone had better warn Saint Peter, the master of ceremonies. Arnold Olt is on his way. He's got a microphone in his hand, and he's got his eye on your job.