A Chamber of Ideas

Radia’s Merger of Rocket Science and Wind Technology

As we approach a new Spring season and City Club’s 19th anniversary, I have been reflecting on the club’s humble start in a dark corner of Highland’s basement and the progress we have made, evidenced by its expansion into the entire building. 

After spending years and millions of dollars in renovation and overcoming many obstacles, such as The Great Recession of 2008 and the pandemic, we still faced two challenges: an aging membership, thus our search for younger prospects, and my own aging, underlying the need for a succession plan. 

I am so pleased with our membership of about three hundred, more young than old, going a long way to satisfying my long-standing hope to establish a community of passionate and caring people within a beautiful and nurturing home. My son Dustin is now fully in charge of operations, and our community, like a multi-faceted jewel, is positioned to do big things and make a small dent in the universe. For example:

The launch of the Highland Institute for the Advancement of Humanity in 2020 has blossomed by taking on many worthy local and national problems, including a key leadership position to help the City of Boulder design and develop a world-renowned Cultural and Performing Arts Center.

Hosting multiple initiatives, with participants from the City of Boulder, the University of Colorado, along with technology and private businesses, to address some of the most ambitious projects, such as Boulder’s potential place in the future world stage as, perhaps, an Athens of the West, Davos of America, or a global quantum computing hub.

The point is that City Club is ideally situated to become an incubator of new ideas. I have often asked myself why is it that we have a Chamber of Commerce but not a Chamber of Ideas? Then it dawned on me that from Jim Collins’s Good to Great to James Balog’s Earth Vision Institute, from Solana’s Web3 to Eric Kish’s Nanoramic Battery Technology, our members are, in fact, engaged in the organic creation of this very Chamber of Ideas. Finally, to this point, be sure to read last Week’s WSJ article on Mark Lundstrom’s Radia, a merger of aerospace and wind technology. 

I am not sure which is more exciting – how far we have come, or how far we can run.

Happy Spring.

— Sina