Rod Linhares: New San Mateo Rotary president

He had been very sad to be an only child and eventually as he grew older the prospect of sisters and brothers was exciting but most important was to find his birth mother. He then started a long journey to find her. In the interim, he discovered his father had died but that he had two siblings and four half siblings. He was able to contact all of them and eventually meet them. Through those contacts he was able to track down his birth mom to a cabin in South Lake Tahoe.

When he knocked on the door and announced who he was his mother seemed more annoyed than delighted and told him she wasn’t interested and shut the door. That was a shock but finding he had real brothers and sisters made up for the cold shoulder from his birth mom. I asked Linhares if he ever thought about what his life would be like if he had remained with his birth mother. He did, many times, and was so thankful with his good fortune to be adopted by such wonderful loving, caring adoptive parents who provided him with a good life, a good education and opportunities for future success.

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Linhares has a Bachelor of Art in business management from Notre Dame and an MBA in finance from the University of San Francisco. He was working in Palo Alto for a nonprofit devoted to people with disabilities when a friend told him about a job posting with the Archdiocese in San Francisco. He liked his job in Palo Alto but put in his application. Today, he is the director of Mission Advancement for the Archdiocese. I asked if fundraising was difficult because of tensions within Catholicism, a more liberal interpretation versus a more conservative one. Linhares said it was a challenge. On the one hand, some individuals who did not approve of the conservative approach of the San Francisco Archdiocese gave less. But that was balanced by individuals who endorsed that philosophy and upped their contributions. He steers away from the politics and focuses on the mission of the church in helping people.

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He and wife Lisa have lived in San Mateo for 30 years. They have three children. The oldest is doing cancer research at Yale; a daughter lives in Chicago and works for a branding company; and the youngest is a student at Syracuse University.

In addition to being a Rotary member and now the incoming president, Linhares is also a member of the San Mateo Library Board. Before that he was on the San Mateo Library Foundation Board where his fundraising skills were helpful.

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What are his plans for the San Mateo Rotary Club? For one, they are enjoying the fellow and girlship of at least meeting in person for lunch but they still are zooming meetings for those reluctant to attend in person. Linhares feels Rotary has a wonderful story to tell and not enough people know all the good things it does for the community, especially its scholarship programs for young people in middle school and high school who plan to attend a community or four-year college and need financial assistance to do so.

He wants to make the club’s sweat equity programs more visible in the community and increase the use of social media to get more people involved. Since the Archdiocese hired Linhares for his public speaking and fundraising abilities, these skills should make him a very successful president of Rotary. And my guess is we will hear more of Linhares in the future, maybe as a candidate for City Council or something like that.

Sue Lempert is the former mayor of San Mateo. Her column runs every Monday. She can be reached at sue@smdailyjournal.com.