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Ray Sanford

Ray Sanford

Admin

Past District Governor

Profile

Join date: May 27, 2019

About

Now retired and a member of the Rotary Club of San Juan Capistrano, Ray was the founder of a graphic production and website service company that specialized in creating online businesses for small and medium-sized companies.

His management background is varied. He’s a former Marine officer and Vietnam veteran. He spent more than 20 years in the hospitality business, rising from entry-level jobs to become President/CEO of a regional hospitality business managing and developing hotels and restaurants. He left the hospitality field to pursue real estate development and sales, eventually becoming Sr. V.P. of Merrill Lynch Realty’s auction division. He helped put together a team that marketed non-performing residential projects for lenders and developers during the S&L financial crisis.

Posts (360)

Jul 16, 2026 ∙ 2 min

Telling kids about Rotary

My grandson Emmett is eleven. He doesn’t really know what Rotary actually is. I've been a member for twenty-five years, and my father was a member when I was just a kid. I realized most of my answers would bore him to sleep. Committees. Districts. Grants. Membership. Process. blah, blah, blah. So I re-thought how to explain it. Here's what I’d say. Buddy, a long time ago — 1905 — a man named Paul Harris lived in Chicago. The city was enormous and getting bigger every day. Nobody knew anybody....

Jul 13, 2026 ∙ 1 min

Thank you for 100,000 reasons to keep telling these stories

RotaryStories just passed 100,000 impressions and 60,000 views on YouTube. That number isn't the point. You are. Every view means someone stopped scrolling long enough to watch a Rotarian show up for their community. Every share means you trusted these stories enough to pass them on. That trust is the whole reason this project exists. Rotary has been telling its own story for over a century. Our job is just to make sure people are still listening. Thank you for making that possible. More...

Jun 8, 2026 ∙ 1 min

Rotary Moments is a series about the moment a person discovers meaning. Every Rotary member carries a story they can’t explain away. The one that turned a normal Rotary meeting into something they’d defend with their name. This is a series of brief, heartfelt moments built entirely from those stories — just voices describing the exact second when a service project stopped being a line on a resume and became something that wouldn’t let go. Something with true meaning. The Moments #1:...

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