2015 Honoree - Cliff Kuhlman
Louis F. Schultz Distinguished Service Award
A retired banker and real estate broker, Cliff Kuhlman is past president of the Grants Pass Association of Realtors and was inducted into the GP Realtors Hall of Fame. He raised seed money for the foundation supporting the Family House at Asante Three Rivers Medical Center.
Kuhlman is past president of the Grants Pass Rotary Club and has been chairman or involved in over a dozen committees. He has received Rotary’s Presidential Citation and was part of the leadership team introducing the Duck Derby to Grants Pass. He was instrumental in the development of Morrison Rotary Centennial Park, a project in which all three Grants Pass-area Rotary clubs participated. He was a teacher for the Rotary District 5110 Leadership Academy, area coordinator for the district’s polio eradication campaign, served on the 5110 Ambassadorial Scholarship Committee for 10 years, and was chair of the Extension Committee. He served as Assistant Governor and oversaw Rotary’s distribution of dictionaries to every third grader in Josephine County for many years.
Kuhlman worked on the Grants Pass Parks Advisory Board, the Asante Foundation Trustee Board, the Regional Workforce Quality Committee for Jackson-Josephine counties, the local Alcohol and Drug Planning Committee, the Josephine Board of Property Tax Appeals, the City of Grants Pass Urban Area Planning Commission, as well as the city’s Bikeways and Walkways Committee, its Redevelopment Agency Advisory Committee, and the Industrial Loan Advisory Committee.
He has been a member of River Valley Church for over 30 years and served as an elder as well as on other committees. He has completed 15 marathons and an ultra marathon (50 miles). Cliff played third base for the Grants Pass Senior Softball League and has a gold medal from the World Senior Games in St. George, Utah. He has performed in dozens of productions for the Barnstormers, Stardust, and Rogue Music theaters.
Kuhlman is past president of the Oregon School Boards Association Board of Directors and served on the Financial Audit Committee. He also is past regional chair of the National School Board Association, served two terms on the Oregon State Athletic Association Executive board, seven years on the Oregon Schools Study Council Advisory Board, and chaired the National School Board Association’s Pacific region, serving 10 western states. Currently in his 30th year as a member of the Grants Pass School District 7 Board of Directors, he has been past chair on numerous occasions. Kuhlman has seen the construction of three elementary schools (Lincoln, Redwood, and Parkside), a new Grants Pass High School, including the Performing Arts Center, and the recent elementary school expansion project to accommodate full-day kindergarten.
Kuhlman has been consistently and tirelessly supportive of all of the district’s academic and extracurricular programs, including his support of the board-adopted fiscal prudence guidelines, which have allowed critical programs to continue and flourish.
Cliff is always a gentleman, someone who is dependable and practices the Rotary motto of “Service Above Self” every day: exemplifying the Four Way test, kind, thoughtful, and giving.
Selected non-profit: Grants Pass Performing Arts Center