On Saturday, November 16th, the 2019 Governor Nominating Committee, a team of five Past Rotary District Governors, held its interviews and selected the District Governor for the Rotary year of 2022-2023: Dr. Harvey Bass.
Harvey is a member of the Rotary Club of Florenceville and currently the Assistant Governor for Area 9. He has been a Rotarian for twenty-seven years and has made significant contributions to Rotary and to the communities in which he serves...
Early Life
Harvey was born in Winnipeg on September 14th, 1959, the third child of Dr. Edwin and Lucille Bass. The family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, when Harvey was one year old, then to Chicago (Northbrook), Illinois, when he was 12. After a year and a half, the family moved back to Winnipeg.Education
Harvey graduated from Tuxedo-Shaftesbury High School in 1977. He attended the University of Manitoba for pre-med and accepted into the University of Waterloo School of Optometry in 1979. Harvey graduated with a Doctor of Optometry degree in 1983.Career
Harvey moved to New Brunswick to work on the Mobile Vision Program, which he would later manage to examine all Grade 1 students in New Brunswick during the school year and visit all the regional Nursing Homes during the summer months. To this day, he continues to serve four area Nursing Homes. In 1985 he started full-time practice in Perth-Andover and in 1988, he opened an office in Plaster Rock. Presently Harvey has optometry offices in Grand Falls and Florenceville.Professional Associations
From 1984 to 1987, Harvey was the Chairperson of the Children’s Vision Section of the Canadian Association of Optometrists (CAO). From 2002 to 2014, he was the Chairperson of the New Brunswick Association of Optometrists (NBAO) Negotiating Committee, negotiating provincial third party agreements, as well as the Chairperson of the Atlantic Association of Optometrists Negotiating Committee, negotiating federal third party agreements. From 2002 to 2007, Harvey chaired the NBAO Occupational Vision Care committee. In 2014 he began serving on the NBAO Executive, and last year started a two-year term as President. He is also on the Canadian Council of Provincial Presidents (the governing body of all optometric association presidents) and is on a vision care advisory committee with Indigenous Services Canada.Community Involvement
Harvey’s history of community involvement began with The Conservation Council of New Brunswick. From 1985 to 1989, he served on the Board of Directors. From 1987 to 1990, Harvey was a member of the Board of Directors of the Hotel Dieu of Saint Joseph’s Hospital providing service to the Village of Perth-Andover, Tobique First Nation and its surrounding communities which include a population of over 10,000 people. From 1990 to 1994, he was a member of the Board of Directors of Victoria Glen Manor. In 1994, he founded the Guardian’s of Hotel Dieu and from 1994-1998, and was a member of the Board of Directors of the Hotel Dieu Hospital Foundation. In 2002 he was appointed co-chair of the Perth Hospital Coalition, and in 2003 he was a co-founder of the Upper River Valley Health Care Coalition, uniting all the Saint John River Valley communities in the creation of a single strategic health care initiative for all the citizens of our area.Political Contribution
In 2003 Harvey ventured into politics running in the May 2003 provincial election as the New Democratic Party candidate in the riding of Victoria-Tobique. In 2004 he was appointed Co-Chair of the Provincial Community Health Care Coalition uniting Francophone, Anglophone, and First Nation rural communities throughout New Brunswick - their goal the identification and developing innovative solutions for the challenges of rural health care in our province.Rotary
Harvey’s passion for Rotary began in 1984 when he was invited to join the Rotary Club of Perth-Andover at a time when only men were allowed. By 1989 Rotary evolved into a club for any gender. Harvey spearheaded the Youth Exchange Program for the Perth-Andover Rotary for several years, an experience he will never forget. He had kept in touch with a few former students and last summer, while at the Rotary International Convention in Hamburg, Germany, had the opportunity to catch up with one - now married with four children close in age to that of his children when she lived with his family.Harvey served on the Perth-Andover Rotary Executive as Secretary, Treasurer, Vice President, then became President in 1993. He joined the Rotary Club of Florenceville in 2014 and became President in 2017. That same year, Harvey volunteered for Project Give, a humanitarian project in Guatemala funded by the River Valley Rotary Clubs of New Brunswick and the Rotary Clubs of Northern Maine. He is planning on volunteering again and is currently working on putting together a vision care project in the same region of Guatemala.
Most recently, in 2018, Harvey was appointed Assistant District Governor of Area 9 in District 7810 and just graduated from the Rotary Leadership Institute, having completed Level 3 training in Truro, Nova Scotia, in October 2019. He recently became a recurring donor to the Rotary Foundation Annual SHARE Fund. In November of this year, Harvey was honoured by the Rotary Club of Florenceville with a Paul Harris Fellowship.
Family
Harvey’s greatest source of pride is his four beautiful and successful children, Aaron (1986), Danielle (1988), Sophie (1990), and Alec (1995) and his three grandchildren, Aurelie (2014), Beatrice (2017) and Juliette (2019). He is also looking forward to sharing the rest of his life with his partner of over ten years, Donna Butcher. Together they share a passion for Alpine skiing and outdoor activities.Service Above Self
Harvey is a passionate advocate of all things Rotary and is dedicated to the survival, growth and evolution of Rotary to continue our long and proud history of service to our communities, both local and global.Please join us in congratulating our new District Governor for the Rotary year 2022-2023!