At Lincoln South Rotary Club on Friday, February 13, 2026, we learned about our member, Dean Venter.
Dean was born in a little town in Southwest Minnesota. He grew up in Hastings after the family moved there from Minnesota.
He did his undergraduate work at UNL and his graduate studies in Kearney where he got his Masters in Educational Psychology.
Most of his life he has been self-employed performing vocational evaluations. He would determine the individual's employability and loss of earning capacity (LOEC). He would testify at hearings and trials for this and also performed as an expert witness for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) cases.
He primarily joined Rotary for the fellowship. He was first a member in Seward, Grand Island and Columbus. While in Grand Island he became aware of the charitable activities and The Rotary Foundation. The Grand Island club was active in supporting polio eradication as well as international projects such as providing clean water and temporary housing.
He is proud of introducing the Grand Island Rotary Club to a fundraiser - The Taste of Grand Island which continues to be the club's largest fundraiser.
Dean shared that things we may not know is that he has a spinal cord stimulator which offers pain relief by delivering small electrical pulses that disrupt pain signals before they reach the brain. He has a number of tattoos (hidden from our view - and he did no show us).