Heinz Holzapfel, Past President
In 2017 I finally was able to fulfill a long childhood dream: my wife Sylvia and I bought our first Porsche, a 2011 911C4S triple black Cabriolet. A year later we joined PCA and ORPCA. Then in the fall of 2019, we replaced Sylvia’s aging BMW 5-Series Sports Wagon with a 2018 Macan S, and we still maintain our 1999 Miata, our first little sports car that is now my autocross ninja.
We both have a history in High Tech. Sylvia was a Marketing Executive and I was a Software Development Executive. We moved from Silicon Valley to Portland in 2009. After joining ORPCA in April 2018, our first encounter with the club was the 2018 Cabin Fever Tour and we got hooked. We joined several drive events throughout the year and enjoyed the drives and the camaraderie. I also went to several Autocross events to get a better feeling of the 911’s capabilities.
In late 2018, Peg Ryan and I started brainstorming about improvements to the club’s aged website, and after board approval we started the work on the new website in January 2019, leading to the launch in June 2019. The site since then has grown in capabilities and features and is now covering 95% of all club events and membership dues. It has won two PCA National Website Awards.
Another project I worked on was to offer turn-by-turn navigation capability for our drives through a Smartphone app. After testing several, we settled on Scenic, an iPhone app originally developed for motorcycle riders. The app has found a nice follow-ship, but it is not meant to replace the classic written driving directions. However, if you drive alone or with a navigator who’s prone to get car sick, it’s a big help. In 2024 we added a clubaccount for RidewithGPS. Today virtually all club drives are covered by digital navigation..
In 2020 I took on the coordination and planning of the SUV group events, as our long-term leader and group founder Jeremy Williams moved to Bend. In 2021 we offered for the first time SUV drives every month between March and October, in 2022 and 2023 we had 11 SUV drives each year. Jeff Gasparitsch has now taken the SUV group under his management.
In 2022 I became the Vice President of our club. Besides continuing my roles as Webmaster, I put my emphasis on our driving events, as they are the heartbeat of the club. As part of the recovery from the pandemic, we again increased group sizes and the number of groups of our drives, we added additional drives, and new driving events like the Drive, Wine and Dine, ladies only drives, air-cooled drives, EV drives, summer eve drives. Our club is very active. In 2022 and 2023 our club was head-to-head with one other PCA region offering the most driving events of any of the 147 regions.
In 2024 I stepped up to the President’s role. My emphasis was on continuing to address the ever growing demand of drives and tours, but also to setup the clubs organization for better scalability. We established a new drive team, transferred the Anzeiger into new Management, re-designed the weekly member email, opened our events and communication up to all PCA members in the region, and began moving club document, including all scanned Anzeigers, and tools into the cloud for improved document accessibility and collaboration.
I am honored to be serving as ORPCA’s Past President and Webmaster. I am looking forward to seeing you at our drive and social events!
Copyright © 2025 by PCA Oregon Region | Design by CELA WebDesign
Ads shown on any page of this website do not indicate endorsement of any company or product by the Oregon Region Porsche Club of America
Wheels are rolling! 2025 is under way and we are off to a great start. This year marks the Oregon Region’s 65th Anniversary. As with most groups or organizations that have matured to such a ripe age, decisions made along the way have shaped the organization into what it is today. I am fortunate to inherit a well-run and well-managed club as I take on the role of President. I am thankful for those who have gone before me and who are now guiding me even as they themselves have stepped away from day-to-day club governance.
For the last nine years, the Club has been funding scholarships for automotive technician students at three local community colleges. The necessary cash to fund these scholarships is generated through the proceeds of an investment account that has grown over the last 20+ years. The Scholarship Program was set up years ago and requires Board approval on an annual basis. For the past several years, there have been numerous Board and strategy discussions as to whether scholarships are the “best” way to disburse $6,000 each year. Although the Scholarship Committee always provided a positive argument for maintaining the funding, the Board continued to struggle with the question of whether scholarships are the best use of the money we have. Once again, the Board found itself at budget approval time facing the same question. At February’s Board of Director’s meeting, the Board voted unanimously to suspend the funding of local community college scholarships indefinitely.
While we don’t have an answer to the question of “best” use of the funds that have previously been set aside, we agreed that scholarships are currently not the best fit. Although automotive technicians are people every Porsche owner needs in their lives and on their list of resources, there is no direct way to track the scholarship recipients and know for sure
if the Club investment of those scholarship dollars will ever come to the benefit of Porsche Club members. The tricky part of the conversation at the board level has been that while scholarships are benefitting a few students each year, what is the benefit to the Club? We would like to support and endorse programs that create a win-win scenario. We give some money, the recipients benefit, and the Club benefits through either goodwill or some other direct benefit.
In addition, and ideally, the Board would like Club members to feel more directly part of this giving pattern. Perhaps we can find a charity we can all agree is a good cause and set up a matching program. Perhaps we fund or support communities in some way. These are all deep, good conversations and decisions to be made. To that end, we will form a new committee to explore charitable or community focused opportunities that we may fund or support in the future. We welcome your input, ideas, and comments. If you would like to be a part of the so-far unnamed new committee, please let me or any Board member know. A couple of people have already stepped forward to spearhead the committee, but we hope to recruit three to five additional members. If you have an interest in community enhancement or thoughts about charitable giving, please get in touch with me or any board member.
I’m looking forward to getting some of the administration work of the Club completed before sunny spring days beckon for driving. There are already several events on the calendar that have me excited. Some are for the experience of driving, some for the chance to hang out with members and feel the passion you have for your cars, and others just to experience something new. I know 2025 is going to be a great year and I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds.
Let’s Drive!
