Meet Your Neighbor: Natalie Bailey, 100th Rotary Club of Coronado President

Natalie Bailey was born and raised in Coronado, quite literally. She was born at Sharp Coronado Hospital before it closed its delivery wing in the early 2000s. The newest president of the Rotary Club of Coronado shares her story from Canada, where she is currently participating in the 2025 Rotary International Convention.

Growing up in Coronado

“The biggest part of how growing up in Coronado shaped me is the small-town community feel of everything,” Natalie says. “You really knew all of your neighbors, your teachers, the police officers, everyone. I like the close-knit, strong community feel to it.”

Being from Coronado, Natalie always knew that the town was ultimately where she would live. For that reason, when she was heading off to college, she expanded her search to encompass the entire country. “I wanted to go somewhere else, specifically because I knew I wanted to end up back in San Diego or Coronado.”

Rotary Club of Coronado

After Natalie completed her college education and earned her DDS degree at Marquette University School of Dentistry, she fulfilled her plans and returned to Coronado. Natalie is now a business partner of Advanced Dentistry, where she works alongside her mother, Dr. Suzanne Popp.

Celebrating Mother and Daughter Business Duos in Honor of Mother’s Day

In addition to Suzanne welcoming Natalie into the dental practice, she also inspired Natalie’s sense of volunteerism. “I officially joined Rotary when I got back from dental school, around May of 2018. My mom was the biggest driving force. She has been a member of Rotary for around 35 years. Seeing how there are so many ways you can give back, not just to your community, but the world… I wanted to be part of that.”

Natalie’s involvement as a Rotarian started when she was younger through the Rotary Youth Exchange program and CHS Interact. Natalie went on to found the Coronado Rotaract chapter in January 2019 before the pandemic put an early end to the program.

Coronado Rotaract: Young Professionals Making a Difference

“It was never a question of whether I would join Rotary, it was when I was going to move home and join. That’s just what you do. You join a service and community organization, and I’ve never thought twice about it.”

Reflecting on Rotaract

Coronado Rotaract was a subsect of Rotary. The premise of Rotaract is that it brings together people aged 18-30 to exchange ideas with community leaders, develop leadership and professional skills, and have fun through service. In communities worldwide, Rotary and Rotaract members work side by side to take action through service.

“Even though it ended, I was really proud of Rotaract,” Natalie says. “It was so fun and I was really proud of that. I think what Rotary sometimes lacks for people our age is the abundance of hands-on service. We did a lot of that with Rotaract. We did the Ronald McDonald House. We did the San Diego Food Bank, we did bike bar crawls to raise money for Team Quinn. Having those hands-on events is really important for people our age, because we don’t have a ton of money to give to different charities necessarily, but we have more time.”

Natalie continues that what she learned from Rotaract is what she is trying to bring to make Rotary more robust. “I’m finding a way to bring some more young professional development and networking back into the club. It’s networking, but it’s also reminding people who are really busy working and really busy with their families that it’s a really great thing to give back to the community. It feels good, and it’s a really great bonding experience. I’m incorporating a bit of those types of projects that we did in Rotaract.”

Natalia Bailey, 100^th Rotary Club of Coronado President

On June 22, the Rotary Club of Coronado completed its ceremonial passing of the baton to the incoming president, Natalie Bailey, for their 100th year.

“There’s a nominating committee that’s made up of past presidents in the club. This will be my fourth year on the board. I had been on the board for maybe two years when Dan Gensler called me and said, ‘Hey, you know we’re nominating our next Rotary president, and we’d like you to consider taking that position.’”

Once again, for Natalie, being part of Rotary in this position was not an if, but a when. She laughs as she shares, “My mom was president when she was 35, and I was going to be 32 so I wanted to be younger and to be able to say that.” She continues, “I figure at some point I’ll probably have kids, and it’s only going to get harder to do that job.”

Changes to Rotary in 2025-2026

“Part of my goal is to bring more hands-on activities,” says Natalie. “I don’t want to overwhelm people with too many things, but I want to provide more of those options. For example, going to the Ronald McDonald House as a one-off, and inviting everyone to come. If people want to go, great!”

I also want to bring more business networking to the club. I struggle with getting people in their 30s to join Rotary, because a lot of people see it as for retired people, which it’s not. The whole of Rotary, when it first started, was business development and philanthropy. I want to bring some of that back. So I might have quarterly networking events, not just socials, but possibly a speed dating sort of thing. You sit down with one person and talk for two minutes about your business, and get to know each other. Making networking a little more structured. I have all sorts of ideas, but at the same time, it is a club that has been around for a very long time, so implementing change has to be done slowly.”

A big part of the year is that Coronado Rotary is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Officially it’s March 2026, but the whole year will be for celebrating. There’s a Rotary 100 committee, and all sorts of celebrations are planned for the year.

Calling Coronado Home

“There’s safety in knowing your community in a general sense. The safety of knowing your community is comforting. I feel supported by my peers and by my community. I don’t think you get that just anywhere.”

You can find Natalie working at Advanced Dentistry, where she is currently accepting new patients. When she’s not at work, she enjoys spending her time sipping coffee at The Henry or grabbing a beer at McP’s. She spends a lot of time sitting out in the grassy area of the Coronado Ferry Landing with a good book, and biking around the bay and strand.

What Coronado neighbors may not know about Natalie is that she is a Green Bay Packers fan, to the extent that she was once featured in Sports Illustrated, as Aaron Rodgers’ number one fan.

While she typically hosts a party outside of Advanced Dentistry on the Fourth of July, this year she will be leading the Rotary float in a Statue of Liberty outfit – give her a wave!