Our own President Marilyn introduces our speaker to continue the recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month. Lieutenant Colonel Gilberto S. Perez is the Chief, Cyber/Operations Research Analyst/Weather Assignments, Air Force Colonels Management Office. He conducts senior leader talent management and coordinates personnel actions for 300 Active Duty Colonels and Colonel- Selects for the Chief of Staff, Secretary of the Air Force, and Deputy Chief of Staff, Manpower and Personnel.

As a native of Tampa, Florida, Lieutenant Colonel Perez entered the Air Force after graduating Leto High School in 2002 and received his commission through the U.S. Air Force Academy in 2007. He has served in operational communication units within the fixed, tactical, and executive environments, along with being deployed in support of OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM.

Prior to his current assignment, he was student at U.S. Army Command and General Staff Officer Course, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

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Our own President Marilyn introduces Judge Faruqui. Judege Zia M. Faruqui was appointed as a United States Magistrate Judge on September 14, 2020. He received a B.A. and J.D. from Georgetown University. Following law school, he was a litigation associate at Willkie Farr in Washington, D.C., where he focused on government investigations and general commercial litigation. Judge Faruqui then served for twelve years as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in St. Louis and Washington D.C. While there, he prosecuted cases involving terrorists use of cryptocurrency, North Korean weapons proliferation, darknet sites dedicated to child exploitation, and the theft of antiquities. He also represented the Department of Justice at numerous conferences across the globe on financial crimes, cryptocurrency, and national security issues.

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Our own President Marilyn introduces Interim Director Eduardo Perdomo. Originally from the Dominican Republic, he has been living in USA and Washington DC for over 7 years. Eduardo has over 13 years of experience in project management working in community development and international development projects financially supported by the United Nations, Organization of American States, Spaniard Agency for International Development, US Agency for International Development and the Government of the District of Columbia. He currently serves as the Interim Director at the Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs (MOLA) where he develops strategies to better serve the Latino community and oversees the daily operations of the Agency. Since coming to MOLA Eduardo has helped the Agency to increase its grants budget by 70% and managed a grant portfolio of more than 420 community programs in the areas of education, health & wellness, economic development, arts and humanities, public safety, civic engagement, housing, and youth development.

Eduardo has multiple skills but one that sets him apart are his cross-cultural competence that enable him to interact with people of different backgrounds and approach social issues in the search for solutions through a multifaceted point of view. He feels privilege for being able to serve DC residents and to work under the Leadership of Mayor Muriel Bowser and the guidance of the Director of the office on Latino Affairs, Ms. Jackie Reyes-Yanes.

One of the things he enjoys in life is being able to interact with the beneficiaries of the programs supported by MOLA and listen to their testimonies of how important for their lives these interventions have been. Eduardo is proud of being part of the team that supported Mayor Muriel Bowser’s ‘friendly immigrant policies” by assisting in the implementation of the immigrant Justice Legal Services Grant.

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Our own Bob Johnson introduces Jim Laychak.
James J. Laychak became the full-time Executive Director of the Pentagon Memorial Fund (PMF) in January of 2020. Working with the new board, his focus is to raise the funds to design and build the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial Visitor Education Center.
After losing his younger brother in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon, Mr. Laychak became involved in the process of creating a memorial on the grounds of the Pentagon to honor the 184 men, women and children killed there on September 11, 2001. Mr. Laychak worked to establish the PMF, the non-profit tax-exempt organization responsible for raising the funds to design, build and maintain the Pentagon Memorial. From the earliest stages, Mr. Laychak served as a member of the Steering Committee that helped guide the project’s site selection and design competition, including the juried process to pick the final concept design for the memorial.

Mr. Laychak has led the PMF since its inception and has served as primary public spokesperson for the PMF with the press and television news organizations. Mr. Laychak developed and executed the strategic plan that enabled the PMF to raise the money needed to design and build the Pentagon Memorial, which was dedicated on 9/11/2008. Mr. Laychak led the execution of the fundraising plan that raised $25M over a four-and-a-half-year period. He also acted as the primary liaison between family members, senior leadership within the Pentagon, and the design-build firm throughout the construction phase of the Pentagon Memorial.

After the Pentagon Memorial was dedicated in 2008, Mr. Laychak guided the transition of the PMF to an organization focused on designing and building a visitor education and conference center near the Pentagon Memorial. Working closely with the Pentagon’s Washington Headquarters Service and Arlington National Cemetery, the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial Visitor Education Center (VEC) will be a short walking distance from the Pentagon Memorial. When completed, the VEC will complement the Pentagon Memorial and will complete the 9/11 story. The VEC will provide a place to educate future generations about the acts of heroism and bravery that took place at the Pentagon on 9/11 and how our government responded to the 9/11 attack.

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Our own Past President Lynn Holec introduces Chuck Baker, the President of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association which represents the nation’s 600 small business, privately owned freight railroads and more than 500 industry suppliers in regulatory and legislative matters. He brought 15 years in the railroad industry to this role as a Partner at Chambers Conlon & Hartwell (CC&H), where he represented the legislative interests of clients such as the ASLRRA, National Railroad Construction & Maintenance Association (NRC), the OneRail Coalition, the American Railway Development Association, and two Class I Railroads - Norfolk Southern, and Canadian National. Mr. Baker also served as Association President for the NRC, and the OneRail Coalition, where he remains a Board Member. Prior to his lobbying experience, Mr. Baker worked with the Surface Transportation Policy Project in Washington, D.C., and for Deutsche Bank Securities as an investment banker specializing in Corporate Finance and Mergers & Acquisitions. Mr. Baker recently received the inaugural Canby Award from the OneRail Coalition, honoring his dedication to preserving and improving the U.S. rail network.

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Walter Reyes is the Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer for the Pension Boards–United Church of Christ (PBUCC), responsible for leading overall people strategy, including leadership development; succession planning; talent acquisition and management; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives; organizational design and cultural transformation; and change management efforts to build employer brand. In his three years as CHRO, he has implemented a number of initiatives, including launching a successful Summer Internship Program.

He began his career in the non-profit sector. Later, he worked as CHRO/CAO for a large affordable housing development corporation. Most recently, as an HR Director, led a team responsible for delivering HR strategies for a $9 billion revenue line of business with more than 1,000 employees. With more than 20 years’ experience, he is recognized as a savvy business partner to C-Suite executives.

Walter earned BBA and MBA degrees at Hofstra University. He lives in Long Island, enjoys traveling the world, and the richness of diverse cultures and perspectives.

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Our own Sterling Hoffman introduces Paul Tukey, who joined the Glenstone Museum team in 2010, is an award-winning journalist, author, filmmaker, HGTV host, consultant and motivational public speaker who is internationally recognized as a pioneering leader in sustainable landscaping. Now serving as the Director of Environmental Stewardship at Glenstone, Paul has been helping to create a “living classroom” on the all-organic 300-acre site that includes native meadows, a five-acre organic lawn, restored streams and tributaries, forests, and more than 12,000 recently planted native trees.

Winner of the prestigious Communicator of the Year Award from the American Horticultural Society, as well as the 2018 Green Medal Award from the Garden Writers of America, Paul has been featured in thousands of media outlets from Martha Stewart and Good Morning America as well as National Geographic, Readers Digest and the New York Times, which called him, “The godfather of the natural land care movement.” He has published four magazines, including People, Places & Plants (1995-2009), and produced and co-hosted an HGTV show of the same name. His books include the Organic Lawn Care Manual (Storey 2007) and Tag, Toss & Run: 40 Classic Lawn Games (Storey 2012), and Raising Tomorrow’s Champions (Inspire Media 2021). His 2010 feature-length documentary film titled, “A Chemical Reaction,” profiling the lawn pesticide bans sweeping across Canada and the U.S., earned three EMMY nominations.

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Our own Salvador Farfán introduces Dan Schnur. Dan is a Professor at the University of California – Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Public Policy, and the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communications, where he teaches courses in politics, communications and leadership. Dan has also taught at the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Institute of Politics at Harvard University and George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.
He is the founder of the USC/LA Times statewide political poll and currently hosts a weekly webinar for the LA World Affairs Council Town Hall called “Politics in the Time of Coronavirus.” (www.lawac.org)

Previously, Dan worked on four presidential and three gubernatorial campaigns as one of California’s leading political strategists. He served as the national Director of Communications for the 2000 presidential campaign of U.S. Senator John McCain and was the chief media spokesman for California Governor Pete Wilson.

In 2010, Dan was appointed Chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), where he implemented groundbreaking campaign finance disclosure requirements. Dan also was a founder and cochairman of the Voices of Reform project, the bipartisan statewide effort whose work laid the foundation for California’s landmark redistricting reform. After completing his FPPC term, Dan registered as a No Party Preference voter and launched Fixing California, an organization dedicated to campaign finance and political reform. In 2014, Dan ran for statewide office as a non-partisan candidate for California Secretary of State.

Dan has been an advisor to the William & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Broad Education Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the James Irvine Foundation, the Public Policy Institute of California and the Stuart Foundation on a variety of political reform, K-12 education and college and workforce preparedness efforts.

Dan is an active community volunteer as well, serving as a board member of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, Junior State of America, the Pacific Council on International Policy, the Center for Asians United for Self Empowerment (CAUSE) and as a senior advisor to the Hispanas Organized for Political Equality (HOPE) leadership training programs. He is the former Los Angeles director for the American Jewish Committee and serves as an advisor to the Los Angeles Jewish Federation. He is a member of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Senior Fellows program, where he mentors UCLA graduate students and advises them on their academic and professional goals.

Dan’s commentaries have appeared in several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Sacramento Bee, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. In addition, he has been an analyst and political commentator for CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and National Public Radio.

Dan is a graduate of the American University in Washington, D.C. He and his wife Cecile Ablack, an international communications consultant and former Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles, live in LA.

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Our own Steve Liston introduces the speakers from Prison Fellowship International. Rae Wood is Vice President of Global Impact and Jonathan Derby is a Restorative Justice Advisor.
Rae brings Prison Fellowship International 20 years of leadership experience from diverse fields including the military, defense contracting, nonprofit ministries, and program management. Rae served five years in the United States Marine Corps where she provided tactical leadership to Marines all over the world on land and sea. She served as a missionary in Asia working with unreached people groups and developing a cultural curriculum for an internship program focused on exposing young adults to missionary work. Later, she joined the pastoral staff of her US-based church, leading small group ministries.

In 2014, Rae launched Prison Fellowship International’s in-prison evangelism and discipleship program, The Prisoner’s Journey, which is on track to reach 1 million prisoners, with the message of the Gospel, by 2020. She now oversees the strategic implementation of all global field initiatives.
Rae graduated from Regent University with a Master of Arts in Practical Theology.

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