Our own Sterling Hoffman introduces David Micha, President
Intelsat General Communications. David A. Micha is the President of Intelsat General Communications (IGC), a Business Unit of the Intelsat Corporation. As the foundational architects of satellite technology, Intelsat operates the largest, most advanced satellite fleet and connectivity infrastructure in the world. In this role since February 2021, David (Dave) is involved in all aspects of the business including Strategy, Business Development, Customer Relationships, M&A, P&L and Operations.

Dave has spent his entire thirty-six year career in the Aerospace and Defense industry, including twenty-three years at L3Harris and, prior to that, thirteen years at Lockheed Martin. Prior to joining Intelsat, Dave was the Chief Operating Officer for the L3Harris Integrated Mission Systems Segment and, prior to that, served as the Sector President for L3 Technologies Advanced Communications Sector. David also led the Maritime Sector and Space Sector for L3 Technologies. While at Lockheed Martin, David worked in various functions, including Program Management, Operations and Finance supporting the DoD, Intelligence Community and International partners.

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Our own Alexander Tu introduces B. Douglas Hoey, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Community Pharmacists Association. The National Community Pharmacists Association represents the owners of nearly 19,400 pharmacy small businesses. These pharmacies are important to local economies, providing jobs for more than 215,000 people in their communities and consumers consistently rank them as the top rated pharmacies in the country.

Hoey is a licensed pharmacist in Oklahoma, Virginia, and Texas and practiced in a variety of community pharmacy settings including his own family’s pharmacy before coming to NCPA. Hoey was NCPA’s first Chief Operating Officer and in 2011 was named CEO. He is widely quoted by media as an industry expert on community pharmacy practice issues including drug supply and prescription drug pricing. Hoey also developed and taught pharmacology courses at George Washington University and Marymount universities. He is President of the World Pharmacy Council, co-chairman of the Surescripts Board of Directors, chairman of the NCPA Innovation Center, and vice-chair for the CPESN® USA Board of Managers.

Hoey served on the Pharmacy Quality Alliance board for six years and was chairman of the Mirixa board for eight years. His pharmacy degree is from the University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy and his MBA is from the Oklahoma City University graduate school of business.

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Our own Elise Egan introduces Dee Dee Parker Wright. Dee Dee has committed her career to helping families form strong attachments to ensure the best possible outcomes for children, particularly where difficulties create barriers to success. She has been Executive Director of Jubilee JumpStart since 2011, following 12 years in Head Start and 4 years at Children's Protective Services, all settings in which racial, socio-economic and language differences have increased the barriers the families faced. While at Jubilee JumpStart, she has led their efforts to achieve NAEYC accreditation twice, implementing a responsive and nurturing parent engagement program, and creating an organizational structure with coaching and development of teachers at its core. She knows that children are healthier and can achieve more when they grow up surrounded by nurturing adults who are developing themselves. She strongly believes that building community and connection that best supports vulnerable children and their caregivers requires awareness, naming, and challenging of systems that are inherently and actively biased.

The Rotary Foundation of Washington D.C. awarded Jubilee JumpStart with a large $20,000 grant in the 2021-2022 Rotary year.

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Past President David Klaus introduces Dr. Eugene Rogers and a quartet of the Washington Chorus helps get our club in the holiday mood with a performance of holiday songs.
Founded in 1961, The Washington Chorus is a world-class amateur symphonic choir based in Washington, D.C., United States. The three-time-nominated and two-time-Grammy-Award-winning ensemble has 160 members and performs during the season (September-May) at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Music Center at Strathmore, and the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. They have also undertaken several tours overseas. For years they have performed a series of Candlelit Christmas Concerts in December at the Kennedy Center and at Strathmore. Under the direction of their music director, Dr. Eugene Rogers, a quartet of the best singers in the chorus, accompanied by the chorus's pianist, will perform seasonal favorites at our Rotary meeting on Wednesday, December 21.

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Our own Past President Jennifer Hara introduces Director Reyes-Yanes. In October 2021, Mayor Muriel Bowser appointed Jackie Reyes-Yanes as the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Community Affairs (MOCA). Director Reyes is the first Latina to be appointed to this position. Before serving as Director of MOCA, she served as the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs (MOLA) for 6 years.

During her tenure as the first Salvadoran Director of the Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs (MOLA), she was responsible for advocating and making the Latino community an integral part of the District of Columbia policy’s design and budget allocation. The mandate of the agency, which is part of the Executive Office of the Mayor, is to ensure that full range of health, education, employment, and social services are made available to Latino residents of the District of Columbia.

Director Reyes-Yanes’ experience spans more than twenty years of commitment to the diverse growing Latino community. She has acted as the Latino Affairs and Community Outreach Director for late DC council member, Jim Graham (D – Ward 1). While serving with Graham, Reyes spearheaded initiatives to address the needs of Latino residents in the District. Several of her accomplishments include organizing gang prevention events that successfully reduced street violence and crime and helping secure financing to rebuild the Monseñor Romero Apartments in Mount Pleasant which were destroyed by a fire in 2008. Additionally, Director Reyes-Yanes served the District’s Latino youth as a case manager at the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) and in the Mayor’s Office of Community Relations and Services (MOCRS) under former Mayor, Adrian Fenty.

Director Reyes-Yanes is recognized throughout the District, nationally, and internationally for her efforts in creating safe spaces for the immigrant community through cultivating strategic partnerships with different stakeholders. Mrs. Reyes-Yanes has been featured in the “Si se Puede” Book 25 Successful Salvadoreans in by Diaspora, by author Ana Margarita Chavez Escobar. Also, En el Tiempo Latino Newspaper, 100 Powermeter.

Director Reyes-Yanes has deep roots in the community and a track record of success working in support of causes that help the Latino community. She is a Ward 7 resident and Salvadorian activist. She made DC her home in 1990.

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Wendy Ellis is an Assistant Professor in Global Health and the Founding Director of the Center for Community Resilience at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. Dr. Ellis has spent the last fifteen years developing and working to grow a 'resilience movement' to address systemic inequities that contribute to social and health disparities that are often transmitted in families and communities from generation to generation.

The Building Community Resilience (BCR) collaborative and Resilience Catalysts networks are implementing Dr. Ellis’ BCR process and the Community Resilience framework she developed during her doctoral studies at George Washington University. Ellis’ innovations provide a platform for cross-sector partners to align resources, programs and initiatives with community-based efforts to address adverse childhood experiences and adverse community environments-- or as Ellis has coined it 'The Pair of ACEs'. The strengths-based approach is aimed at building the infrastructure to disrupt cycles of structural racism, foster equity and promote resilience in communities by improving access to supports and buffers that help individuals 'bounce back' and communities thrive. The BCR process and Community Resilience framework are being used in more than 20 cities and states across the country. Dr. Ellis’ Community Resilience framework is featured in a special issue of the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice focused on addressing structural racism as a public health initiative.

Leveraging her extensive background in communications, in 2022 Dr. Ellis produced a documentary, “America’s Truth: Cincinnati”, which follows her team’s innovative approach to centering conversations on structural racism that galvanized a resilience movement to foster equity through systems and policy change. On the heels of that success, Dr. Ellis and her team have launched a Truth & Equity movement in Washington, DC.

Dr. Ellis holds several leadership positions in public health, including Chair of the National Academy of Science’s, Enhancing Community Resilience in the Gulf States Committee, Scientific Advisor to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Prevention and Injury Center and the National Academy’s Culture of Health Advisory Board. In 2018 Dr. Ellis was selected as an Aspen Institute Ascend Fellow to support her leadership in developing cross-sector strategies to address childhood trauma, foster equity and build community resilience.

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Our own Mariama Keïta-Thiero introduces today's speaker. His Excellency Sidique Abou-Bakarr Wai serves as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Chief of Mission of the Republic of Sierra Leone to the United States of America, with concurrent accreditation to Brazil, Canada, the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Cooperative Republic of Guyana, Jamaica, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Republic of Chile, and Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

For further academic pursuit, His Excellency Wai migrated to the United States in 1972. He earned a B.A Degree in Political Science and Pre-Law from Fordham University in New York City, and continued graduate studies in Public Policy and Organization Theory at the prestigious New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. His over 35-years of professional experience in public safety, public health care advocacy, diplomacy, community relations, and social empowerment in the United States include positions as Deputy Director of the Institute of African-American Affairs at New York University, Community Liaison for the Brooklyn Borough President, and Division Chief at the New York Housing Authority. For ten of those years, he served as Community Affairs Advisor to several Commissioners of the City of New York Police Department (NYPD), among the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States, during which time he mediated many public safety disputes and authored the “Police Body-Worn Camera” (BWC) program as a tool to improve police community relations in crime reduction in New York City.

In 2018, he was appointed by the President of Sierra Leone, His Excellency Retired Brigadier, Dr. Julius Maada Bio to represent his country in the diplomatic arena. In that position, His Excellency Sidique Abou-Bakarr Wai has earned the reputation as a prominent figure in the Ambassadorial Community of African Nations in the United States, being elected and serving as Secretary-General for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Ambassadors’ Group and Co-Chair for Diaspora
Engagement and Public Affairs Committee for the African Union Ambassadors’ Group.

Since assuming office in Washington, D.C. in his position as Ambassador of Sierra Leone to the United States of America, His Excellency Wai has led several important policy initiatives supporting the Government of Sierra Leone. These include lifting of the U.S. Visa ban on Sierra Leone; partnering with the Sierra Leone Diaspora to mobilize financial support resulting in US$7.5 million to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in Sierra Leone; the repatriation to Sierra Leone of Mrs. Etta Isatu Findlay and her daughter to rejoin their family after a challenging 22-years’ stay in Jamaica; and the establishment of the Free Quality Education Basket Fund to support the construction of an Academy of Excellence Co-educational School in Sierra Leone as part of His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio’s Free Education Agenda.

His Excellency Sidique Abou-Bakarr Wai, in partnership with the Sierra Leone diaspora, co-hosted the golden jubilee (60th ) Independence Anniversary of Sierra Leone with diaspora funding at no cost to the government. Most recently, he mobilized national and international resources to assist the burnt victims of the Sierra Leone Tanker tragedy in
which over 155 people lost their lives. Through his outreach, he has been able to secure the support and partnership of the Healey Foundation to fund a Burn Unit Center in Christ the King College Hospital in the city of Bo, Sierra Leone.

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Our own International Programs Co-Chair May O'Brien introduces Adventina Emmanuel. Adventina is the WAHI Project Coordinator with Global Outreach Tanzania. The aim of WAHI (“We Are the Hope of Iringa”)is to boost/motivate primary and secondary students to become potential leaders and help them to be stronger and more confident in controlling their own lives. This voluntary after-school program for primary and secondary students addresses many of the challenges faced in Tanzania education, lacking in science, technology, and reading focus, as well as building student confidence and self-esteem.

Miss Emmanuel is a member of the Rotaract Club of Iringa where she serves as Public Relations Officer and Interact Director. She has recently been invited to spend one month at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School in Bradenton Florida USA, to grow programs between her students and the school’s as an integral part of Saint Stephen’s leading edge Global Initiative Program.
She loves to work around young people, and this is the main reason why she does her work so creatively and excitingly.
Miss Emmanuel is a graduate of the University of Iringa in Tanzania where she earned a degree in Information Technology.

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Our own Past President Gerry Murphy introduces his friend, Don Beyer. Congressman Don Beyer is serving his fourth term as the U.S. Representative from Virginia’s 8th District, representing Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and parts of Fairfax County. He serves as the Chairman of Congress' Joint Economic Committee, and also serves on the House Committee on Ways and Means, and on the House Committee on Science Space and Technology, where he chairs the Space Subcommittee. He is a Co-Chair of the New Democrat Coalition's Climate Change Task Force.

He was the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1998, and was Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein under President Obama. Rep. Beyer’s signature work as lieutenant governor included advocacy for Virginians with disabilities and ensuring protections for Virginia’s most vulnerable populations as the Commonwealth reformed its welfare system in the mid-1990s. Rep. Beyer was Virginia’s Democratic nominee for governor in 1997.

After leaving office, Rep. Beyer spent fourteen years as Chair of Jobs for Virginia Graduates, a highly successful high school dropout prevention program, and was active for a decade on the board of the D.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. As Chair of the Virginia Economic Recovery Commission, he helped pass permanent pro-business reforms and was co-founder of the Northern Virginia Technology Council.

President Obama nominated Rep. Beyer to serve as Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein in 2009. He used his position to advocate for stricter sanctions to compel Iran to begin nuclear disarmament discussions. As Ambassador, Rep. Beyer was integral to US Department of Justice efforts to halt the abuses of Swiss bank secrecy by wealthy Americans.

Rep. Beyer has spent four decades building his family business in Northern Virginia after a summer job at a car dealership in 1974. He is a graduate of Williams College and Gonzaga College High School in Washington, DC. He was named a Presidential Scholar by President Lyndon Johnson.

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