Special Guest: Congressman Mike Honda

Congressman Mike Honda represents the 15th Congressional District of California in the House of Representatives. He has been a public servant for decades during which he has been lauded for his work on education, transportation, civil rights, and the environment. In 2000, Congressman Honda was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He serves on the Appropriations Committee and he is the Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
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Keynote Speaker: Karen K. Narasaki

Karen K. Narasaki is the President and Executive Director of the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), one of the nation’s leading voices advocating for the rights and interests of Asian Americans. Based in Washington, D.C., AAJC is a proven expert on issues of direct importance to Asian Americans of all ethnic groups in communities across the country.
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Branding: Media – Mainstream, Ethnic, and Social Media Marketing Panel: Lucciano Berningson

Lucciano Berningson is a San Francisco city native with over 13 years in fashion and creative production, servicing the Advertising, Fashion, Film and Tv industries. After spending time as an agent working with top named companies in the business, Lucciano moved back to his native city of San Francisco in early Spring of 2003 to become the founder of two very successful industry businesses, Industry415 Creative Artists Agency & Passport Model Management.
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Education Panel: Tom Bhe, Ph.D.

Tom Bhe, Ph.D. is a rocket scientist for Aerojet Corporation. He is one of the founding members of Coalition for Education and Equality (CEE), and serves as Vice President of CEE. Tom’s passion has always been participating in the cause for advancement of Asian Pacific Islander American in the U.S.
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Oral History Panel: Houmphanh Jack Boungnasiri

Houmphanh Jack Boungnasiri is a former major of the Royal Lao Army and a former colonel of the SGU battalion commander. He is a volunteer Executive Director of the National Lao-American Community and Economic Development, Inc., former chairman and current special advisor of Lao Buddhist temple of San Jose, former chairman of Lao Lane-Xang association of California. He is also the Vice President of the Royal Lao Veterans of America (RLVA). He is working for Ixsystems Company as a senior technical engineer.
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Healthcare: Elders Panel: MC Canlas

MC Canlas is currently an Information and Assistance Specialist at the Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) of the Episcopal Community Services (ECS). His focus in the Center is the MIPPA ( Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act) funded program; doing outreach and enrollment for the Low-Income Subsidy (LIS) or Extra Help for Medicare Part D and the Medicare Savings Programs.
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Business & Entrepreneurs Panel: Irene Catral

A 25-year veteran of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), Irene Catral brings energy, enthusiasm and a rich professional history in Shipping and Direct Marketing to her clients. Irene is currently the Sales Manager for Bay Valley and has served in the USPS Sales Department since 1993, and has also held the positions of Letter Carrier, Account Manager, National Account Manager, International Specialist and Certified Direct Mail Specialist.
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Community Organizing & National Development Panel: Claudine Cheng

Claudine Cheng is a community consultant and principal of Claudine Cheng Consultants.  An attorney by training, Claudine’s current appointed positions and community involvements include: director of the Treasure Island Development Authority, delegate of Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the California Democratic Party, chair of RENEWSF, directors of North Beach Citizens and Pathway for Kids, member of the SPUR Advisory Council, and chair of San Francisco’s APA Heritage Celebration Committee.
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Education Panel: Yenhoa Ching

Yenhoa Ching was born in a refugee camp in Thailand after her parents left Laos. She grew up in Rockford, IL and studied history at the University of Illinois. She is now a Ph.D. candidate and Chancellor’s Fellow in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research analyzes the social and cultural dimensions of the relationship between schools and society, focusing on issues of educational equity, race, gender, and class.
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Mental Health Panel: Koua Jacklyn Franz

Koua Jacklyn Franz is the Executive Director for Hmong Women’s Heritage Association located in Sacramento, California. Hmong Women’s Heritage Association (HWHA) is a non-profit, community-based organization committed to empowering Hmong women and their families in the Sacramento Region to lead healthy lives through culturally sensitive programs and services that educate and support families as they thrive.
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Career Workshop Session Speaker: Mae Jean Go

Mae Jean Go is Business Manager for the Online eCommerce Group at AT&T. The Online eCommerce Group focuses on enhancing the online user experience. In this role, she is responsible for developing and communicating standards, style guides, and accessibility practices for company-hosted and vendor-hosted Web sites.
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Census Workshop Session Speaker: Ditas Katague

Ditas Katague, Director, Census 2010, Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, has more than twenty years of experience at federal, state and local government agencies. Recently she has joined the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research where she serves as Director of Census 2010 – overseeing and directing the statewide outreach and coordination for the U.S. Decennial Census 2010.
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Money, Savings and Retirement 101: Sarah Kim-Lee

Sarah Kim-Lee is a Public Affairs Specialist for the Social Security Administration. Sarah works for the San Francisco Regional Public Affairs Office located in the Frank Hagel Federal Building in Richmond, California. As a Public Affairs Specialist, Sarah’s goal is to educate the mono-lingual Asian Pacific Islander (API) community about Social Security programs and benefits.
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Community Organizing & National Development Panel: Daphne Kwok

Empowerment of all Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) has long been one of Daphne Kwok’s core values. Since spring of 2008, Ms. Kwok has served as Executive Director of Asians & Pacific Islanders with Disabilities of California (APIDC), a non-profit organization, seeks to give a voice and a face to AAPIs with disabilities, to break down the stigma in the AAPI community about disabilities and to provide technical assistance to organizations wanting to effectively work with AAPIs with disabilities.
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Branding: Media – Mainstream, Ethnic, and Social Media Marketing Panel: Lisa Lee

Lisa Lee has more than five years of nonprofit experience in marketing and communications for multicultural arts and cultural organizations. Since Lisa joined Hyphen magazine (a volunteer-run Asian American nonprofit publication) in 2007 and stepped into the role of the publisher in 2008, the organization’s annual budget has doubled through development and fundraising efforts that she has implemented and supervised; the organization is now able to compensate some contributors to the magazine.
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Community Organizing & National Development and Language Preservation Panels: Khonepheth Lily Liemthongsamout

Khonepheth Lily Liemthongsamout is a proud daughter of Mr. Chantha and Mrs. Tiangkham Liemthongsamout. Her family resettled in the United States as refugee from Laos in 1984. Lily is an educator, a life-longer learner, and a favorite auntie of her nephews and nieces. She recently earned her Doctor of Education degree in International Multicultural Education from the University of San Francisco.
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Nonprofit Fundraising Panel: Earl Lui

Earl Lui is a program director at The California Wellness Foundation (TCWF), assigned to grantmaking related to environmental health and work and health. His responsibilities include reviewing letters of interest and grant proposals and making funding recommendations related to those health issues. Prior to joining the Foundation in December 2006, he was senior attorney at Consumers Union’s West Coast Office in San Francisco, focusing on health care advocacy since 2000.

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Community Organizing & National Development Panel: Marily Mondejar

Marily Mondejar is a senior business leader with wide-ranging global experience as an entrepreneur, strategist and advisor to leading organizations. She was raised in an entrepreneurial family environment, which owned multiple business operations in publishing, security intelligence services and movie production. She began her career with the largest distributor of U.S. consumer goods in the Philippines and went on to become one of only two women in sales management for the Thailand distributor for Time Life Books Southeast Asia before joining the Security Pacific National Bank as one of its officers and Lee Hecht Harrison as a career transition consultant.
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Money, Savings and Retirement 101: Viet L. Nguyen

In business since 2003, Viet L. Nguyen spent 2 years at Sit Investment as an Investment Associate, 4 Years at Merrill Lynch as a Financial Advisor prior coming to Wells Fargo Investment. Currently a Financial Advisor at Wells Fargo Investment, focusing on Asset Management and Retirement Planning for high Net worth individual and business owners in the Bay Area.
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Business & Entrepreneurs Panel: Chandao Nina Nantha

Chandao Nina Nantha was born in Laos. Her parents and grandparents on both sides are Laotian. She left Laos at age 8 to refugee camp in Nongkai, Thailand for two years. Her family arrived to Portland Oregon at age 10 and moved to Southern California at age 12. In December 2000, Chando was admitted to the California State Bar and started her own legal practice in 2001 focus on Workers’ Compensation and personal injuries.
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Health Hep Panel: Diana Ngo

Diana Ngo is the Outreach Coordinator at the Asian Liver Center at Stanford University. Diana conducts hepatitis B education and outreach as Outreach Coordinator for the Asian Liver Center at Stanford University. Additional health disparities experience comes from her work with the American Cancer Society, as well as the UC San Francisco Vietnamese Community Health Promotion Project, where she received a Jenkins-Bernen Endowment to improve the health status of the Vietnamese American community.
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Community Organizing & National Development Panel: Torm Nompraseurt

Torm Nompraseurt was born and raised in Northern Laos; he completed a teacher college and worked as a director of a special project that combine of education and community development in rural villagers in where he grew up from June 1972 to May 1975. Torm escaped to Thailand in May 1975 and came to the United States December 1, 1975 as a refugee.
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Business & Entrepreneurs Panel: John Norawong

John Norawong is an Executive Vice President and Head of Community Banking Group for Timberland Bank, which was established in 1915. The bank is headquartered in Hoquiam Washington and has 22 locations in Western Washington with total assets of nearly $700 million dollars. In this capacity, John has the overall responsibility for leadership, strategic development, and sales profitability for the entire organization serving community banking clients.
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Oral History and Lao Language Preservation Panels: Howard Houmpheng Phengsomphone

Mr. Howard Houmpheng Phengsomphone is the Executive Director of Lao Association of Connecticut (LAC) Inc.  Lao Association is a partner organization of the Southeast Asian Coalition of CT, whose purpose is to seek funding in an effort to increase services for Southeast Asian communities. The Lao Association of Connecticut is also a member of the Asian Pacific American Coalition Commission that advocates legislators to increase equal access for Asian Americans. Full profile »

Business & Entrepreneurs Panel: Tony Phouanenavong

Tony Phouanenavong is an entrepreneur and very successful networker. He came from very humble beginnings, where his family use to be on government assistance; welfare, public housing and Section 8. He began working at the age of 15 ½ and went into biotechnology during his high school years. When he graduated high school he came across a very difficult dilemma, accept a job making up to $80K per year for Bayer Pharmaceutical and help support his struggling family, or go to college. A good friend said “If you take the job you’ll make good money, but if you go to college you’ll never know what the possibilities are.”
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Education Panel: Phoumy Sayavong

Phoumy Sayavong is ethnically Tai Lue from Laos. He arrived in the US as a refugee at a young age and has lived in Lao American communities along the west coast, from Seattle to the San Francisco Bay Area, for 30 years. He is currently working as the Senior Researcher at Oakland Unified School District, serving about 40,000 students. Phoumy received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz in the field of Developmental Psychology. He specializes in educational and psychological research and program evaluation.
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Oral History Panel: Major General Khambang Sibounheuang

Major General Khambang Sibounheuang served on active duty with the Royal Laos Army as both enlisted and company commander for Special Group Unit during the Vietnam Conflict from 1960-1975. He coordinated operations with the United States Army Intelligence in a variety of military, intelligence and rural development activities. He also served as a community development worked for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Laos.
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Oral History Panel: Vinya Sysamouth

Vinya Sysamouth spent his early childhood in Laos before arriving in the United States at the age of 10. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin in rural development which he focused on communal irrigation system of an ethnic minority group in China, the Dai or Tai Lue.
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Oral History Panel: Sary Tatpaporn

Sary Tatpaporn was born in 1953 in Sayaboury province, Laos. After graduation from High School in 1971, he joined the Lao Army and attended the Telecommunication and Intelligent School for 9 months. He served his duty as an intelligent officer during the peak of the conflict (1970-73) in the Region I (Northern Part of Laos). He escaped from Laos to Thailand in 1975 and came to the US in 1979. In the past 25 years, Mr. Tatpaporn has been very active in the Laotian-American communities at the local, state, and national levels. He is a co-founder of the Lao Family Community Development. Inc in 1980.
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Language Preservation Panel: Oun Thavonekham

Oun Thavonekham graduated from California State University, East Bay, in Business Admnistration. In 2007, Mr. Thavonekham was elected President of Lao Art and Culture Association of the Bay Area. From 1997 to 2004, he was President of Lao Rattanaram Temple , where he devoted and worked relentlessly with the temple’s committee to advance people’s interests in merit-making in Buddhist religious faith  in Laotian community providing not only spiritual support, but also emotional support and guidance in social adjustments until the number is now growing to over a thousand members. Full profile »

Mental Health Panel: Dr. Manivone Thikeo

Dr. Manivone Thikeo received her medical doctor degree from the University of Laos School of Medicine in 1996, master degree in Public Health from Boston University School of Public in 1999, and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 2010 from University of Rhode Island. She was also trained and received her mastery certificate from Harvard University Program in Refugee Trauma in the area of Global Mental Health Trauma and Recovery in 2007.
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Business & Enterpreneur Panel: Hongvilay Thongsamouth

Hongvilay Thongsamouth is a partner at Murphy, Vu, Thongsamouth & Chatterjee, LLP, a community-based law firm providing high quality legal representation in the areas of family law, immigration and estate planning. Mrs. Thongsamouth received her Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and her Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, San Diego.
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Nonprofit Fundraising Panel: Dien S. Yuen

Dien S. Yuen has more than thirteen years of experience in the philanthropic planning and non-profit sectors. She started her career as a planned giving director at a national non-profit organization and eventually joined a wealth management firm, managing the day-to-day administration of gift planning vehicles and assets. She now promotes philanthropy in the Asian American community and is an expert on international grant-making practices.
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