Jared Genser President, Freedom Now

Jared Genser is the President of Freedom Now and an attorney in a major international law firm. Through Freedom Now, he has previously represented and helped secure the release of several high profile human rights activists in Vietnam including Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly and Dr. Nguyen Dan Que. Freedom Now has also been representing Dr. Pham Hong Son, who was recently released from prison in Vietnam.

In 2005, Jared led a team of lawyers at his law firm commissioned by former Czech President Vaclav Havel and Bishop Desmond Tutu to produce a report entitled Threat to the Peace: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in Burma. Previously, Jared was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, the global strategy consulting firm. Jared holds a B.S. from Cornell University, a Master in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where he was an Alumni Public Service Fellow, and a J.D., cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School. In addition to being qualified to practice law in Maryland and the District of Columbia, Jared is also a Solicitor of England and Wales. He has published op-eds on human rights topics in such publications as the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal Asia, International Herald Tribune, and Washington Times.
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Daniel Hatcher Manager of Outreach, Youth Service America

Daniel Hatcher is the Manager of Outreach for Youth Service America (YSA). In this role Daniel is responsible for supporting YSA's outreach activities, helping to manage existing partnerships, and seeking out new partnerships. He is also responsible for managing YSA's Youth Voice Initiative, which includes managing YSA's National Youth Council, bringing the Youth Voice Initiative to scale, and initiating and supporting efforts to make Youth Voice a community principle. Daniel is a graduate of Western Kentucky University where he obtained his Master's of Public Health, as well as a BA in International Relations. Daniel has a passion for engaging all people - young and old - from every part of the globe, in service to others.
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The Honorable Mark Herring Senator, Commonwealth of Virginia

Mark Herring is widely recognized as a civic and political leader in Loudoun and Fairfax Counties. He has lived most of his life in Loudoun County and the Leesburg area.

Mark holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Virginia in economics and foreign affairs. After graduating with honors from the University of Richmond School of Law, he established a successful law practice in Leesburg. He has been a strong advocate for economic development and road improvements that bring jobs and transportation solutions to citizens while not encouraging over-development that puts stress on schools, traffic and costs of governmental services.

Mark was elected to the state Senate in a special election on January 31, 2000, and serves on the Senate General Laws and Technology, Local Government, and Rehabilitation and Social Services Committees.

As a community leader, Mark is the campaign chair for the United Way campaign in Loudoun County, and formerly a co-host of the local cable public affairs television show, Focus Loudoun. Mark is a member of the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce, Leesburg Kiwanis Club, Keep Loudoun Beautiful, Loudoun County Bar Association, NAACP – Loudoun Chapter, Olive Branch Lodge #114 and Alexandria Scottish Rite.

Mark and his wife, Laura, have been married for 17 years. They have two children, Peyton and Tim, ages 13 and 10.
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The Honorable Michael Honda U.S. House of Representatives

Mike Honda represents the 15th Congressional District of California in the U.S. House of Representatives. His district encompasses the area known throughout the world as Silicon Valley, the birthplace of technology innovation and the leading region for the development of the technologies of tomorrow. Mike has been a public servant for decades during which he has been lauded for his work on education, transportation, civil rights, the environment, and the high-tech community.

Mike was born in California, but spent his early childhood with his family in an internment camp in Colorado during World War II. His family returned to California in 1953, becoming strawberry sharecroppers in Blossom Valley in San Jose.

In 1965, Mike interrupted his college studies to answer President John F. Kennedy's call for volunteer service. He served in the Peace Corps for two years, where he built schools and health clinics in El Salvador. Mike returned from the Peace Corps with a passion for teaching, and fluent in Spanish.

Mike earned bachelor's degrees in Biological Sciences and Spanish, and a master's degree in Education from San Jose State University. In his career as an educator, Mike was a science teacher, served as a principal at two public schools and conducted educational research at Stanford University.

In 1971, Mike was appointed by San Jose Mayor Norm Mineta to San Jose's Planning Commission. In 1981, Mike won his first election, gaining a seat on the San Jose Unified School Board.

In 1990, Mike was elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. As a Supervisor, Mike led efforts to establish the Open Space Authority, whose mission is the preservation of open space. He also took the lead in women's health care issues such as raising awareness of breast cancer, and convening a women's health conference. He passed landmark welfare reforms that have saved millions of dollars for the county.

Mike was elected to the California Assembly in 1996 and was re-elected in 1998. As an Assemblymember, Mike worked with Governor Gray Davis to draft landmark education reforms - including smaller class size and increases in teachers' benefits. As Chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, Mike worked to pass sensible gun safety legislation to keep guns out of the hands of juveniles and voted to ban assault weapons. Mike was awarded "High-Tech Legislator of the Year" by the American Electronics Association for his strong advocacy for the high-tech economy. He fought for legislation to augment the research and development tax credit and worked to eliminate taxes on graduate school tuition paid by employers.

In 2000, Mike was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Mike serves the House Committee on Science, and on the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee.

Mike is dedicated to passing a responsible budget that pays down our national debt, and revitalizes our economy, while protecting top priorities such as Social Security, Medicare, and public education. As a member of the influential Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, Mike is working hard to make sure the Silicon Valley gets its fair share of federal transportation funding to make the daily commute safer and more efficient for the residents of our fast-growing region.

As a Congressman for Silicon Valley, Mike is taking a leading role in bringing Democrats and Republicans together to better understand technology issues. In this vein, Mike has formed a bi-partisan Wireless Task Force to enable Congress to better understand and support innovative technologies for next generation wireless deployment.

Mike has been selected by his Democratic colleagues to serve as the Regional Whip for Northern California, Hawaii, American Samoa and Guam. As Regional Whip, Mike works with the Democratic Leadership by communicating legislative priorities and strategies to members within his region. Mike also serves as Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) and continues to be a strong voice for the cause of social justice, cultural tolerance, and civil rights.

Mike is married and has two grown children. His wife, Jeanne, was a teacher at Baldwin Elementary School in San Jose before her untimely passing in 2004. His son, Mark, is an aerospace engineer and Michelle, his daughter, is a public health educator.”
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Angie Ngoc Hoquang Public Affairs Specialist, Social Security Administration

Angie Hoquang serves as a Public Affairs Specialist for Area 5 of the Dallas Region of the Social Security Administration. In this capacity she is responsible for the public information, education, and outreach efforts for the SSA, targeting the underserved and hard-to-reach populations in the Area.

Angie joined the SSA as a claims representative in 1991 following a 5-years tenure as the Dallas Director of Texas Training & Employment Center, where she had successfully managed a multicultural staff of 20 in providing job training and job placement for thousands of newly arrived refugees in Dallas.

During her 13-years tenure as a Claims Representative, Angie was instrumental in creating an outreach program targeting the underserved and hard-to-reach Asian populations through live talk shows on ethnic Asian radios and newspapers articles and community presentations. Angie has continuously managed to keep a full work load and squeezed in the time to do the community outreach. These efforts have resulted in her earning the highest SSA award- the Commissioner Citation and numerous local and regional awards for world class services.

Angie regularly contributes articles on SSA topics published by the Texas Herald, the Vietnamese Ca Dao Magazine, The Korean Times, and The Chinese Newspapers. Her radio talk show has expanded to include national networks such as Radio Bolsa (California) and Dai Tieng Nuoc Toi (Washington D.C.).

Angie came to the United States in 1984 with her parents as a refugee from Vietnam, where she was awarded a Bachelor‘s degree in childhood education and worked as a kindergarten school teachers’ trainer for several years. Angie currently serves on the Board of the Asian American Forum, the Girl Scout Board, the Dallas Area Agency on Aging and the Medical City Dallas Advisory Board. She is also an officer of the AAPI work group of SSA.

Angie and her husband, Walter, have two children; Vinh and Danh.
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Juli Huynh Corporate Recruitment Program Manager, U.S. Department of Transportation

Juli Huynh serves as a Corporate Recruitment Program Manager at the U.S. Department of Transportation. She formerly worked on Capitol Hill as Congressional staff. Juli began her career in the federal workforce as a PMI - Presidential Management Intern.
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Nghi Huynh President/CEO, World Developers Group and Publisher, Asian American Press

Nghi Huynh is the Founder and CEO of the Asian Business & Community Publishing, Inc. (ABC Publishing), which is composed of two distinct branches. The publishing group produces the Asian American Press, a weekly newspaper, and the Asian Business & Community Directory, an annual phonebook. The second branch of ABC Publishing, Inc. is ABC Consulting Services, a business development agency.

A very active member of the community, Mr. Huynh is currently serving as President of the Minnesota Multicultural Media Consortium. A past member of the National Board of Directors of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), Mr. Huynh also held the position of Vice President of the Minnesota chapter of AAJA.

Mr. Huynh arrived in the United States in 1975 as a refugee and began a new life in Minnesota. Although he had journalistic training and experience in his native Vietnam, upon his arrival in Minnesota, Mr. Huynh returned to school to pursue a degree in electrical engineering. Before his graduation from the University of Minnesota in 1980, Mr. Huynh served as Student Representative for the university’s Senate, and founded and directed an Asian American Cultural Center. He also received the university’s student leadership and service award each of his four years study.

Along with his full-time job as Publisher and Editor for the Asian American Press and ABC Directory, Mr. Huynh also manages ABC Consulting Services. He also devotes his time to many community projects, particularly in real estate and media developments.

At a recent Asian Appreciation Banquet, Mr. Huynh was recognized with an award for his outstanding service and involvement, both within and beyond the Asian community.
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Kimquy Kieu, MD, MPH Medical Officer, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Division of Quality Improvement

Kimquy Kieu currently serves as a Medical Officer at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Division of Quality Improvement, which has jurisdictional responsibilities in 13 Western States. She provides technical and clinical support for 13 QIO (Quality Improvement Organization) contracts in 4 settings: hospitals, nursing homes, home health & physician offices. She also serves as regional lead in the Medicare Beneficiary Protection Program.

Born in Vietnam in 1956, she came to the U.S. in May 1975 and completed her medical training at the University of California in San Diego. She comes from a broad background that includes clinical anesthesiology, environmental health and population health. Her passion is to learn and understand the different models & approaches to prevention and healing.

Kimquy is a licensed physician in the states of California and Washington, and is board certified in Public Health & General Preventive Medicine.
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The Honorable Vivek Kundra Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Trade, Commonwealth of Virginia

Vivek Kundra is currently the Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Trade for the Commonwealth of Virginia, he was appointed by Governor Tim Kaine in January of 2006. Prior to joining Governor Kaine’s Cabinet, he was the CEO of Creostar, a company focused on cyber security and information warfare. Kundra served as the Vice-President of Marketing for Evincible Software, a technology startup that enabled trusted transactions for the government and the financial sector, which was sold to Exostar. Prior to that, he was the Director of IT for Arlington, VA, where he was responsible for the government’s strategic technology initiatives and focused on protecting critical national assets under homeland security. He also served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland teaching classes on emerging and disruptive technologies.

Before joining Arlington he was with SAIC, consulting at the Health and Human Services (HHS) focusing on growing SAIC's $1 Billion business at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Prior to SAIC Mr. Kundra was the CEO of eRush.com a startup in next generation bot technologies. He is actively involved in the political process at the local, state, and national level.

Vivek Kundra has worked on the World Cities Alliance initiative to advance business and economic development in Arlington, Zurich, Paris, Berlin, and Wales. Within the private sector, he worked with multiple clients to build operations in the United States, Canada, and India.

He received his Masters in Information Technology and his Bachelors in Psychology and Biology from the University of Maryland.
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Ngoan Le Senior Program Officer, Chicago Community Trust

Ngoan Le is presently the Senior Program Officer for Basic Human Needs at the Chicago Community Trust. Prior to this position, Ngoan served as the Special Assistant to Mayor Daley on Homelessness. In this position she coordinated the City Inter-Agency Task Force on Homelessness and co-chaired the Chicago Continuum of Care, a consortium of over 200 public and private homeless stakeholders.

Ngoan has spent many years working in the field of human services. She was the Managing Deputy Commissioner/Chief Program Officer of the Chicago Department of Human Services. Prior to the reorganization in 2003, the Chicago Department of Human Services provided the social service safety net for Chicago residents through Children Services, Youth Development Program, Homeless and Domestic Violence Services, Crisis Intervention and Economic Development.

Before coming to city government, Ngoan spent over ten years working for the State of Illinois. She served as the Assistant to the Secretary of the Illinois Department of Human Services, the Deputy Administrator for the Division of Planning and Community Services of the Illinois Department of Public Aid and Special Assistant to the Governor for Asian American Affairs.

A refugee from Vietnam who came to the U.S. in 1975, Ngoan served as the executive director of the Vietnamese Association of Illinois, a refugee community based organization, for nine years. She built this all volunteer organization into a nationally-known community based comprehensive social service agency providing assistance to newly arrived refugees from Southeast Asia.

Ngoan has served on the Board of Directors of numerous local and national organizations seeking to improve the quality of life for immigrants and low income individuals. Ngoan was appointed by President Clinton in May of 2000 as one of the fifteen community leaders to serve on the President’s Advisory Commission for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. She was the only Vietnamese included in President Clinton’s official delegation to visit Vietnam in November 2000.

Ngoan Le received many recognition and awards for her work including the “1991 Recognition for Outstanding Contributions to the U.S.” given by the U.S. Ambassador for Refugee Affairs Jewel Lafontant-Mankarious and the “1989 - Crain’s Chicago Business, 40 Under 40 most dynamic civic and business leaders in Chicago”.
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Jimmy Lee Executive Director, The White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

Mr. Jimmy D. Lee, Chicago was appointed by President George W. Bush on January, 2006 to serve as the Executive Director of the White House Initiative for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The Office of the White House Initiative was established under Executive Order 13339 to increase economic opportunities and improve the quality of life of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders through greater participation in federal programs where they may be underserved.

Prior to his appointment, Mr. Lee was a Commissioner on the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and serve as Executive Director of the Chicago Chinatown Chamber of Commerce and a Board Member for the Asian American Alliance, a small business development center dedicated to improving and expanding business opportunities in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community in the State of Illinois. Mr. Lee previously served as the Assistant to the Governor for Asian American Affairs.

Mr. Lee is a strong advocate of community service and working with the youth of the community. He serves on a number of boards and commissions around the country and is an active youth group leader for his church in Chicago where he still goes back weekly to mentor and be a youth counselor for 150 students.
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