The World Affairs Council is governed by a highly dedicated Board of Trustees. These committed volunteers choose to make a contribution to the community through service on the Board of the World Affairs Council.

Chris Ajemian is a specialist in U.S. foreign policy and Northeast Asian political military affairs. He co-directed the John Kerry presidential campaign’s Asia task force in which a team of more than 40 policy experts developed policy positions on China’s economy and Taiwan Straits conflict, the conflict on the Korean Peninsula, and the U.S.-Japan security treaty. He also has expertise in nuclear non-proliferation, homeland security, and U.S. election law. Chris practiced corporate and securities law after serving as a law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was a Congressional Fellow on the House International Relations Committee and covered the White House and Congress as a correspondent for the Kyodo News Service. He has traveled widely and speaks Japanese and Spanish. He currently serves on the executive committee of the World Affairs Council Board and on the board for the National Council of International Visitors.

Alicia Austin grew up in Seattle with a passion for the outdoors and an interest in environmental issues. After the birth of her children, she and her husband began a series of moves to Eastern Washington, California and New York before returning to the Northwest. During this time she learned to fly small planes (currently inactive) and worked for Hewlett-Packard in their corporate offices.

After two-years of telecommuting, Alicia returned to school and earned her teaching certificate. She has been teaching for the past five and a half years, earning her Masters in Education in 2005. Alicia enjoys traveling internationally and gaining an understanding of how people in other countries view the U.S.

Kathy Berman After graduating from the University of Washington with a BA in International Business and Human Resources, Kathy went to work for Microsoft Corporation. Kathy left Microsoft in 2002 where she spent 15 years in the fields of Human Resources, International Sales & Marketing, International Software Piracy and Executive Recruitment. During her tenure at Microsoft, Kathy was the Business Manager for 26 international subsidiaries throughout Latin America, Africa, India, Israel, the Middle East, Australia and Canada. Kathy spent three years in Johannesburg establishing the Microsoft subsidiary in sub-Saharan Africa and growing the regions revenues to $40+ million. Kathy is currently working in HR at a local investment firm.

Kathy is active in a number of non-profit organizations in the Seattle area including: Vice President for the Jewish Family Service of Seattle; World Affairs Council (2004 WAC Fellow); University of Washington Business School and past CIBER Board member. Kathy and her husband (Steve) have recently endowed and established the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Washington.
Kathy lives on Mercer Island with her husband and three children.

Megan Bowman- A Seattle native, Megan Bowman has spent most of her career working on international public policy issues. She worked in the U.S. Congress, for members of both the House and the Senate as well as the House Foreign Affairs Committee. After returning to Seattle, she helped Microsoft develop its government affairs group. At APCO, a global public affairs firm, she managed a number of accounts for non-profit organizations active in global health and international development. Since the birth of her son in 2002, Megan has been a consultant for the Initiative for Global Development, a national network of business leaders advocating for U.S. leadership in eliminating extreme poverty. An avid traveler, Megan had the benefit of early global experience when given the opportunity to be an exchange student in Japan at age 15 and to spend a trimester of high school bicycling through France.

Kristi Branch, who served as the interim director of the Pacific Northwest Center for Global Security of Battelle, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, is an internationally recognized expert on social impact assessment, public involvement, and institutional analysis. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Malaysia, and has worked on community and natural resource development in a variety of countries in Africa and Asia. She has played an active role in the application of social impact assessment techniques to the identification and evaluation of environmental policies and implementation strategies and in the incorporation of public involvement into program and community decision-making and regional cooperative efforts. She is a specialist in helping organizations achieve effective involvement of interested and affected parties to achieve transparency, build confidence, and reduce tensions. Her principal areas of interest are environmental and energy security, regional stability, and the role of nonproliferation and human security in international development.

Bill Christopher holds a Doctor of Arts in Biology from Idaho State University. He has been involved in community college education for the past 31 years. Dr. Christopher currently serves as President of Cascadia Community College in Bothell WA. At Cascadia, he is working with faculty, staff and the community to expand the college’s role in enhancing global awareness on the Eastside. Prior to coming to Cascadia in 2005, he served as Campus President at Portland Community College. As Campus President, he was instrumental in the development of the college’s International Education Program, initiated several international training contracts and was a member of the Portland World Affairs Council. Prior to going to Portland he spent 18 years in the Washington Community College System as Dean of Instruction at Whatcom Community College and Division Director at Olympic College. He began his community college career in 1976 as a faculty member and Science Department Chair at Southern Nevada Community College. Dr. Christopher serves on the boards of the Bothell Chamber of Commerce and Leadership Eastside and is a member of the Eastside Business Round Table. He has completed a Fulbright Scholar program in Germany, worked with the Education Commission of Changchun, China to develop a two-year technical institute and regularly takes students to Costa Rica in a language and culture immersion program. Dr. Christopher also serves as a member of the American Association of Community College’s Commission on Global Education.

Paul Cifka founder and President of Anzen Markets LLC, a company that specializes in international trade and marketing. Previously he was a Regional Account Manager for DoubleClick Inc., developing global interactive marketing strategies for companies such as Visa, HP, Intel, Providian, and Disney. Prior to his work there he was one of the first employees for Aircraft Cabin Systems modifying entertainment and integration equipment for VIP and Corporate Jets. During the mid-90s, Paul served as one of the first foreigners to help design curriculum for teaching English at the Elementary level utilizing multimedia in Japan. From 1997-1999 he was President of the Society for International Business in Bellingham, WA. He enjoys sailing, salsa dancing, travel, and is a Seattle native. Paul has really enjoyed his involvement with the World Affairs Council and looks forward to continue to assist in the growth and support of the Council’s programs.

Mark H. Dawson, Although born in Chicago, Mark considers himself to be a native Northwesterner. He graduated from Mercer Island High School and the U of W, where he majored in History. His college days were interspersed with both travel (Europe and S. America) and work (Trans-Alaska Pipeline). For graduate school, he attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. His wife, Christina, who grew up in Europe, is also a Fletcher graduate. They both worked on Wall Street following their time at Fletcher.

Mark joined Brown Brothers Harriman, where he spent six years working with international clients before returning to Seattle. He is currently a partner at Rainier Investment Management, Inc.?, where his responsibilities include financial and healthcare stocks. He is an avid cyclist and skier, and also a serious soccer dad.

Dean DeCrease Since 1999, Dean DeCrease has been Vice President of Liquid Packaging Board at Weyerhaeuser Company. The business supplies specialty paperboard for packaging of fresh beverages, with the majority of its sales in Asia. Weyerhaeuser has 19% global market share of fresh liquid packaging board, and a 60% market share in Japan. Throughout his career he has lived and worked abroad; in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Dean was raised in Chicago and later in Erie, Pennsylvania where he made his first paycheck as a singer in a rock & roll band at age 15. He holds a BS in Applied Science from Pennsylvania State University and an MS in Physical Chemistry in 1981 from Northwestern University.

In 1976, he joined Hammermill Paper Company to design and commercialize new paper products, including Strathmore water-color paper, Hallmark card stock, and the first Xerox high-speed copy papers. Dean left Hammermill for Weyerhaeuser’s Pulp Business in April 1988 to be technical director of their one million ton per year papermaking fibers business.

In 1993, Greenpeace Germany launched an effective campaign against Canadian coastal forestry. To address the growing concern about forestry and the environment, Dean was appointed as a sort of “environmental ambassador” to work with the stakeholders and develop a path forward. Based in Weyerhaeuser’s office in Geneva, Switzerland, he built relationships with environmental groups, government leaders, publishers, and retailers across Europe. This effort contributed significantly to the development of an effective global environment strategy for the company.

In 1996, Dean left Europe to become Zone Manager, Pacific Rim for the Pulp Business. He managed marketing and sales Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea, India, Pakistan, and Australia. He guided the business through the “Asia Financial Crisis” of 1988 while growing market share in the region.

On the personal side, Dean dabbles in golf, information technology and real estate. While in university, he was a founding member of the Erie-Tanzania Project, which built and staffed three schools in Tanzania. In 1973, he joined an exchange program in the Yucatan Peninsula and worked with the native Mayans to help them create small businesses. While at Northwestern, Dean lived in an urban Mennonite community that provided shelter and material support to unwed mothers in a mainly African American neighborhood.

He currently serves in leadership roles with industry associations in Brussels and Washington, DC. He is a Trustee for the World Affairs Council and a member of the University of Washington Global Business Advisory Board. He resides with his son on Capitol Hill in Seattle.

Stan Emert is the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility for Symetra Financial Services. His media experience spans over 20 years and involve multiple media. He has hosted over 400 radio shows, 500 TV shows and 100 web casts. He has been a producer of a live weekly television show on SCAN and its predecessors since October 1992 and is the co-author of two books and editor of five others, all released since 1996. In addition to being on the board of SCAN-TV, he is a member of the Steering Committee of the Initiative for Global Development, a member of the Leadership Council for PATH and a board member of the Washington News Council and the Eastside Business Alliance, and is a Judge at the University of Washington School of Business, Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition. He lectures at the Seattle University School of Public Administration on corporate social responsibility and holds a BA in History (European) from Tusculum College and a JD from the University of Tennessee.

Chris Fidler joined Bockorny Petrizzo, one of the nation’s “Top Twenty” federal lobbying firms in 2004. Chris established the firm’s Seattle office and now coordinates federal government affairs for a number of well-known Pacific Northwest organizations including Amazon.com, Drugstore.com, Children’s Hospital, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Northwest Center, and Vulcan, Inc.

Prior to joining Bockorny Petrizzo, Chris directed federal government affairs for Airborne Express for 10 years. In that capacity, Chris was responsible for managing all legislative and regulatory affairs pertaining to the domestic, international, and airline operations of the company. In 2003, Chris successfully led the nine-month legislative and regulatory effort that resulted in the merger between Airborne Express and DHL Worldwide. Prior to joining Airborne, Chris worked as Special Assistant for Trade Development with the U.S. Consulate General in Vancouver, B.C. during Expo ‘86. In 1987, Chris began working with the WRG Corporation--a Seattle-based security assistance management company specializing in armor, artillery and air defense solutions for customers in East Asia and Western Europe--as Vice President of Military Sales and later as Executive Vice President and General Manager.

Kevin Gruben is a corporate securities and mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Preston Gates & Ellis in Seattle, where he focuses on transactional work that includes international business transactions. He has a BA in Government and International Relations from the University of Notre Dame, and a law degree from Seattle University. During his time at Notre Dame, Kevin studied abroad in Innsbruck, Austria and worked in Moscow, Russia for an English language business publication. He lives in Renton with his wife Ann, who is finishing her final year of law school as well. Kevin enjoys hiking and skiing, and recently returned from a trip to New Zealand where he and his wife did a three day hike through New Zealand’s Southern Alps.

Charles Gust is founder and president of Equality Network Foundation. Since 1991, he has been a volunteer activist with RESULTS Seattle which, as part of an international network of activists, lobbies elected officials to create the political power to end hunger and the worst aspects of poverty. He has visited anti-poverty efforts in Bangladesh and El Salvador, including a trip to research the possibilities of what is now the Grameen Technology Center. Since 1998, he has served on the board of Washington CASH.

H. Arnold Huang is Chairman and co-CEO of Washington First International Bank. He received his MS in Operations Research & Finance at the University of California, Berkeley.

Janet Aldrich Jacobs has 20 years experience in establishing and expanding development programs for nonprofit organizations. She was development director of the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, Montana and The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia. She worked for 10 years for Charles H. Bentz Associates, a national fundraising consulting firm that specializes in the management of capital and endowment campaigns for cultural organizations nationwide. She served the Seattle Symphony for four years as major and planned gifts director. In 2004, Jan became development director at PATH, a Seattle-based global health organization. She is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and a Certified Fund Raising Executive. She has some college-level training in French and Spanish, and attended the University of Salamanca in Spain for a summer language and cultural immersion course, oh so many years ago. She is married to Bernie Jacobs, a professional musician. They make their home in Bellevue where Jan enjoys gardening on land and in water, while Bernie keeps things lively with music of all kinds.

John A. Kennedy was born and raised in the Northwest and in college developed an interest in seeing the rest of the world (probably because this was a fairly isolated area back in the late fifties and early sixties). His first experience outside the US was a summer abroad with the Experiment in International Living in Pakistan followed by five weeks of travel on the cheap through Asia. Two years later he was assigned to the Far East with the military. At the end of his tour, he and his wife decided to leave the Army in Okinawa and travel east to west for three months on the way home – again on the cheap. After these experiences, John decided on a career that would involve international business. He joined the international training program of Bank of America. After a year of training and two years of financing importers and exporters he was assigned as advisor to an affiliate, The Foreign Trade Bank of Iran in Tehran for two and a half years. Subsequently, John worked in San Francisco and New York for several banks dealing with imort/export companies and multi-nationals. In 1983 he returned to the Northwest to manage the Seattle branch of HongKong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC). Since returning he has been continuously involved in trade and finance with primary emphasis on Asia. In addition to his involvement with the World Affairs Council, he served as Chairman and Treasurer of the Washington State International Trade Fair and as a board member of WCIT, WSCRC and World Trade Center Tacoma as well as an advisory board member of North Seattle Community College’s International Studies Program and Pacifica Lutheran University’s China Studies Program.

Ludmila Kraabel was born and raised in Ashkabad, the capital of Turkmenistan. She graduated there from the musical college, and became a piano teacher. She went back to school in Foreign Languages and Literature, majoring in English Language and Literature, after which began working for Turkmen Airlines. She taught English language ground and air communications to their pilots. After Turkmen Airlines switched from flying Soviet planes to buying Boeing jets, she began traveling to Seattle with the pilots to translate as they were being re-trained to fly Boeing jets. In 1996, she defected and sought political asylum in the United States. She was granted asylum in November 1996. Since then, she has worked as an Import/Export specialist, and is now using her Russian-English interpreting skills as a medical interpreter for Russian and Central Asian immigrants and refugees.

Rebecca Lenaburg is Associate General Counsel at Microsoft.

Greg Magee has been an executive at PACCAR for more than 17 years. PACCAR is a worldwide manufacturer and designer of light, medium and heavy-duty trucks used over-the-road and off-highway.

Nina Marini was born in Tokyo, Japan and was raised there by her Italian-American father and Japanese mother. Attending international schools in Tokyo, she grew up in a bilingual and bicultural environment and experienced her first thorough “immersion” in US culture during college in Pennsylvania. Pulled by her father’s roots in Italy, she also spent six months studying in Siena. The common thread to her work has been the bridging of cultures within a global context – first as an international PR officer in Tokyo for a Japanese multinational, then as an analyst in an economic consulting firm specializing in international trade and tax issues, and most recently (since 1999) as Co-Founder of Ashesi University, a new liberal-arts college in Ghana, West Africa that seeks to nurture a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial leaders in Africa. This latest endeavor has provided her with a unique opportunity to apply her MBA skill set while taking on challenges on multiple levels of cultural and professional development. Her family network also continues to expand on the cultural front: her husband David is from Dusseldorf, Germany; her sister lives in Amsterdam with her Dutch husband and son; and her parents and brother live in Tokyo.

Ronald Masnik a native born American, lived and worked in Europe for over fifteen years. During that period, he resided in Great Britain, Luxembourg and Belgium. He relocated to Seattle in 1978 to continue his career in International Banking management, and was appointed Honorary Consul by King Baudouin of Belgium in 1981. His consular jurisdiction is the State of Washington. His duties include passport and visa assistance, and trade/investment promotion. In 1996, King Albert II decorated him as a knight in the Order of the Crown, Belgium's second oldest decoration. In 2006, the King further decorated him as a knight in the Order of Leopold, Belgium’s oldest decoration.

Ron holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the College of William & Mary in Virginia. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Banking Studies of the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration. He is presently on the Board of the European Union Center at the University of Washington and currently serves as the President of the Consular Association of Washington State.

Brent Olson is a part-time consultant and community activist, who retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 1992 and now lives on Bainbridge Island, WA. In the Foreign Service, Brent held management officer positions in various Embassies in Latin America and Asia, including Bangladesh, Honduras, Trinidad, and Mexico. In Washington, he was an intelligence analyst for Central America, a designer of human resource systems, the chief of a computer systems staff, the regional manager of all U.S. Foreign Buildings in the East Asia region, and the Deputy Director of the State Department’s International Narcotics Control Programs. He concluded his career as a senior management inspector with the Foreign Service Inspection Corps. In the 1960s, Brent was a U.S. Navy Officer on a new Destroyer and a Management Instructor at the Navy Supply Corps School in Athens, GA. Brent has completed graduate work at Harvard’s Kennedy School, George Washington University and the University of Washington. He is a 1985 graduate of the National War College.

He is involved in the Bainbridge Island, Kitsap County and Greater Seattle Communities. He is a past president of a highly successful Rotary club and still very active in Rotary’s international work; the County Chair of Boy Scouts after years as a youth leader; an elder and very active in his church, and has worked on many community and school initiatives, including leading fund-raising, school levy and political campaigns. He enjoys working with youth and often shares his experiences with college, high school and middle school groups.
Brent has been married for 37 years to Madeline Yentz Olson, of Fall River, MA. Their two grown sons are Chris, a manager at a local computer firm, and Darren, a junior in business at the University of Washington.

Nathan Rosenbaum is working as a contractor with the MSN team at Microsoft; he has eight years experience directly with Microsoft in the Operations and Treasury departments. Earlier in his career, Nathan consulted in Sri Lanka under a project funded by USAID. As Manager with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Nathan marketed and structured corporate finance products with enterprise accounts, directing a $200M portfolio. Nathan interned with Chase Manhattan Bank in Paris, France.

Nathan is a tournament bridge player and avid scuba diver; former member of Houston and Seattle Symphony Choruses; and member of World Venture Partners – internationally focused philanthropy organization. He has an MBA in Finance from The University of Chicago and a BA in History from Cornell. Nathan and his wife, Sabrina, live with their daughter, Julianna, and energetic golden retriever, Kula, on Capitol Hill.

Kathryn Scott is Director of International Policy Issues for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. She works with Boeing's Washington, DC and International Relations offices to determine Boeing's position on international policy issues and create plans to advocate those positions around the world. Current issues she works on at Boeing include lifting capacity restrictions on air traffic growth in key markets, liberalizing bilateral air traffic rights, and the EU-U.S. WTO aircraft subsidies consultations. Kathryn joined Boeing in 2002 after completing a PhD in International Political Economy at the London School of Economics. She has worked as a consultant on trade and investment policy to the Asian Development Bank, an advisor to the Thai Foreign Investment Agency, a stock analyst for Jardine Fleming, and as the head of the New York office of the European-American Chamber of Commerce. She has been a lecturer on international economics at New York University, the London School of Economics, the Institute of Social Technology (Bangkok), and City University Business School (London). She has a MA from Johns Hopkins SAIS, and founded and leads two Girl Scout troops. She lives with her two daughters in Northeast Seattle.

Consul General Solomon Tadesse born and raised in Ethiopia, came to the U.S in 1971. In 1975, he graduated from Bowie State University with a degree in Business and Economics. Within a few years of making Seattle his home, Solomon landed the position as auditor/city manager for Diamond Parking Inc. Prior to becoming Honorary Consul General of Ethiopia, Solomon served as the Sr. Finance Analyst and Budget Manager for the City of Seattle for 13 years. Simultaneously, he founded and successfully operated Center Inc. Management Company for 10 years. As Honorary Consul General, Solomon has been promoting the new economic policy and a conducive environment suitable for investment in Ethiopia. But one of Solomon’s most gratifying accomplishments to date would be his relentless commitment to the betterment of the Ethiopian community. He, along with wife Shashu, founded the first Ethiopian Orthodox church in Seattle in 1986. He is married and a father of three. In addition, Solomon currently serves as a consultant to the Ethiopian government in regards to economic development and investment policies.

Mark Trahant is the Seattle P-I’s editorial page editor and also writes a weekly Sunday column on topics ranging from pension reform to Pakistan. He also writes books, including a chapter on Lewis and Clark, told as a family story and an arts book about Idaho’s Salmon River. Trahant also has been executive news editor of the Salt Lake Tribune, editor and publisher of Navajo Nation Today and a national reporter for The Arizona Republic, where he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for a project on government failures in federal Indian policy.

John Walsh is currently Vice President for U.S. Bank’s International Banking Division. His responsibilities include risk assessment of emerging markets and analysis of both corporations and foreign banks. He publishes a monthly newsletter entitled “Global Markets Update,” which is available through an email distribution list or found on U.S. Bank’s Web site. He also gives presentations to corporate clients to inform them of current events in emerging markets and to develop appropriate international strategies. Walsh received his MBA from the University of Washington in 1981, concentrating in Finance and International Business. Prior to joining U.S. Bank, he served as an International Lending Officer at Seattle First National Bank and as the Chief Financial Officer for Cruising Equipment Company, a high-growth, high-tech company in Seattle.

Mimi Warner concentrates her practice in employee benefits. She has advised employers on a wide range of human resource issues including designing and drafting all types of benefit plans and related trusts, assisting employers with plan implementation and operational compliance issues, assisting employers in mergers and acquisitions with due diligence relating to compensation and benefits programs, plan redesign and integration, and assisting employers with spin-offs and reductions-in-force including severance programs and early retirement windows. Qualified retirement plan experience includes drafting and design of traditional defined benefit plans, cash balance plans, money purchase plans, 401(k) and profit sharing plans, Forms 5300 applications, Model QDROs and related administration manuals, IRC 7805(b) relief and ERISA 404(c) compliance. Ms. Warner also has experience in executive compensation including SERPs, deferred compensation plans and stock-based compensation and incentive plans. Her work in the area of health and welfare plans includes cafeteria plans, domestic partner issues, VEBAs, COBRA, MEWAs, retiree medical plan design and funding alternatives, dependent care plans, FMLA, ADA and reporting and disclosure.

Anand Yang is Golub Chair of International Studies and Director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. Prior to joining the University of Washington in 2002, Yang taught at the University of Utah and Sweet Briar College. At Utah he was chair of the History Department for five years and, subsequently, Director of its Asian Studies Program for six years.

Yang received his B.A. from Swarthmore College and his Ph.D. in History from the University of Virginia in 1976. He is the author of two books, The Limited Raj: Agrarian Relations in Colonial India and Bazaar India: Peasants, Traders, Markets and the Colonial State in Gangetic Bihar; numerous articles in journals in Asian Studies, History, and the Social Sciences; and editor of a volume on Crime and Criminality in British India. Currently, he is working on a book on Indian convicts in Southeast Asia and a number of other projects relating to South Asian and world history.

Yang is the former editor of The Journal of Asian Studies and Peasant Studies, and has been and is a member of the editorial boards of several journals in Asian and South Asian Studies and in the discipline of History. He is actively engaged in world history projects at the collegiate and precollegiate levels that are aimed at enhancing our historical understanding of our contemporary world.

A member of the Board of Directors of the American Council of Learned Societies and of the Executive Committee of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, he is also active in local community organizations, including the World Affairs Council of Seattle/Tacoma.

Born in Shantineketan, India, of Chinese parents, he grew up and attended school for much of his early years in New Delhi. From there he moved to Mexico City, where he finished high school before moving to the United States to attend college.

Soon Beng Yeap. Ph.D., has more than 20 years experience in reputation management, brand communications and social marketing. In addition to his current role as the Associate Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Seattle University, he was also the Founding Director and Professor at the Center of Strategic Communications. Before joining Seattle University, Soon Beng served as Senior Vice President at global communications agency, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, and prior to that, he headed reputation management and strategic communications in 36 countries for Starbucks Coffee Company. Soon Beng started his career as a journalist in London, United Kingdom, and Malaysia before joining academia as Assistant Dean for the School of Communication Studies in Singapore and Head of the Journalism in Monash University, Australia. He is also is also well-published in the areas of communications, media globalization and politics of culture.

Note: not all members are represented by a photo or personal statement at this time. Updates coming soon!