Dr Ram Gajela, Jitendra Digvanmer and Dr A Sen.
CHICAGO: The 33-year old Indo-American Democratic Organization [IADO] held its biennial elections on Saturday, December 22 at the Skokie Holiday Inn and elected Dr Ashish Sen as its incoming President and Tom Kalayil as Vice-President.
The outgoing president, Harendra Mangrola congratulated Dr. Sen and said, ‘IADO has had a very successful year – we are now a Federal PAC and we worked hard during the last election. Everyone whom we endorsed got elected. It is now time to pass the torch on. I expect that under Dr. Sen’s leadership, IADO will reach even greater heights.’
Dr. Sen said he was happy to accept the challenge. ‘IADO should be the primary political voice of South Asian Americans,’ he said. Dr. Sen is Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also served in the Clinton Administration, was a member of the Chicago Board of Education and is currently a member of the CTA Board. He was a former member of the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies and is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Royal Statistical Society.
Kalayil is Director of Respiratory Care/EEG/Sleep Lab at Vista Health System. He is the Founder and Director of the Kerala Volleyball of North America, President of the Malayalee Association of Respiratory Care and serves on several other boards. ‘I strongly believe,’ said Kalayil ‘that every South Asian has a right and obligation to be involved in mainstream American politics so as to speak out for ourselves and members of our community that cannot be heard.’
Joining Sen and Kalayil as Secretary of the IADO Board will be Gladson Varghese. Mridu Sekhar will be the Treasurer. Varghese is the Divisional Director of Westinghouse Air Brakes Corporation and is also President of GV Systems, an IT consulting company. He got his Masters in Mechanical Engineering and M.B.A in operations management from Purdue University, Indiana. He was the past president of Malayalee Engineers in North America (MEANA) and current National Treasurer of Indian National Congress Kerala Chapter and General Secretary of the Federation of Malayalee Association in North America.
Dr. Sekhar is an entrepreneur in healthcare and computing, having worked at a senior level for computer manufacturers and in Chicago area hospitals in the seventies. Later she led the computerization of the University of Chicago Medical Center.
Harendra Mangrola will be the Executive Director. Shajan Kuriakose was elected Joint Secretary and Ram Villivalam Joint Treasurer. Ranjit Ganguli, Dr. Ram Gajjela, Pramod Shah, Jitendra Diganvker, Jawahar Reddy Police, Sean Choudhary, Sarbani Choudhary, Al Khalfan, Sabu Thomas, Morlie Patel and Nikhil Angelo were elected Directors.
Jitendra Diganvker
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