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Board of Trustees of Palo Alto Lodge #1471 |
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Palo Alto Lodge is fortunate to have a Corps of Officers and Trustees who work toward making the Lodge a great place for members and their families to visit. These Trustees put in countless hours of volunteer time to manage the Lodge's resources and finances in a fiscally responsible manner. Each Trustee has taken on at least two areas of responsibility with another Trustee, which are listed following each biography.
Dr. Cindrich has had a distinguished and rewarding career for forty years as a public servant. Prior to his retirement in 1998, he served for eleven years as the regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Transportation Region IX in San Francisco. During the late 1970's and the 1980's, Joe served as a Special Assistant to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and as the Deputy Commissioner for the Social Security Administration in Washington, D.C. Joe began his career as a high school teacher and football coach in Ohio prior to returning to Indiana University to pursue a masters degree and later to the University of Maryland where he earned a Ph D. in public health and transportation management. Joe also served as professor at three major universities for ten years prior to accepting an executive position with the federal government in 1976. Joe has been a member of the Elks for almost 42 years. He first joined in Bloomington, Indiana, and has been a member of Palo Alto Lodge #1471 since he and his wife, Karen, moved to Menlo Park 20 years ago. Karen continues to serve as executive assistant to former local Congressman Ed Zschau. As a first generation Croatian American born and raised in western Pennsylvania, Joe earned both state and national honors as a high school football player and was awarded a football scholarship that enabled him to leave the coal mining area to further his education. He also served in the US Marine Corps for four years. He played football for the Parris Island Marines as well as having served in Japan and Okinawa during his tour of duty. Joe has earned numerous awards and accolades during his outstanding career and is highly respected for his willingness to help others who are less fortunate. For the past fifteen years Joe has served on the board of directors for the Croatian Scholarship Fund (CSF) and helps to raise funds for Croatian students from Croatia and Bosnia- Herzegovina to attend a university in Croatia. The CSF program has been recognized by The White House and members of the US Congress for its achievements in helping to develop future leaders of that country. In 1996, Joe was invited to The White House to discuss CSF issues with the president and vice-president Joe provided invaluable assistance to Croatia and the Croatian community nationwide while serving as the President of the National Federation of Croatian Americans (NFCA) in 1996. He has also served actively as both a lobbyist and a consultant in the California State Capital and in the US congress. Joe is a strong advocate in promoting sound education programs, health and physical fitness, and community service. He is honored to serve in a leadership capacity to promote the goals and mission for Lodge #1471
Phil Palmer has been a member of the lodge for 3 years and while that is a short time by Palo Alto Elks standards, he has been an active volunteer almost since day one. He has been the Chairman of the PR committee since 2006 providing updates and many enhancements to our website and electronic communications to our members via email. He also started the Car Donation program that has raised several thousand dollars for the Elks Charity fund. Last year, he co-chaired the Elks Hoop Shoot and this year he was elected to the four-year Trustee position where he continues to serve our members. Phil was born and raised in Palo Alto and currently resides in Mountain View with his wife (Genie) and three daughters. He is an active member of his community. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Mountain View Educational Foundation (a non-profit foundation that raises money for enrichment activities for the Mountain View Whisman School District). In addition, he is a publicly elected official and serves as a Trustee for the Mountain View Whisman School District. Phil spent 20 years at Hewlett Packard working in Information Technology management and 5 years with Sony Corporation as Sr. Director, Information Technology. In 2002, he started PepWater Consulting, which specializes in business startup activities and information technology consulting.
Chet was born and educated in Boston, MA receiving degrees in electronic engineering, business and law. Chet is married and has four adult children living on the east coast. He presently lives in San Jose and has lived there since 1985 when he moved to California. After spending more than 40 years in the aerospace business as an engineer and later as an attorney Chet decided to semi-retire in 2001. Chet still does some legal work for a law firm in San Jose as well as mediate and arbitrate disputes between businesses and/or consumers. In addition, he is a part-time law professor at a local law school teaching contract law. He also teaches a course titled "Legal Resources for Older Adults" in association with a local college.
Carol Macpherson is the newest two-year trustee. She is well known and recognized for her background in aquatics and managing our outdoor swimming pool for a number of years. She became an Elk six years ago and has been a tremendous asset to the lodge by helping pool manager Ernie Spina along with recruiting new members into our lodge. Carol is a former All-American swimmer and has been inducted into the Hall of Fame in Santa Clara and other cities. She brings excellent credentials with her expertise in swimming pools as we begin construction design of our new lodge. Carol will also serve as the board contact in helping plan family activities in the new lodge.
David Brandin, a retired computer scientist and mathematician, served formerly as vice president and director of the Computer Science Division at SRI (Stanford Research Institute) and the SRI Information Systems and Services Division (IT management consulting). He was an executive loan volunteer to President Carter's Federal ADP Reorganization Study and was elected the president of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ACM and the Economic Strategy Institute awarded him fellowships. He served on the Public Cryptography Study Group, the US Army Strategic Technologies for the 21st Century, and chaired the first Department of Commerce Japanese Technology (Computer Science) Study. He was the first overseas member of the Information Processing Society of Japan. He was a founding director of Interop and launched computer conferences and events around the world. Later, for IDG,he managed trade shows in Japan with 200,000 attendees. He's written fiction for eighteen months and completed twenty short stories (50,000 words) plus a novel-The Horns of Moses, a political thriller, iUniverse/Author House, Lincoln, November 2007, 292 pp. The novel received iUniverse's Editors' Choice, Publishers' Choice, and Reader's Choice awards, and a positive Kirkus Discoveries review. He co-authored a trade book-The Technology War, J. Wiley & Sons, New York, 1987 (reviewed favorably in The New York Times Sunday Book Review, 1988). The book was republished in a Japanese edition, TBS Britannica, Tokyo, 1989. He co-authored the definition of the Internet in the Concise Encyclopedia of Computer Science, John Wiley, London, 2004. In the 1980s, he co-authored a monthly technology column in California Business and authored a two-year series of monthly technology editorials in the Communications of the ACM. He's a Master Scuba diver and studies classical piano in his spare time.
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