BAYMEC.
. .
your political voice
Bay
Area Municipal Elections Committee
MEET
THE BAYMEC BOARD MEMBERS
LESLIE BULBUK is a Senior Field Representative for Assemblywoman
Sally
Lieber. She has been involved in LGBT political advocacy at the County,
State and Federal levels.
Her dedication to increasing LGBT rights grew when she nearly lost her
foreign-born partner, Marta Donayre, due to unequal U.S. immigration
policy.
In 2001, she co-founded Love Sees No Borders, a public education
organization focused on obtaining immigration benefits for same-sex
binational couples and advocating for elimination of the US HIV ban. Much
of her work has been focused on bringing greater understanding of LGBT
issues to the immigrant community, and greater understanding of immigrant issues to the LGBT community, in an attempt to increase the scope of our movement toward equal rights for all.
CHRIS CLARK is a Human Relations Commissioner for the City of Mountain
View and Director of Business Operations at a Silicon Valley
technology company. Originally from rural Illinois, he moved to
California in 2001 and earned his B.A. in Political Science from
Stanford University. Chris also serves as board member and treasurer
for the Community Health Awareness Council (CHAC), which focuses on
providing counseling and related services to promote healthy children,
teens, and families in the area.
ROBERT GREELEY is an employment attorney in solo practice in San Jose, handling all kinds of cases for employees, including discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, severance agreements, and leaves of absence. He was previously a staff attorney for the non-profit AIDS Legal Services in San Jose for 4 years and has been an activist in the LGBT community for over 15 years, heading up such groups as South Bay GLAAD, the Safe Schools Coalition, and the Rainbow Committee of the Santa Clara County Bar Association.
Dr. Stan Hajduk is a senior emergency medicine physician in Watsonville, California. It was his good fortune to be befriended and mentored by BAYMEC’s founder, Wiggsy Sivertsen, during his high school and college years. This and many other key relationships with advocates for civil rights engendered in him a life-long respect and affinity for the LGBT community and its struggle for equality. He was honored by BAYMEC in the past in part for his efforts to raise awareness for LGBT youth by hosting the first table for Santa Cruz County youth at the BAYMEC annual fundraiser in 2007. Today, through presentations to area Rotary Clubs and other groups, Dr. Hajduk strives to educate the Santa Cruz County business community on the need to support and respect LGBT civil rights and the need to protect gay LGBT youth from discrimination, bullying and harassment in our schools
DR. JAMES LEE, is an Associate Professor of Sociology at San José State University. He took degrees at Notre Dame (BA), the University of Florida (MA), and Indiana University (PhD). He relocated to San Jose, from Mobile, AL, in August 2005. He remains a campus LGBT organizer, something he has done since his undergraduate years. His community involvement has included Democratic committee membership, poll watching, advocating for black and gay issues, and serving on boards of AIDS organizations, including the Silicon Valley AIDS Leadership Center.
KRISTIN LONG, a Santa Cruz resident, is currently an attorney with the firm Baskin & Grant. She is also a Commissioner on the Santa Cruz County Domestic Violence Commission.
EVAN LOW is a fifth-generation Californian and earned his B.A. in Political Science from San Jose State University and is a graduate of the Senior Executives in Local and State Government from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Evan currently serves as a member of the Campbell City Council, in the heart of Silicon Valley. He was elected at the age of 23 and is the first openly gay and first Asian American to hold the position. Evan also works as a District Representative for State Senator Elaine Alquist and has co-instructed a college leadership program focused on Asian American empowerment and identity. He has served as President of the Silicon Valley LGBT Democratic Club and Vice-Chair of the Santa Clara County Commission on Senior Care. In recognizing his commitment and service to the community, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom named June 5th, 2006 as Evan Low Day in the City and County of San Francisco.
THANH
NGO is currently a Deputy District Attorney in the Santa Clara District
Attorney's Office. He joined BAYMEC after relocating to San José with his partner. Thanh is active in many community-based organizations
and Board of Directors for groups such as Asian Law Alliance, Santa
Clara County Human Relations Commissions, Oakland Asian Cultural Center,
Vietnamese American Civil Rights Coalition, Huong Viet Community Center,
VNHelp, Vietnamese American Bar Association, Asian American Bar Association
of Silicon Valley, the National Lesbian and Gay Legal Association,
and Community United Against Violence.
RICHARD POPPEN joined the board in the spring of 2008. Richard is Chief Technical Officer for a Silicon Valley high-tech company. Rich holds a
bachelor's degree in mathematics from Pomona College and a master's degree in
mathematics from Stanford University. Rich lives in San Jose with his partner of 11 years.
NOEL
ANI SALLINGS had been an advocate for education, women's rights
and social justice for as long as she can remember. She served on boards
for non-profits like the Santa Clara Schools founda-tion, DAWN, and NextVista. Although, her
primary focus is education, she also fights for women's rights, social
justice and the environment. She is running for the Santa Clara Unified School Board in November 2008.
Noelani co-organized "Walk for Education", a protest walk against
budget cuts. She then was asked to speak on a "No Child Left Behind"
panel. Noelani earned a BS in Psychology from Santa Clara University and is
working on a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology from Notre Dame de
Namur. Noelani is the first in her family to go to college and plans
to obtain her PhD.
She will spend the rest of her life being a voice for those who are not heard.
In
1968, WIGGSY SIVERTSEN was fired from an agency where she had
worked for five years when they found out she was a lesbian. It was
at that point she decided that freedom for lesbian and gay people
and other "at risk" communities was going to be a major
driving force in her life. This commitment led her to co-found BAYMEC
with current San José City Councilman, Ken Yeager, in 1984.
Wiggsy is presently the Director of Counseling Services and a visiting
professor in Sociology at San José State University.