Asian Pacific American Commissioners

(Ethnicity and county of residence in parentheses)

 

Jane Nishida, Chair (Japanese, Montgomery County)

• Senior Environmental Institutions Specialist at the World Bank
• Former Secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment
• Former Maryland Director, Chesapeake Bay Foundation

Bruce Lee, Vice-Chair (Korean, Montgomery County)

• General Counsel for TissueGene, a biotech company in Montgomery County
• Founder and President, Greystone Capital Corporation

Anis Ahmed (Bangladeshi, Montgomery County)

• Coordinator, Montgomery County Office of Human Rights
• Steering Committee Member, Asian American Health Initiative
• Member, Bangladesh Association of America, Inc.

Shukoor Ahmed (Indian, Prince George's County)

• CEO for V-Empower, Inc., an IT solutions company
• Executive Director, State Democracy Foundation

Katherine Chin (Chinese, Baltimore City)

• President, Baltimore Asian Trade Council, LLC
• Former Faculty Member, Johns Hopkins Hopital School of Nursing
• Former Member, Maryland State Arts Council

Kwang Choi (Korean, Howard County)

• Chair, Korean American Community Association of Howard County
• Former Chair, Korean American Grocers Association (KAGRO) of Maryland

Elizabeth Chung (Chinese, Frederick County)

• Executive Director, Learning Institute for Enrichment (LIFE) & Discovery, Inc.
• Board Member, Interfaith Housing Alliance, Frederick, MD
• Member, Frederick County Human Relations Commission

George Dang (Vietnamese, Montgomery County)

• President, Acacia Financial Advisors, LLC
• Board Member, Asian Pacific American Chamber of Commerce
• Board Member, Montgomery College Foundation

Kamala Edwards, Ph.D. (Indian, Montgomery County)

• President, Indian American Leadership Council (IALC)
• Former Chair, Maryland Governor's Advisory Council for New Americans (MACNA)/Governor's Task Force on Adult Education
• Former Chair and Founder, NAACP Multicultural Community Partnership, Montgomery County
• Professor, Department of English Composition and Literature, Montgomery College

Suresh Gupta, M.D. (Indian, Montgomery County)

• Former Member, Maryland Board of Physicians Quality Assurance
• President, Hindu Temple of Metropolitan Washington
• President, Prince George's County Charitable Foundation

Maria Hrabinski (Filipino, Anne Arundel County)

• Former Legislative Assistant to Congressman Wayne Gilchrest
• Public Relations Officer, Katipunan Filipino American Association of Maryland

Martin Ma, Ph.D. (Chinese, Montgomery County)

• President and CEO, ITTECOM, named one of the Top 100 MBEs for 2007 by the Daily Record and the Governor's Office of Minority Affairs
• Former Executive Vice President, Chinese Association of Sciences and Technology (CAST-USA)
• President, Northwestern Chinese American Association

David Pak (Korean, Anne Arundel County)

• President of USmax Corporation, a federal IT services contractor
• Board Member, Goodwill Industries of the Chesapeake
• Former Board Member, Baltimore Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

Tammy Pantages (Korean, Charles County)

• President, Korean American Association of Southern Maryland
• Chair, Korean Cultural Arts Foundation

Shailesh Patel (Indian, Baltimore County)

• President, Hunt Valley Hospitality, Inc.
• Senior Vice President of Development, New Generation Hospitality
• Board Member, Children's Cancer Foundation

Lily Qi (Chinese, Montgomery County)

• President, Organization of Chinese Americans Greater Washington D.C. Chapter
• Former Director of Public Affairs, D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking
• Liaison to the Asian, Pacific Islander, Arab and Near-Eastern American Communities, Office of Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett

Amjad Riar, M.D. (Pakistani, Montgomery County)

• Physician at Veterans Affairs Medican Center, Washington D.C.
• Palliative Medicine Consultant and Medical Director for Capital Hospice, West Side Region
• Member, Montgomery County Commission on Health
• Board Member, Montgomery County Muslim Council

Nayan Shah, M.D. (Indian, St. Mary's County)

• Medical Director of Shah Associates, an 80-physician multi-speciality group practice in Southern Maryland
• Director of Medical Services, BAPS Shree Swaminarayan Mandir

Sovan Tun, Ph.D. (Cambodian, Montgomery County)

• Economist/Statistician for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
• President, Cambodian Buddhist Society

Beth Wong (Filipino, Prince George's County)

• International Business Development Consultant, Powersolv
• Board Member, Maryland-Asia Environmental Partnership
• Former Associate Director for Community Relations, Prince George's County Office of Community Relations

Kui Zhao, AICP (Chinese, Howard County)

• Planner/Demographer, Baltimore County Office of Planning
• Former Planner, Anne Arundel County Office of Planning and Zoning
• Certified by the American Institute of Certified Planners