Congratulations to the incoming and returning members of our board!
Here are the winners of the ALDA 2021 Board Election for the term beginning on January 1, 2022:
Treasurer: Joe Linder
Joe has been an active participant in ALDAcon conventions since 2013 and a board member of the ALDA Chicago Chapter since 2010, including a 5 year stint as president. He is retiring from his position with BMO Harris Bank N.A. after 42 years of helping corporate clients with their lending and cash management needs. He is looking forward to having more time to get involved with volunteer opportunities, including those with ALDA National.
Secretary: Tina Childress
Tina has had the pleasure of serving as ALDA Secretary since January 2020. Prior to that, she served a term as Regional Director 2 as well as ALDAcon 2019 Planning Co-Chair. This past year, she also served as Board Liaison for ALDAcon 2021. She has a deep knowledge of how ALDA works having been a member since 2005 and her computer, organization and technology skills make her an asset in this role. She has been working with the Board on migrating more information to the Cloud so that it is available to future Boards as well as more accessible to the Membership.
Director, Region 1: Debra Bare-Rogers
Debra was diagnosed with dual sensorineural hearing loss eight years ago and has struggled to learn how to communicate differently. She advocates for herself everyday in order to better understand what people are saying. She has served on hearing loss-related boards in both California and Maine. Her professional experience includes outreach and education about phone relay, captions (yes, please!) and amplified devices – anything to improve communication access for hard of hearing and deaf individuals. Her goal as Region 1 Director will be to provide support and resources to individuals who may be struggling.
Director, Region 2: Diane McDonagh
Diane is looking forward to continuing her work as Director, Region 2. She has organized a quarterly virtual Midwest ALDA meeting that she would like to see expand. She teaches sign language classes for ALDA members. One of her goals is to reach veterans who have lost their hearing as well as other late deafened, deaf, and hard of hearing people. In her role at ALDA she has learned so much from ALDA members and wants to serve the ALDA organization and community better.
Board member biographies will be updated prior to the start of the new term.
We also want to thank the runners-up for these positions:
- Eleanor Shafer
- Anthony Perales
- Laura Taylor
- John Garvey
It’s so important to have options for our members to choose among. We hope that candidates who didn’t win are still willing to volunteer their time and input as they can. There is always room for more voices on the team. Turnout was moderate with 57% of members voting in the two national races. Some of the races were very close and decided by less than a handful of votes.
Be sure to make your voice heard by returning your ballots every year. Your vote might well be the difference in deciding a close race.
If you are not a member of ALDA please consider joining. You must be a dues paying member to vote or run in these elections.