Announcing the Regional Network Leads Program

The White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders’ Regional Network, which is housed within the Department of Education, is proud to announce its first cohort of the Regional Network Leads Program (RNLP). The RNLP is a community-centric leadership development curriculum with a focus on community engagement, interagency collaboration, and project management. This framework will establish a formal leadership structure for the Regional Network and provide Regional Network leads with the tools and skills to continue to effectively engage with the AAPI community across the country and transition the working group into 2017 and beyond.  We are excited to transition the following current leaders into this exciting program.

2016-2017 Regional Network Leads Program

Region I - New England: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont

• Kenneth An, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
• Roberto Medina, U.S. Social Security Administration

Region III - Mid-Atlantic: Delaware, DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia

•  Ambreen Tariq, U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division

Region IV - Southeast: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee

• Lola Kress, U.S. Small Business Administration
• Ronald Stephens, Atlanta Federal Executive Board

Region V - Great Lakes: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin

• Doug Nguyen, U.S. Social Security Administration

Region VI - Southcentral: Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas

• Lucia Garcia, U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division
• Audrina Lange, U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division

Region VII - Midwest: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska

• Jewell Colbert, U.S. Social Security Administration
• David Hung, U.S. Social Security Administration

Region VIII - Rocky Mountain: Colorado, Utah, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming

• Stephen Chen, U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights

Region IX - Northern California, Southwest, Hawaii and the Pacific: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, and the Pacific Islands

• Paul Chang, U.S. Department of Labor
• Glory Gervacio, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
• Gen Tamura, Federal Emergency Management Agency

Region X - Pacific Northwest: Idaho, Oregon, and Washington

• Stephen Yim, U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division

The establishment of the RNLP will help ensure that individuals and communities continue to have access to important federal resources and programs.  Through interagency collaboration, peer learning, and regional strategic discussions, the Regional Network will work to connect people to available federal resources and services and share best practices and resources across regions and agencies.

Since 2013, the Regional Network has convened over 100 community roundtables, trainings, and events in 35 cities across the country, from Boston to Honolulu to Salt Lake City, helping more than 6,000 AAPI community members and stakeholders understand available federal resources and meet with key officials. In this year alone, the Regional Network has led outreach around a variety of federal resources and programs, from the Filipino World War II Veterans Parole Program to services for youth, elders, and community-based organizations.

Through interagency collaboration, information-sharing, knowledge exchange, peer-to-peer networking, and an interdisciplinary focus, the RNLP will be an important mechanism to continue this work.

Courtney Chappell is Deputy Director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, which is housed within the U.S. Department of Education.