| SVU |
CZECHOSLOVAK SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES |
Biographies of SVU Officers
Karel Raska, Jr. - SVU President
Karel Raska, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., F.C.A.P., was born in Prague in the family of physicians. He attended schools in Prague. In 1956 he started his studies at the Charles University Medical School and graduated with distinction in 1962. After compulsory military service in the Czechoslovak Air Force he entered graduate studies in Biochemistry at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. In 1965 he defended his dissertation "The Mechanism of Biological Activity of 5-azacytidine" and was awarded Ph.D. in Biochemistry.
After receiving a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship he came in 1965 to the Department of Pharmacology at Yale University School of Medicine where he continued studies of anti-cancer nucleoside analogs. In late 1967 he returned to Prague. After August 21, 1968 he emigrated to the U.S.A. and joined the faculty of Rutgers Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J. (now Robert Wood Johnson Medical School). He rose in the ranks to a Professor in 1976. Between 1989 and 1992 he was the Professor and Chairman of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at New Jersey Medical School in Newark, N.J. Since 1992 he is the Professor and Chairman of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Saint Peter??s University Hospital and Director of the Institute of Molecular Diagnostics and Pathology. His research focused on the molecular biology of DNA tumor viruses, clinical immunology and immunopathology. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Pathology in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology with special competence in Immunopathology. Fourteen students got a Ph.D. degree in his laboratory and he trained dozens of postdoctoral fellows. He is a member of many scientific societies in the U.S.A. and also an honorary member of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic. He has been repeatedly elected to "The Best Doctors in America". He published over 250 articles and reports. He is married to Jana Raskova, M.D., Professor and Division Chief at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
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Vlado Simko - Executive Vice President
Vlado Simko, M.D. Professor of Clinical Medicine at State University New York, Downstate Medical Center at Brooklyn was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1931. He graduated Cum Laude from the Comenius University Medical School in Bratislava in 1956. After medical and research training and after obtaining boards in internal medicine and clinical chemistry he became research investigator and Head, Laboratory Department at the Research Institute for Human Nutrition in Bratislava. Here he earned a C.Sc. (Ph.D.) for research on metabolic effects of heated fat in food. Subsequently his work in this subject and on metabolic effect of physical exercise on lipid metabolism was published in major medical journals in Bratislava, Prague, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Germany, Hungary and the Soviet Union. These publication activities earned him an invitation to Cornell University in the United States where he became an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Nutrition in 1969. In addition to teaching the graduate students he participated in research on diets for man in space. In 1972 - 1974 he was a clinical fellow in gastroenterology at the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, NY and then became an associate professor of medicine at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Since 1982 Dr. Simko is the Chief, Section of Gastroenterology at the Veterans medical center in Brooklyn, NY. He actively joined several Czechoslovak exile organizations, publishing numerous socio-political essays in Slovak democratic exile periodical "Nase snahy" and in other journals.
Dr. Simko published over one hundred original full medical papers in various medical journals, one book chapter and over 250 medical abstracts, translations and letters to the editor. Over seventy socio-political articles were published in exile journals and over sixty popular reports in popular press on nutrition for the general readers. Dr Simko serves on the Board of the American Fund for Czechoslovak Relief and on a committee of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association for reconstruction of the Bohemian Hall in New York City. He is the past Vice President of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences and regularly organizes the biomedical symposia at the SVU World Congresses where he regularly reports on his research. Dr Simko was married to the late Mary T. Simko, M.D., an internist who he acquainted as a medical student. His late son Daniel S. Simko was a recognized American poet who also wrote exile poetry.
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Vlado Kysucky - Treasurer
Vlado Kysucky, a native of Bratislava, joined SVU as a treasurer with the goal of delivering new ideas and bringing SVU's mission to life especially for young people. After having pursued studies in New Zealand, Germany, and Finland, he received a Master's degree in Economics and Applied Information Sciences from the University of Economics in his hometown (2003). Additional academic training cover international business and finance at the University of Tampere in Finland and Columbia Business School in New York. Agitated about future development of society and the economy, Mr. Kysucky took active part in civil society during his studies in crucial days of Slovakia's integration in the European Union when the Slovak democratic system underwent a period of difficulties. From 1999 to 2001 he worked at a think tank Centre for European Policy where he organized and presented lectures and seminars on a wide spectrum of questions about European integration. After his appointment as an analyst at Slovakodata, a.s., an information technology consulting company, Mr. Kysucky joined the Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, Inc. in New York, a not-for-profit organization specializing in research grants management. Since 2004, he has been a partner at i2next, s.r.o., a Bratislava-based IT-consultancy.
~ ~ ~ Vera
Borkovec was born in Czechoslovakia, but grew up in Teheran, Iran. She did her
undergraduate work in English and Persian studies at Charles University in Prague.
She came to the USA in 1952. She holds an M.A. in French from Hollins College
(Virginia), and an M.A. in Russian from American University (Washington, DC). She
received her Ph.D. in Russian from Georgetown University (Washington, DC). She is
presently serving her seventh term as SVU Vice President. In the eighties she served
three terms as Vice President for Student Affairs, since 1994 she has been Vice President
for Local Chapters. Her
interest in SVU began when she came to Washington in the early sixties. She became a
regular member in 1965, attended all the Society's Congresses, presenting papers, chairing
and organizing sessions. She has served on several committees, such as the Student
Committee, Bylaws Committee, and Membership Committee. In 1997 she was elected first
woman Secretary General of the Society. She held this post three times:
reelected in 1980 and once again in 1993-1994. In 1982-84 she was Chairman of the
Washington, DC Chapter. Later as SVU Vice President she organized SVU's younger
generation into SVU Junior and instituted a yearly competition for the SVU Student Award,
which has been one of the best ways of attracting young people's interest in the Society. She
served as Local Arrangements Chairman for the 20th Anniversary World Congress which was
held at American University in Washington, DC during the days of August 8-13, 2000.
The fact that the Congress was held at her home university had immense advantages and
ensured the success of the event. American University was not simply a venue, but the
university became an active sponsor. She also arranged the staging of a play "Hour of
Love" by Czech playwright Josef Topol, which she also translated into English,
performed by the American University Department of Performing Arts. Vera Borkovec was also
adviser to the production crew and sat in on rehearsals. ~ ~ ~
Research interests of Mr. Kysucky cover business, economics, information sciences, and culture. In addition to technical articles on information management and governance, he has written on the subjects of international finance and risk management. In recent years, he has organized events for university students and researchers in the field of economics and has spoken and delivered presentations at various academic events. He has received recognitions from the Slovak Entrepreneurial Association for scientific research (2003), School of Business Informatics of the University of Economics for best diploma thesis (2003), and won 1st prize in management competition by AIESEC (1999). Mr. Kysucky enjoys diverse extracurricular activities. As a viola and contrabass player, he has recorded 4 albums, participated in numerous musical productions, and appeared on renowned stages, including a concert in Carnegie Hall. As an avid traveler and climber, he has trekked in Saharan desert and Arctic region, climbed peaks of several active volcanoes, and reached the highest point of Africa.
Vera Borkovec - Vice President
After a teaching career of more than thirty years in the Department of Language and
Foreign Studies at American University, where she taught Russian (sometimes Czech),
language, linguistics, literature and drama, she retired as Professor Emerita and devotes
herself to her lifelong interests and avocations: theatre, poetry, literary translation,
and SVU. Having translated and published a number of stories by Arnost Lustig, she has
turned to the translation of Czech and Russian plays, mainly the plays of Russia's
Aleksandr Volodin and the Czech playwright Josef Topol. She has published some of
her translations of poems by Nobel prize winner Jaroslav Seifert and in 1998 her
translated volume of poetry by Libuse Cacalova was published in the Czech Republic under
the title KINGDOM OF PEBBLES.
Eugene Gooden Martin - Vice President
Graduating with a degree in History and Government from St. Lawrence University (Canton, NY) in 1969, Gene received a Master of Science and a Ph.D. in Cardiovascular Physiology from New York Medical College in 1981. After spending two years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School with joint appointments in the Departments of Pathology and Anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Shriners Burns Institute, he joined the Department of Pathology at Rutgers Medical School (now renamed UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School) in 1983 where he served as the Director of the Serology Laboratory, as the Chief of the Division of Informatics and as the departmental Vice-Chairman for 17 years. In addition, along with Dr. Karel Raska and Robert L. Trelstad, MD he co-founded the University Diagnostic Laboratories, a federation of clinical laboratories within the medical school. Over those years, he was the recipient of grants in two major domains: informatics and laboratory approaches to infectious disease.
He currently directs the Physician Assistant program in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and is actively involved in the education of medical students, PA students and residents at the nation’s largest allied health university. In addition to his role in the SVU, Gene is currently the Secretary to the Board of the New Jersey Society of Blood Bank Professionals.
A recent member of the SVU, Dr. Martin was a participant in the 2006 SUV Congress in ?eské Bud?jovice where he presented a discussion of rapid HIV testing in the United States. Gene has published several papers in conjunction with Karel F. Raska, Jr., M.D., Ph.D. and Jana Raskova, M.D. on topics ranging from the immunology of HIV disease to the role of case-based learning in medical education.
He is married, has one son and three daughters and resides in East Brunswick, NJ with his wife Nancy. He is an avid skier and hiker.
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Dagmar Hasalova White -
Vice President
She wears many hats in the field of music: soprano, director of opera, voice teacher, choral conductor, and musicologist.
She holds undergraduate degrees from the Juilliard School of Music and the University of Kansas, a master's degree in Music Education from Columbia University, and a PhDr. from Charles University.
She taught at the National Conservatories in Bogota, Colombia; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and Managua, Nicaragua. She had an extensive career in opera, concert, radio, and television, and appeared as a soloist with symphony orchestras.
Dr. White is the founder and director of the Vienna Light Opera Company and a member of the music faculty of the Northern Virginia Community College. She also teaches in her private voice studio and has sponsored several singers in the Metropolitan Opera auditions. She is a tireless propagator of Czech music. With the Vienna Light Opera Company, she produced and directed two productions of Smetana's "The Bartered Bride," the first one in 1986 and the second one in 1998, which was subsidized by a grant from the Czech Government. She sang leading roles in American premiers of Smetana's "Two Widows," Dvorak's "Peasant Rogue," "Stubborn Lovers," and "The Devil and Kate," presented at The Kennedy Center. She is also coaching American singers in Czech diction and Czech vocal repertoire.
As a musicologist, she has done research for the Moravian Music Foundation on "The 1501 Bohemian Hymnal," and actively participates as a lecturer during the SVU congresses. She has chaired musicological sessions during the past seven congresses. During the 18th World Congress in Brno in 1996, she was in charge of the academic program. She was president of the Washington, DC Chapter during 1985-88 and chairman of the local arrangements for the 14th World Congress. As a vice president, she is involved in cultural and social aspects of the Society and the organization of international conferences.
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Petr F. Hausner - Vice President
Petr F. Hausner, M.D., Ph.D., was born in Prague in a family of Holocaust survivors. He
attended schools in Prague and graduated from Medical School of the Charles University
in Prague in 1972. He enrolled in a combined MD/PhD program at the First Department of Medicine of his Medical
School. In 1985 he defended his Ph.D. thesis Immunologic Mechanisms in the Prognosis of
Melanoma. He dedicated his formative years as Assistant Professor of Medicine in the
Laboratory of Clinical Immunology, of the First Medical School of the Charles University
in Prague. As his interest turned towards oncology, he joint the research laboratory, of
the Oncology Department of the First Medical School, Charles University in Prague, became
board certified in Medical Oncology, was promoted to Associate Professor of Oncology and
became vice-chair of the department.
With the thaw under Gorbachov, he was allowed to apply for and was awarded a fellowship
at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda,
Maryland, in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Potter. After years of laboratory research, he
entered a clinical fellowship program at NCI/NIH and became a board certified Internist
and Medical Oncologist. In 1998 he became a staff oncologist at the Greenebaum Cancer
Center and faculty at the Medical School of the University of Maryland in Baltimore.
Since 1999, he is Chief of Hematology and Oncology at the Baltimore VA Medical Center.
Dr. Hausner established flow cytometry in the Czech Republic. His laboratory interests
center on cancer biology, metastasizing, gap junctional intercellular communications as
well as molecular biology and DNA repair, whereas his clinical interests and research
revolve around lung cancer, mesothelioma and melanoma. He loves computers, math,
statistics and quantitative approaches. He has published 96 papers, over 130 abstracts
and contributed to 7 medical books including textbooks.
He is married to Eva Hausnerova, M.D., Ph.D., a cardiologist in private practice in
Bethesda and Washington, DC. He has a daughter who is in Law School.
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Charles O. Heller - Vice President
Charles O. Heller was born in Prague and came to the US with his parents in 1949, at the age of 13. The family settled in New Jersey. He earned BS and MS degrees in civil engineering from Oklahoma State University. He worked as an engineer for Douglas Aircraft Company and Bell Telephone Laboratories, before joining the aerospace engineering faculty of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. While at USNA, he earned a Ph.D. in engineering from The Catholic University of America, and he became USNA's youngest-ever tenured professor.
He left academia for 18 years of life as an entrepreneur. In 1969, he co-founded CADCOM, Inc., a pioneer CAD/CAM software company; he was its President and CEO. In 1979, CADCOM was acquired by ManTech International Corporation, and Charlie became Vice President for Corporate Development of the parent firm. In 1983, he led a management buy-out of a segment of ManTech's business which became InterCAD Corporation, now a leading producer of electronic publishing systems software, and part of Corel. He was President and CEO of InterCAD until he sold his interest in the company.
He returned to the academic world in 1986, as Director of Industrial Research at the University of Maryland College Park and, in 1990, became Director of UM's Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship. He built the center into one of the top-ranked such institutions in the nation. After the Velvet Revolution, he was very active in Czechoslovakia, training and educating management teams of newly-privatized firms. At the same time, as a dual citizen of the US and the Czech Republic, he recovered (through restitution and the legal system) some of his family's property, including a factory and an office building in Prague.
In 2000, Dr. Heller entered the venture capital business as General Partner of Gabriel Venture Partners, a bi-coastal firm investing in early-stage high-technology companies. Today, he is president of Annapolis Capital Group, a seed-stage venture capital firm. Additionally, he teaches entrepreneurship in the Smith School of Business and the Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. For more than 20 years, he had been a newspaper columnist and freelance writer; today, he continues with this avocation and is writing a memoir.
In 1992, Dr. Heller was named Maryland "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Ernst & Young/INC. magazine/Merrill Lynch. In 1998, he was named by digitalsouth magazine one of "The 50 Most Influential People in Southern Technology." In 1999, the University of Maryland named him the first-ever Professor of Practice in UM's history. In 2000, he was awarded the Lohmann Medal, the highest honor awarded to engineering alumni of Oklahoma State University. In 2002, he received the Alumni Achievement Award from The Catholic University of America. In 1998, he was named as one of the world's "Computer Graphics Pioneers."
He serves on a number of public, private, and nonprofit boards, including those of: FBR Mutual Funds, Walden University (a for-profit, online, university and subsidiary of Laureate, Inc.), Chesapeake Innovation Center, Emerging Technology Center, the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), WebTide Technologies (chair), Goozex, Inc., and the Board of Visitors of the School of Civil Engineering at Oklahoma State University.
He is married, has one son and three grandchildren, and resides in Arnold, Maryland, with his wife Susan. He played Division I college basketball, as well as club soccer and volleyball; today, he is an avid golfer, skier, boater, hiker, and writer.
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Charles Kulp - Vice President
Charles Jaromir Kulp is a Senior Capital Markets Specialist with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and is based out of Chicago. He also has worked with the FDIC as a financial economist and bank examiner. Prior to joining the FDIC, in the mid-1990s he worked in Prague with Patria Finance and the Czech Ministry of Economy under Minister Karel Dyba. Charles holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is a Certified Public Accountant. He received a PhD in Economics from Kansas State University.
He also holds a Master's degree in Economics and a Bachelor's degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Kansas. His areas of interest for research include risks to the banking industry and capital markets.
He was born in a Czech community in Chicago and has visited family in the Czech Republic regularly since 1969. Both parents are from northern Moravia. They came to the United States as students in 1947 and chose to stay following the coup d'etat in 1948. Both are long-time SVU members.
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Dr. Cecilia Rokusek has had a 28-year career in higher education. During that time she has distinguished herself as an outstanding teacher, scholar, and administrator.
Karel Pacak - Vice President
Karel Pacak is Head of Section on Medical Neuroendocrinology at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health (NIH). He graduated with summa cum laude from Charles University. Prior to joining the NIH, he worked as a physician and research fellow at 1st Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and Institute of Endocrinology, Prague, Czech Republic. At 1st Faculty of Medicine, Charles University Karel obtained his internal medicine and endocrinology board certification in 1986 and 1999, respectively. Karel also received his Ph.D. in 1993 and D.Sc. in 1999, respectively from Charles University. In 1995, after 5 years in basic research at NIH, Karel started his residency in internal medicine at the Washington Hospital Center, USA. After Karel completed the residency program in 1997, he specialized in endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism. Karel is board certified in both internal medicine and endocrinology & diabetes. Karel devotes a lot of time to teaching and education of young talented physicians as well as scientists. He is Professor of Medicine at Charles University, Prague as well as Georgetown University, DC. In 2005 he became the President of the 1st International Symposium on Pheochromocytoma. He published about 200 articles and 55 chapters related to endocrine tumors. He recieved numerous awards including ; J. C. CURTIN AWARD for excellence in teaching and research and THE MAIN PRIZE of the Surgeon General, the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic. Both parents are from Czech Republic.
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Peter Filip is college professor and scientist leading the group performing research in friction and materials. He contributed to understanding of the relationship between structure and properties of metals, ceramics, composite materials, performed pioneering work in development and optimization of human implants and friction materials. He developed new analytical procedures allowing optimization of material design based on understanding of fundamental processes. He coauthored more than 100 publications in scientific journals and conference proceedings, three books, seven patents, and served as principal investigator of ten granted national (7) and international (3) projects. Peter has been teaching at several universities in Europe and USA for more than twenty years (physical metallurgy, materials science, biomaterials, friction materials), supervised 52 master degree graduates and 19 Ph. D graduates, while serving on numerous thesis committees. He is also a member of the Scientific council of the Faculty of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering TU Ostrava since 1995, member of Chairs and Directors Council at SIU Carbondale, IL since 2003. He also serves on ASTM and SAE International standardization Committees. Peter was awarded for the best technical paper published in one of the oldest European Journals - Berg und Huettenmaenische Monatshefte (1997), and received Starley Award for the best original paper in automotive industry published worldwide, (London ImechE International, 2003).
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George Tesar, Ph.D. (Wisconsin) is Professor Emeritus at Umea University (Sweden) and the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Previously he served as a Professor of Marketing and International Business at Umea University, a Professor of Marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and an academic consultant.
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Zdenek David, Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars since February 2002, was born in Blatná, Czech Republic, in 1931. After coming to the United States in September 1947, he studied at the Putney School in Vermont in 1947-48, then at Wesleyan University (politics and philosophy, B.A. 1952), and did graduate work at Harvard (Russian area studies, M.A. 1954; history, Ph.D. 1960). He taught historiography, and Russian and East European history at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor from 1960 to 1965. From 1966 to 1974, he served as Slavic bibliographer and history lecturer in Russian and East European history at Princeton University, and from 1974 to 2002 as Librarian at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
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Miloslav Rechcigl, Jr. is one of the founders and past President of many years of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU). He is a native of Mladá Boleslav, Czechoslovakia, who has lived in the US since 1950. After receiving a scholarship, he went to Cornell University where he studied from 1951-58, receiving his B.S., M.N.S., and Ph.D. degrees there, specializing
in biochemistry, nutrition, physiology, and food science.
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Jiri Eichler, Czech diplomat, was born in a mountain resort of Celadna, Czech Republic, in August 1975. He has been living in Prague.
Cecilia Rokusek - Vice President
Born and raised in Tabor, South Dakota, she was able to maintain her Czech heritage. Throughout high school and college, Dr. Rokusek was active in the Czech Heritage Preservation Society in Tabor. She was also active in numerous Czech theatrical productions in the area.
After completing her Master's degree at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln where she was a Regents Scholar, Dr. Rokusek started her academic career at her undergraduate alma mater, Mount Marty College in Yankton, South Dakota. During her six-year tenure there she served as an Assistant Professor and Chair of the Dietetics Program. In 1982 she joined the faculty at the University of South Dakota School of Medicine in the Department of Family Medicine. In 1983 she received her doctorate from the University of South Dakota in Adult and Higher Education Administration.
In 1987 she was appointed to a key administrative position in the School of Medicine where she served as the Executive Director for the Center for Developmental Disabilities and Assistant Vice President of Health Affairs. In 1993 she accepted a deanship at Governors State University in University Park, Illinois. She served as Dean of Health Professions and full professor there until 1999 when she moved to America's newest state university in Fort Myers, Florida. She is now serving as Special Assistant to the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers. She continues to do nutrition-related research and is active on numerous federal grant initiatives in the area of gerontology and behavioral health. Dr. Rokusek was recently elected national chair of the Health Division for the American Association on Mental Retardation.
Peter Filip - Vice President
George Tesar - Vice President
Professor Tesar is an international consultant and senior marketing specialist to top management in high technology, automotive, and consumer product industries in North America and Europe. He assists smaller manufacturing and engineering firms in their efforts to enter the global marketplace through: strategic planning, research and analysis, product development, value chain building, and network participation. He has been involved with a number of new technology projects including development and market introduction of high technology components in the medical instruments and automobile industries.
Dr. Tesar has been active in North America and Europe as a management education and training specialist for a number of private firms and public institutions. He specializes in bridging managerial styles and practices between marketing and technical specialists in business-to-business type settings. He works closely with top management through one-on-one focused sessions, workshops, seminars, and ongoing internal assessment programs.
Dr. Tesar received his Ph.D., from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his MBA from Michigan State University after spending more than six years in industry as a manufacturing engineer working for a large global company. An internationally recognized strategist and educator, Dr. Tesar is responsible for a number of books including Strategic Technology Management, more than 30 published articles, over one hundred professional papers, and numerous studies. He was a Faculty Associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., specializing in technology transfer issues, served as an external marketing specialist for the U.S. Department of Energy from 1976 to 1984, and was a co-founder and a Senior Partner of Euro-Link Associates in London from 1982 to 1988.
For over twenty years Dr. Tesar was a member of the Governor's Advisory Committee on International Trade and later on the Wisconsin International Trade Council. He serves on boards, state and federal advisory committees, and is active in international professional associations. Dr. Tesar has also held academic positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Georgetown University. He also held visiting positions at the Czech Management Center, Celakovice, Czech Republic; Warsaw University of Economics (Fulbright Senior Lecturer); Aalborg University in Denmark; and the Helsinki School of Economics. From 1998 to 2003 he was appointed a Visiting Professor at the Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic. He frequently lectures in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and in European MBA programs on topics in marketing and on science and business management integration.
Professor Tesar was born in Czechoslovakia as an American citizen and came to Chicago in 1953 where he was active in many Czechoslovak organizations including the American Sokol. In the late 1950s he was a co-organizer of a small group of young Czechoslovaks in Chicago called Klub Svoboné Kultury with Mirek Zást.ra and others.
Professor Tesar resides in Madison, Wisconsin with his wife Catherine T. (Krno) Tesar.
Zdenek V. David - Secretary General
His book, Finding the Middle Way: The Utraquists' Liberal Challenge to Rome and Luther (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press) was published in 2003. A Czech translation is now under preparation. With the late Robert Kann he is coauthor of the Peoples of the Eastern Habsburg Lands, 1526-1918 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984). He compiled the Bibliography of Works in the Philosophy of History for 1978-82 (with Robert Strassfeld), and for 1983-87 (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University, 1984-89). His contributions have appeared in Austrian History Yearbook, Bohemia, Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice, Church History, Ceský Casopis historický, Communio Viatorum, EEPS: East European Politics and Societies, East European Jewish Affairs, Folia Historica Bohemica, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Kosmas, Sixteenth Century Journal, Slavic Review, and Slavonic and East European Review. David has completed a book manuscript, Catholic Enlightenment and Lutheran Idealism: Shaping the Political Culture of Central Europe, 1773-1848, and is currently conducting research on the philosophical and religious background of Thomas G. Masaryk's public activity.
In the early 1990s, David joined David R. Holeton and Vilém Herold in organizing symposia on "The Bohemian Reformation and Religious Practice," six of which were held during the World Congresses of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (Prague 1994, Brno l996, Bratislava 1998, Washington 2000, Plzen, 2002, Olomouc 2004), and four additional ones under the auspices of the Philosophy Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (Prague in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006). He co-edited four volumes of the symposia papers that appeared in 1996-2005. In November 2002, he was invited to address the Historical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences on the subject of the Bohemian Reformation. He has served as a Vice-President of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences and as a Member at Large of the Executive Committee of the Czechoslovak Studies Association (formerly, Czechoslovak Studies Conference) for 2004-2006.
Miloslav Rechcigl, Jr. - SVU Archivist and Editor of SVU Website
He then spent two years conducting research at the National Institutes of Health as a postdoctoral research fellow. Subsequently he was appointed to the staff of the Laboratory of Biochemistry at the National Cancer Institute. During 1968-69 he was selected for one year of training in a special USPHS executive program in research management, grants administration, and science policy. This led to his appointment as Special Assistant for Nutrition and Health in the Health Services and Mental Health Administration. In 1970 he joined the Agency for International Development as Nutrition Advisor and soon after was promoted to the position of Chief of Research and Institutional Grants Division. Later he became a Director with the responsibility for reviewing, administering and managing AID research.
He is the author or editor of over thirty books and handbooks in the field of biochemistry, physiology, nutrition, food science and technology, agriculture, and international development, in addition to a large number of scientific articles and book chapters.
Apart from his purely scientific endeavors as a researcher and science administrator, Dr. Rechcigl devoted almost 50 years of his life to the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU). In 1960-62 he served as secretary of the SVU Washington D.C. Chapter. He was responsible for the first two Society's World Congresses, both of which were a great success and which put the Society on the world map. He also edited the Congress lectures and arranged for their publication, under the title The Czechoslovak Contribution to World Culture (1964, 682 p.) and Czechoslovakia Past and Present (1968, 2 volumes, 1900 p.). The publications received acclaim in the American academic circles and greatly contributed to the growing prestige of the Society worldwide.
Dr. Rechcigl was also involved, one way or another, with most of the subsequent SVU World Congresses, including the recent SVU Congresses in Prague, Brno, Bratislava, Washington, Plzen and Olomouc. Prior to his last term as the SVU President (2004-06), he held similar posts during 1974-76, 1976-78, and again in 1994-96, 1996-98, 1998-2000, 2000-02. 2002-04).In
1999, in conjunction with President Havel's visit to Minnesota, he organized a memorable conference at the University of Minnesota on "Czech and Slovak America: Quo Vadis?"
Together with his wife Eva, he published eight editions of the SVU Biographical Directory, the last of which was printed in Prague in 2003. He was instrumental in launching a new English periodical Kosmas - Czechoslovak and Central European Journal. It was his idea to establish the SVU Research Institute and to create the SVU Commission for Cooperation with Czechoslovakia, and its Successor States, which played an important role in the first years after the Velvet Revolution of 1989. Under the sponsorship
of the Research Institute he and his colleagues conducted a series of seminars about research management and the art of "grantsmanship" for scientists and scholars, as well as for the administrators, and science policy makers, at Czech and Slovak universities, the Academies of Sciences and the Government.
He was also instrumental in establishing the National Heritage Commission with the aim of preserving Czech and Slovak cultural heritage in America. Under its aegis, he has undertaken a comprehensive survey of Czech-related historic sites and archival materials in the US. Based on this survey, he has prepared a detailed listing, Czech-American Historic Sites, Monuments,
and Memorials which was published through the courtesy of Palacky University in Olomouc (2004). The second part of the survey, bearing the title Czechoslovak American Archivalia, was also published by Palacky University (2004).
In this connection, he also organized several important conferences, one in Texas in 1997, the second in Minnesota (1999), the third in Nebraska (2001) and another in Iowa (2003). Most recently, through his initiative, a special "Working Conference on Czech & Slovak American Materials and their Preservation" was held at the Czech and Slovak Embassies in Washington, DC in
November 2003. It was an exceptionally successful conference which led to the establishment of the new Czech & Slovak American Archival Consortium (CSAAC). Most recently, he also organized, jointly with the ACSCC of North Miami, a conference on "Czech and Slovak Heritage on Both Sides of the Atlantic", 17-20 March 2005. The conference was co-sponsored by the US
Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, under the aegis of both Presidents of the Czech and Slovak Republics.
Among historians, Dr. Rechcigl is well known for his studies on history, genealogy, and bibliography of American Czechs and Slovaks. A number of his publications deal with the early immigrants from the Czechlands and Slovakia, including the migration of Moravian Brethren to America. In the last few years he has been working on the cultural contributions of American Czechs and Slovaks. A selection of his biographical portraits of prominent Czech-Americans from the 17th century to date has been published in Prague, under the title Postavy nasí Ameriky (Personalities of our America) (2000; 350 p.). On the occasion of his 75th birthday, SVU published a collection of his essays, under the title Czechs and Slovaks in America.
Jiri Eichler - SVU Web Master
Shortly after attending the 20th SVU World Congress in Washington D.C. in August 2000, Jiri helped to create the SVU Official Website and has been serving as SVU Web Master since then. In 2002, he digitalized Zdenka Fischmann’s manuscripts for ”Essays on Czech Music” published by Columbia University Press. In 2003, he helped to publish the new edition of the “SVU Biographical Directory”. Jiri has received the SVU Beyond the Call of Duty Award and four SVU Presidential Citations.
Jiri serves as an Internal Auditor at the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Previsously he served in the Czech foreign service as Deputy Director of ICT Department.
Jiri worked also as a freelance translator from 1998 to 2001. In Prague’s Union of Interpreters and Translators (JTP), he served as publications’ editor and council member, and was elected the Union’s vice-president in 2002. In 2000-2001, he was also an associated member of the American Translators Association (ATA). In the period 2001-2004, Jiri coordinated the EU Law translations’ project at the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade. Jiri’s work languages include Czech, English, and Slovak, and he has been studying French.
Jiri holds master’s degree in Corporate Economics and Management from the University of Economics Prague (2001). He received training in foreign policy and management from the University of Bologna and the Diplomatic Institute in Rome (2002). Currently, he is enrolled in an individual education programme at the Diplomatic Academy in Prague.