Ms. Judith W. Munson, JD
After concluding a three-year appointment as Senior Consultant to the CDC’s Public Health Law Program, Ms. Munson has concentrated on public health law in the international arena. In addition to her teaching duties at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, she also lectures on public health legal issues at VSE (Economics University) and the Czech Bar Association (in Prague). She is a frequent presenter on international public health law topics to domestic law school classes and school of public health audiences. Read More…
Mr. Patrick E. Rea
Mr. Thomas C. Homburger
Ms. Peggy Fiedler Parfenoff
While working at the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Peggy earned her MBA from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University where she specialized in Public/Non-Profit Management and Marketing. Her international exposure started with a year spent studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, followed by many journeys throughout Europe, Russia and China. A native of Iowa, Peggy lives in Chicago with her husband and son. Read More…
Mr. Lester Munson
Lester also serves as the on-site legal analyst for ESPN TV and ESPN radio. He is also a regular guest and commentator on WTTW. Channel 11, Chicago PBS affiliate. Lester is a Columnist, Crain’s Chicago Business; frequent commentator on WBEZ, Chicago NPR affiliate, Sporting News Radio Network, WSCR, Chicago Sports Radio, and, other radio and television stations nationwide. Read More…
Una Pipic
AmSECC Founding Member & Former Vice-President
Una travels to Croatia regularly and has maintained strong business relationships both in Zagreb and Istria. Una and her husband are also the founders of Fino Products, a company that imports and distributes high quality extra virgin olive oils from Istria. Una graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in international communications from the American University of Paris, France. She holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business with a concentration in entrepreneurship and finance. She is an active member of the International Visitors Center of Chicago and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Una and her husband live in Chicago.
Aida Zubovic
AmSECC Founding Member
Anyone who has crossed the globe the visit or live in a foreign country has without a doubt had some amount of culture shock and difficulty coming closer to his goal. It is both difficult and exhilarating to find oneself changing and succeeding in such a new environment. Through the contrasts and differences Aida observed and felt in her environmental switch, she has become very conscious of and interested in communication and language and hopes that with these experiences, she will be able to contribute to AmSecc’s vision of connecting businesses in the United States and Southeast Europe in order to encourage projects, foreign direct investment (FDI) and export-import relationships.
Emir Zubovic
AmSECC Founding Member & Former Treasurer
Emir Zubovic, originally from Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been living in the United States since 1997. Currently, Emir is managing principal of Zubovic CPA Tax Service, Ltd and brings over 10 years of experience in tax, business and individual planning, finance, and estate planning to his clients. In addition to his accreditation as a Certified Public Accountant (obtained through Northern Illinois University program), he holds two Bachelors degrees, in Accounting from Rockford College and in Finance from University of Zagreb.
Among his many professional affiliations, he maintains memberships in the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Illinois CPA Society. With his experience and business relationships, Emir hopes to facilitate and promote business relationships in US and Southeast Europe.
Mr. Thomas Vega-Byrnes
Mr. Vega-Byrnes has represented project finance lenders, sponsors, equipment suppliers and contractors, advising on and negotiating project and financing agreements for electric power plants, chemical plants and airports, and advising, negotiating and settling disputes arising out of such projects. He has advised on traditional limited or non-recourse lending as well as structured financing of such projects. In addition to project finance, Mr. Vega-Byrnes advises commercial lenders on international secured lending, and represents clients in international mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures. He also assists multinationals with planning and documenting the corporate law aspects of international reorganizations and restructurings for tax planning purposes. Read More…
Mr. David Pistrui, Ph.D.
Mr. John Rogers
A founder of TANA (Transforming Asia – North America), Rogers focuses outreach activities to assist companies in cross-border M&A and strategic alliances. These two positions have enabled him to meet and interact with an extensive network in the Chinese business, government and educational communities. Learning their ways, preferences and attitudes toward the future first-hand and in person, Rogers is able to bring business presentations to life. Read More…
Boki Glamochak
AmSECC Founding Member & Former Vice-President
Mr. Michael A. Moses
Patrick Anderson
Matija Biljeskovic
After spending six months in Vienna and Belgrade, Matija got together with his friends and founded BalkanViator – a website serving as a search engine database for bus departure times covering Southeast Europe. He currently works for Northrop Grumman. As one of AmSECC’s website administrators, he maintains and regularly updates AmSECC’s website. With his education and work experience, he hopes to contribute toward AmSECC’s mission.
Dimitar Tchalakov
During his work assignments he was involved in building generic frameworks that were used in the area of Telecommunications and also developing and architecting products in many other areas. For the last few years he is helping IT companies from Eastern Europe in their efforts of establishing partnership relations with companies from US and other places and providing software consulting services. Dimitar is born in Bulgaria and has a master degree in Computer Engineering from “Technical University” of Sofia, Bulgaria. As of AmSECC’s website administrators, he also maintains and regularly updates AmSECC’s website.