Lad Santiago, Commissioner,
Human Relations Commission of the City of Spartanburg.

Lad Santiago is of Puerto Rican descent, born and raised in New York City. He received his B.A. degree in Molecular Biology from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. He completed his premedical education at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After moving to South Carolina in 1976, he received his doctorate as a healthcare provider, but continued his postgraduate education in Preventive Medicine at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida. During his years of practice, he served a disenfranchised community in a large southern metropolitan city for a substantial number of years.

As a result of his love for the arts and humanities, in recent years he has undergone further education in the arts. He received an M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing, and another M.F.A. degree in Digital Cinema. Presently, he is a candidate for the Ph.D. from the University of Wales in the United Kingdom.

In years past, he has served as a health manpower consultant to the Office of Health Manpower Opportunity at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He was also a key organizer of the first National Latino Health Manpower Conference held in Chicago, Illinois; a national conference sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. He served as an executive director of a national health manpower advocacy organization for Latinos. He has also served as an executive director for a statewide association for healthcare professionals. Currently, he is a member of the Community Advisory Council of the Arts Partnership of Greater Spartanburg. Within this organization, he has and continues to work for the inclusion and participation of minority communities in artistic programs and functions. These include theater, dance, visual arts, music, and other artistic disciplines. He is also a member of the Southeastern Writers Association, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, Pen American Center, National Association of Latino Independent Producers, and the Upstate Film Society.

Lad Santiago has been honored as an Outstanding Young Man of America, and has been included in Oxford’s Who’s Who in America. At the present time, he is serving a three-year term as a Commissioner in the Human Relations Commission of the City of Spartanburg. Through the Commission, he is working to resolve social, economic, health, and educational concerns in the Spartanburg community.

For matters dealing with the SC Hispanic Leadership Council, he can be reached via e-mail as Santiago@SCHLC.org

  
Gregory Torrales, owner of Torrales Interpretation & Transportation

He is of Puerto Rican descent and calls Columbia, SC, home for the last 8 months. Mr Torrales is new to the area but not new to the issues that affect Hispanics. Greg has served on various Board of Directors for the past 11 years, dealing with health, education and employment issues, relating to Hispanics. He graduated from Northampton College with a degree in Counseling and his passion is to help Hispanics reach their potential.


  SECRETARY

Ana Taboada-Drummond -  Bilingual Marketing

She is a Cuban-American born in Miami, FL. She attended Florida International University in Miami, FL where she obtained her Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Marketing and has a MBA in Marketing from the American Intercontinental University. She has been a healthcare marketing professional for over sixteen years. She is currently secretary of the South Carolina Hispanic Leadership Council.

  TREASURER

Gilberto Borrero, Technical Writer for Blue Cross/ Blue Shield

Gilberto Borrero has been involved in civic activities for almost 25 years in the state of Florida. He was a member of the following organizations:
• City of Ft. Lauderdale Education Advisory Board
• City of Wilton Manors Recreation Advisory Council
• Knights of Columbus, Chapter 3080, Oakland Park, Florida as Advocate and Vice President

He has worked for major law firms in Florida, namely Greenberg, Traurig in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale for 11 years and Broad and Cassel for 2 years as a Word Processor.

He has worked for HIP of New York for approximately 6 years as a Business Analyst.

He is pursuing his Paralegal Certificate which will enable him to also pursue a legal assistant career and/or further his pursuit for a law degree in South Carolina.

For 20 years, he was involved in coaching Florida youth in various sports and is presently a South Carolina High School Soccer referee.

He is presently employed at Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina as a Technical Writer and is well versed in HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley issues.

  Beatriz Kellogg

Kellog International Associates, Inc.

Beatriz Kellogg was born in Colombia, South America. She moved to Columbia SC in 1988 when she married a USC professor. They have two boys, a high school senior and college freshman.

Prior to coming to the USA, Beatriz worked for Bancafe, one of the largest banks in Colombia, as an International Executive promoting international business development, and for INCOMEX, the Colombian foreign trade institute, where she assisted with the negotiation of international agreements and designed foreign trade policy mechanisms to promote Colombian exports to the USA, Canada, Japan and other countries. She also taught economics at the Universidad Externado de Colombia and Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Bogota.

In South Carolina she has maintained her ties to the international business community assisting American and Latin American companies develop their international markets. These include Harsco Track Technologies, a technology company that exports railway maintenance equipment to Latin America, Europe and Asia, and Foreign Academic and Cultural Exchange Services, an international academic recruiting company in South Carolina. She also has been teaching international business etiquette, Hispanic culture, and Spanish at the University of South Carolina and several South Carolina schools.

Beatriz is involved with professional and community organizations in Columbia, SC and supports and advocates the interests of the Hispanic Community. She is a member of the Coalition for New South Carolinians, the Midlands International Trade Association (MITA), the Dreher High School Improvement Council, and the League of Women Voters, and is a board member of the Community Mediation Center (CMC).

  Tom Turnipseed

Founder, Turnipseed & Associates.

Turnipseed & Associates works for the rights of injured workers and serves them although they might not be US citizens or have a visa. Tom is an advocate for consumer, environmental and civil rights, the civil justice system and has created several committees to examine the practice of racial profiling in South Carolina.

Tom received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is a former President of The South Carolina Trial Lawyer's Association and former SC State Senator. Tom is a board member of the Carolina Peace Resource Center and is active in efforts to make peace in the Middle East and to end the war in Iraq.

Tom is former Chairman of the Board of the Center for Democratic Renewal (CDR), a civil rights organization based in Atlanta. CDR, in partnership with the National Council of Churches and the Center for Constitutional Rights, was instrumental in bringing national attention to racially motivated church burnings and was co-counsel for the Macedonia Baptist Church in Clarendon County, S.C. in their case against the Ku Klux Klan for burning their church in 1997. The African-American congregation won a $37,000,000 jury verdict against the Klan in 1998. In 1998, Tom received the Holmes-Weatherly Award, the Unitarian-Universalist Association's highest honor for the pursuit of social justice.

Tom's political and social activism has been reflected in his local radio and television shows. His shows featured community leaders, public affairs, sports, and arts and entertainment, providing a forum for discussing diverse issues. Tom has spoken and written on political and human rights and has been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlanta Constitution, The Charlotte Observer, along with many other newspapers.

  Ivan Segura

Past President of the SCHLC

Ivan Segura is a Workforce Development Consultant for the Connecting People to Jobs/WIA Program, a workforce development initiative that aims to move low-income Hispanic/Latino Midlands residents out of poverty and into living wage jobs by connecting them with job training, education, and support services. Mr. Segura works for two renowned not profit organizations in the midlands area: Family Service Center and Acercamiento Hispano/Hispanic Outreach. Ivan was born in Mexico and has a solid background in business administration and financial planning. He also works for the ContraSIDA Program, a project that delivers culturally and linguistically appropriate HIV/AIDS prevention, information, counseling and testing to achieve its goal of promoting education and early detection among the Hispanic community.

Ivan Segura, was born in Mexico.  Within this organization, he is the Coordinator for the REACH Youth Project (Role Models Encouraging Academics and Challenging Hispanics) and Coordinator for the Expresiones Project, a collaborative effort among community-based organizations, media, and cultural venues to promote artistic creation in the Latino community in SC.

A firm believer in collaboration, Mr. Segura has established several alliances and partnerships with different organizations across the Midlands that allow the programs he is working on to deliver direct services to a greater number of Hispanics.

  Judith Roman
 
Human Resource Officer at Piedmont Community Actions and Adjunct Faculty at Spartanburg Community College

 
Judith Roman is of Puerto Rican descent born and raised in New York City. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business from Southern Wesleyan University. Her professional experience includes management, Human Resources, accounting, diversity and cross cultural training; also ESL and Spanish classes.

She is an adjunct faculty member at Spartanburg Community College teaching ESL and Spanish classes since 2001. She currently is employed at Piedmont Community Actions as a Human Resource Officer. She has 25 years of accounting experience in all areas of accounting. She owns Sphota Diversity & Language Services providing training programs including diversity, cross cultural, employment safety, disability discrimination and harassment training for businesses. She also teaches ESL and Spanish classes for adults and children. Her website is www.sphotalinguistics.net.

She has served as a board member for UNLC Center focusing on environmental issues in the Spartanburg Area. She is also a member of NCLR (National Council for La Raza). She has been an advocate for the Latino community serving as an interpreter for several attorneys in the Upstate.


   Elizabeth Santiago

Webmaster for SCHLC

Elizabeth Paley Hughston de Santiago was born and raised in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  She has a BA in Natural Sciences from Thomas Edison State College, located in Trenton, New Jersey and an MFA in Digital Cinema from National University, located in LaJolla, California.  She holds an NMD degree from Central States College of Health Sciences, College of Naturopathic Medicine.  She is a candidate for the PhD degree (all but dissertation) from the University of Wales, in Bangor, Wales, United Kingdom.  Her dissertation focuses on the public health and epidemiological factors of weight, obesity and nutrition in America, presented through a digital media format.  She is also certificated in Web Design and Graphic Design.

She has worked in the health care field for the past 28 years.  She is the CEO of a nutraceutical company that specializes in immune modulators for physician use as well as for retail application.  Currently, she is establishing a healthcare facility (Inspyre Health) that will focus on weight loss, nutrition and fitness, utilizing a unique approach to this epidemic problem.

As vice president of a multimedia production company, DreamCatcher Productions, she is skilled in video creation and production, website design and hosting, graphic design and other media/new media services such as CD-ROM and DVD authoring and other related services.

In the past, she has served as secretary for the Florida Association of Naturopathic Medicine, and has also served on the Community Advisory Council of the Arts Partnership of Greater Spartanburg.  Currently, she is an active board member of the South Carolina Hispanic Leadership Council and its webmaster.  She is also serving in furthering the mission of the South Carolina Consortium for Equality in Education, a statewide initiative associated with the South Carolina Hispanic Leadership Council.

Having an interest in Ethnographic film, she recently produced a documentary on Catawba Indian Pottery.  She is also involved with a documentary on the burgeoning Latino/Hispanic presence in South Carolina.  

She is the mother of two sons, ages 30 and 28, and two daughters, ages 24 and 22. 

She has a great love for cultural studies, nutrition, art and literature, film, photography, and the out of doors, nature and animals.