Hearing Loss Association of America, California State Association (HLAA-CA) Elects New Officers and Trustees

San Jose, CA, March 27, 2015 (Newswire.com) - The HLAA-CA Board of Trustees met in Oakland for the all-day annual meeting held at the Holiday Inn Express and Suites on February 16, 2015.

Present were Jeff Chess, Janel Edmiston, Zina Jawadi, Ram Kakkar, Lynne Kinsey, Jim Montgomery, Gail Morrison, and new Trustees Debra Rogers and Ann Thomas.  Nanci Linke-Ellis, Meg Wallhagen, and Don Senger joined via Skype.

Ann Thomas is President of the HLAA Diablo Valley Chapter.

Debra Rogers has worked in childcare and for nonprofit organizations for more than twenty years.  She has a Masters degree in Nonprofit Leadership and Management. She also learned American Sign Language (ASL). Debra has a passion for giving back to the community. For example, she volunteered on the HLAA San Diego chapter steering committee, and she has been involved with the Deaf community. Debra has spent most of her life in California and lives in San Diego; she is married and has two children. She has bilateral hearing loss and wears hearing aids.

New officers were elected: Zina Jawadi, President; Gail Morrison, Vice President; and Lynne Kinsey, Secretary.  Treasurer, Jeff Chess, was reelected.

New president, Zina Jawadi, presented her strategic plan that focused on high-level initiatives to reach HLAA-CA's goals with tactical details to be determined at the team level. Her plan is based on the HLAA-CA strategic survey, which she conducted in December and January. One of President Jawadi's techniques is to use a dashboard (one-page progress summary report) to keep track of the status of tasks and projects.

Each HLAA-CA Trustee has significant hearing loss with five members using cochlear implants to hear. The meeting was conducted with Communication Access Real-Time Translation (CART) via SKYPE and the hearing induction loop system.

HLAA-CA is 501(c)(3) tax exempt, nonprofit organization.  HLAA-CA is an affiliate of the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA).

Contact: Zina Jawadi, President, [email protected]