Group 22- Business Development & Environment
2002-2004

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The following are brief biosketches of volunteers serving in Business Development & Environment Group 22.

Business Volunteers

Saira Abbasey is a business facilitator working with the Zaporizhzhia Regional Resource Center, an NGO support center that services the entire Zaporizhzhia oblast. Saira, a Gemini and native of Medina, ãhalfway-between-Buffalo-and-Rochesterä NY, has enjoyed sampling Russian rock music and importing Hip Hop to Ukraine. She has become quite the connoisseur of krasny borscht and loves boogie-ing. A 2001 graduate of the University of Rochester, Saira hopes to one day rid Ukraine of waitresses who bring only one menu to a table of six people.

Chen Lu Chang, aka. Jason, is from Albuquerque, New Mexico. A graduate of the University of New Mexico with a major in Political Science, he is assigned to the little resort town of Sudak on the southeastern coast of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. He is working with the Sudak Business Center and will be working to continue the development of the Hefier International project and expanding the project into other parts of Crimea, and assisting with the UNDP Economic Mobilization Program. He enjoys strolls by the beach, quiet evenings and visits from other Peace Corps Volunteers whereever dispersed.

Ambrose Dieringer is working with the Kalush League of Business Women and the Kalush Business Center in the (surprise!) city of Kalush. Kalush is a city of about 75,000 in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast in Western Ukraine. A famous Kalushian is the national hero Stepan Bandera. Ambrose's hobbies include eating varenyky, eating holubtsi, and writing poems about eating varenyky and holubtsi. Ambrose hails from Bethesda, Maryland, where he worked in a bank making copies and shuffling papers.

Worth Dixon (known as Cliff to Ukrainians and his former cluster mates) is a business development volunteer developing a sister city relationship between Zaphorozhzhia and a yet-to-be-named city in the United States. Z-town encompasses the Manhattan-sized island of Hortitsya, historical home of the Cossacks. Today Hortitsya is a beautifully undeveloped national park that is begging for an extensive campaign of exploration by mountain bikers. Worth is a representative of Group 22 on the Volunteer Advisory Council. Apart from Peace Corps work, Worth is passionate about Bluegrass and acoustic music in general and is gathering live recordings of folk musicians in Ukraine. He has difficulty shrugging off his former profession as an engineer, as evident in his well-meaning but humorously futile attempts to fix the nearly limitless number of broken things in Ukraine. His shoe size is 10&1/2. He likes pickled eggs and scrapple.

Charles Forbus is a Texan who is also a Business Facilitator in Kiev. He was around when the Peace Corps was first introduced and thought that sending Americans to help struggling countries was a much better idea than sending troops. However providing sustenance for his many children took precedence over his desire to serve and he had to postpone enlisting until recently. Since all nine of his children and twenty grandchildren are currently employed and out of jail, he and his lovely spouse, Patricia, were able to commit to a life of service in the Peace Corps. He is a graduate of that heralded house of higher education, Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas. He is also an AT&T retiree and glad of it. Though Peace Corps stipend is somewhat less than his National Account Managers pay, he is still glad to be here in the land of pelmeni working with the Disabled Peoples Organization Union of Ukraine. If anyone knows where he can find some real Tex-Mex food, he would appreciate the info. Willie Nelson says ÎHowdyâ to all you PCVs.

Patricia Forbus is a business development volunteer working in the capital city of Kyiv for the Ukrainian Association of Business Support Centers. The Association represents and promotes 30 Business Support Centers with representation in all the major cities of Ukraine. Patricia is also a representative on the Technical Team supporting the business development portion of the Peace Corps Ukraine web site (http://co.net/ukraine). Patricia is from Dallas, Texas, and is retired from AT&T/Lucent/SBC (parent of several Bell companies) working in outside global business communication sales and in IT developing sales support software. She has a BS from NY University in Albany in Business and an MBA from the University of Arkansas. She also regularly corresponds with her 9 children, 20 grandchildren and 1 great granddaughter.

Greg Higgins is from Newtown, CT. Prior to Peace Corps he attended Central Connecticut State University and graduated with a B.S. in Business with a Management Information Systems concentration. Greg will be working in Donetsk, one of the greenest cities of Ukraine for an organization who's name is "Dobrota". Dobrota is a philanthropic organization who's mission is to help it's inhabitants become citizens. Greg is an avid watcher of Donetsk's soccer team, Shaktur, and enjoys people watching on Donetsk's main street with a Sarmat in hand. If you are ever in Donetsk, call this PCV up to enjoy his fine ENGLISH movie collection and rumor has it he has a new kolonka and possibly even a washing machine.

Mike Koupal works for the Women's Business Center is the city of Chernihiv. The center provides small business training to women in the community as well as providing them support with socio-economic situations. He also enjoys working with a local humanitarian organization that provides aid to orphanages around the Chernihiv oblast. Prior to the Peace Corps, Mike spent ten year dabbling in the computer and web-based training field at a number of companies in the Midwest region of the United States.

Mark Raczkiewycz is in Ivano-Frankivsk working for "NGO Business Initiatives" working on transforming the 'business center' into an association in order to arm it with lobbying strength and turn it into an active partner with the city government for direct participation in enacting new laws, economic policies and reforms. Mark is also coordinating two university interns on their web design activities for the organization. Back home, Mark was busy with a literary magazine he started in Chicago called Glasshouse Magazine while managing 10 commercial floors of a 40-floor bldg. Mark looks forward to eventually starting a network whereby Ukrainian entrepreneurs can find credible investors and/or partners in their various endeavors.

Lisa Rivera is currently working at the Donetsk Regional League of Business and Professional Women in the city of Donetsk. The aforementioned league is an active participant in the "Women's Economic Empowerment Project" and provides training and support to women entrepreneurs and professionals. The league also participates in other civic activities such as initiatives against violence and trafficking of women, and support of women seeking employment. Lisa is from North Carolina where she enjoyed biking the trails around her hometown of Chapel Hill and around the neighboring Appalachians. In Donetsk she enriches her love for ballet both as a dancer and a spectator.

James Tichenor is a business facilitator at the Zhytomyr 'Women for Women' Center. As a member of Group 22, he also spent training in and around the Zhyt, so while he's only lived there since April 2002, it feels like he's been there his entire life. In the States, James graduated from Emory University with a degree in Economics and hails from Washington, DC. In addition to anything DC proper, James enjoys baseball, bridge, reading, caps-tossing, free-styling and hip-hopping.

Environment Volunteers

Adam Colvin is a 2001 graduate of the University of Alabama, where he double-majored in Political Science and Russian, the latter helping him to order drinks and to perfect his witty banter with the locals here in Ukraine. Adam hails to us all the way from the bustling metropolis of Rainbow City, Alabama. He is thrilled to be in the former workers' paradise as he works constantly honing his Russian language skills in hopes of one day speaking fluently. Adam is working at the Lugansk Oblast Youth Center for Ecology in the city of Lugansk, only about 50 kilometers from Mother Russia. Interests include traveling to new places, reading, politics, cooking (with an emphasis on eating), jogging, movies, Alabama football, and Ukrainian discos.

Kalley Fetcher is currently serving as an environmental educator at Specialized School #100 in the Borodinski region of Zaporozhia. Kalley hails from a small cattle ranch nestled in the Elk River Valley of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. There she partakes in ranch duties such as fencing, haying and irrigating. Her present focus in Zaporozhia is centered on acquisition of the Russian language and integration into the social atmosphere of the Ukrainian teacher community at School #100.

Kara Filius is living in Kamyanets-Podilski working at the Podilski-Tovtry National Nature Park as an environmental educator. She enjoys taking walks in the canyon and the fortress along with watching the sunsets from her balcony. Kara is from Michigan and has a BM from Central Michigan University and is currently working on her MS at Michigan Tech University.

Katrina Haas works with a Youth Ecology Center in the Dniprovsky region of Kyiv. The organization is busy doing many different environmental activities (her favorite is the School of Ecological Fashion that boast its own fashion show). Her primary focus to is help the organization start an after school service learning group, lead by senior students teaching younger students about social and environmental issues. Currently, Katrina is working on her Masters Degree in Parks, Recreation and Environmental Education from the University of New Mexico. But, her home state is Wisconsin, which is serving her well in a country that loves to drink like many Wisconsinites. Kat loves mountains, oak trees, Grateful Dead, and spreading my love!

Rosanette Luther is a native Texan. Her family lives in Houston. She is currently serving in L'viv in two city departments: the Communal Enterprise "Inspection for the Improvement and Ecology of the City of L'viv" and the Regional Landscape Park "Znesinnia." Ms. Luther has a B.A. degree in History and English from the University of Houston. Her M.A. degree is in Political Science with a multi-disciplinary concentration including Management and Economics, in International Applied Community and Economic Development. Ms. Luther is eager in her work in the beautiful and historically important city of L'viv.

Kelly Oberg is currently serving as an Environmental Facilitator in Simferopol, the oblast center of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Ukraine. Kelly is working with a well-developed Environmental NGO, Ecologiya i Mir (Ecology and Peace) on various environmental action programs including the development of alternative energy sources within Crimea. Kelly is from Evergreen, Colorado and graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder with degrees in Political Science and International Affairs. She is very excited to be working with Peace Corps - Ukraine and is looking forward to a fun and rewarding two years in her beautiful city.

Colin Purdy is living in the beautiful, quaint city of Chernivtsi near the Moldovan and Romanian borders. He is a recent graduate of Michigan State University with a Bachelors Degree in Environmental Studies and Applications. He works at the local ecological center in the city of Chernivtsi. In his spare time, Colin enjoys eating mass quantities of sunflower seeds and playing karaoke on his state of the art Casio electric piano.

Tamar Schiffman is a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in the lovely town of Kirovograd, in central Ukraine. Tamar keeps busy teaching ecology, working with orphans, and embarrassing herself every Sunday at the weekly softball game. Her passions include dancing to Britney Spears, reading up on the newest Ukrainian fashion trends, and correcting people who add an "a" to the end of her name.