Vedda wins Chamber scholarship
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Organization Management has awarded its Regent Scholarship to Tony Vedda. The award is given to chamber professionals across the country.
In his application, Vedda stressed the chamber’s need for diversity in its training programs.
Vedda, executive director of the North Texas GLBT Chamber of Commerce, will attend a five-day session at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles in July. The course is part of a four-year leadership-training program. This is Vedda’s third year.
“It’s a testatent to our board that they see value in this,” he said. “It’s just a terrific program.”
AA Rainbow Team salutes Cirillo
FORT WORTH — In celebration of National Gay Pride Month, American Airlines’ Rainbow Team is honoring the sales group’s founder, Rick Cirillo.
For Rainbow Team newsletter, they interviewed Cirillo who talked about being the first employee in Harvey Milk’s Castro Street camera shop. Cirillo had just come out and had a chance encounter with Milk, which led to his involvement in work for LGBT rights.
Cirillo later moved to Dallas and went to work for American Airlines in the marketing department. After the 1993 March on Washington and the airline’s decision to work with the gay and lesbian community and stop discriminating against passengers with AIDS, Cirillo formed the Rainbow Team to market to the LGBT community.
His marketing group was a first for a major American company but has since been copied by most other airlines and a number of other corporations such as IBM.
TDWCC to endorse candidates
The next general meeting for Texas Democratic Women of Collin County will be Monday, June 28, at 6:45 p.m. in the Shawnee Room F148 of Founders Hall at the Preston Ridge Campus of Collin College, 9700 Wade Blvd. in Frisco.
The meeting will include a candidate forum to vet and vote on endorsements for the November election. The following candidates and representatives have confirmed attendance: The daughter of gubernatorial candidate Bill White representing his campaign; Dinah Weems representing the campaign of her husband, railroad commissioner candidate Jeff Weems; 3rd Congressional District candidate John Lingenfelder; Collin County Court at Law Place 3 candidate Sajeel Khaleel; county judge candidate David Smith, Collin County district attorney candidate Rafael de la Garza; county commissioner candidate Rick Koster; justice of the peace candidate Rey Flores; 5th District Court of Appeals Place 4 candidate Bonnie Lee Goldstein; and 5th District Court of Appeals Place 12 candidate Larry Praeger.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition June 25, 2010.
