Golden Gate Friends of Mongolia

Board & Friends

Honorable Bold Ravdan
Board Officer
Mongolian Ambassador to the United States
Washington, D.C.

Michael H. Dingle
Board Chair
San Francisco, CA

Michael Dingle has made three trips to Mongolia, the first in 1997. Since then he has been actively involved in promoting cultural exchange between Mongolia and the United States. He was instrumental in bringing four major Mongolian art exhibits to San Francisco and assisting with many other events for the Bay Area's Mongolian Community. Mike was a founding member of Golden Gate Friends of Mongolia in 2001. Educated at Cornell University, he has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for almost three decades, with an extensive background in non-profit arts and community organizations. He has worked with SomArts Cultural Center, has stage managed the San Francisco Blues Festival since 1989 and has been involved with organizing and managing many other musical and cultural events in the Bay Area. Mike is a musician and performer in his own right. He currently works at San Francisco General Hospital, has an eight year old daughter, practices aikido, and is the creator of the dinglestick, a multi-purpose massage and movement tool.

Sheldon Severinghaus
Board Treasurer
Former representative of Asia Foundation to Mongolia
San Francisco, CA

Sheldon R. Severinghaus received his MA ('64) in French literature and his Ph.D. (’77), both from Cornell University. He has spent most of his professional life in Asia. He taught English and French at Tunghai University in Taiwan. He then did field research on endangered pheasants in Taiwan and Pakistan. In 1979, he joined The Asia Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit supporting development in seventeen countries in Asia. He was the Foundation’s representative in Taiwan from 1980 to 1988 and in Mongolia from 1990 to 1998, a program which he started. The Mongolian Liberal Women’s Brain Pool (LEOS), one of the largest and most influential nongovernmental organizations in the country, presented him its first Man of the Year award. In 1996 he was awarded Mongolia’s Medal of Friendship by President Orchirbat for his support of Mongolia’s transition from communism to democracy. In 2003, he was awarded the Silver Star by the Mongolian Democratic Union for his "contribution to Mongolia's democracy, freedom and progressive development, as well as his outstanding support to consolidating democratic values in Mongolia." Severinghaus was affiliated with the Institute of East Asian Studies at University of California–Berkeley as a visiting scholar and is writing a book about Mongolia’s political transitions in the 1990s and Taiwan's environmental movement in the 1980s. In 1999, he and Professor Richard McNeil led a field trip to Mongolia for Cornell's Adult University program. The group was fortunate enough to find and excavate the fossil skeleton of a six-foot Protoceratops dinosaur in the Gobi Desert.

Betsie Miller-Kusz
Board Secretary
Director of SomArts Gallery
San Francisco, CA

Betsie Miller-Kusz was born in Los Alamos, New Mexico. She has lived and painted in San Francisco for over thirty years, and has exhibited nationally and internationally in the San Francisco Bay Area and California, as well as New York, Boston and New Mexico. Her international exhibitions and projects have been held in Paris, London, Valencia, Madrid, Rome, Assisi, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Guadalajara, Guatemala, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Macau, Leningrad, Ulaanbaatar, and Seoul. She has painted numerous public murals and has collaborated with international artists in many different projects, conferences, and cultural exchanges. She is currently the Director of SomArts Gallery in San Francisco. Her most recent works combine the natural elements of earth, air, fire and water with a large guardian figure, a Protector of our earth. Her paintings explore the reconciliation of opposites: east and west, spirit and matter, life and death. She works from a deep instinct connected to natural forces, reflecting this relationship in intense colors and forms.

Robbin Everson
Board Officer
Oakland, CA

Robbin Everson received her B.S from the University of Minnesota in Business and Communications. Robbin is a founder and partner of a high-end chocolate boutique called Alegio Chocolate in Berkeley, CA. Robbin has held various sales positions which includes Residential Wholesale Mortgage Lending companies, Hy Performix, Compuware, Electro Rent and Mary Kay Cosmetics. She visited Mongolia in 2003 for two weeks.

Suzanne Gerson
Board Officer
Walnut Creek, CA

Suzanne Gerson has degrees from Univ. of California at Santa Barbara, English Literature,1952; Graduate work towards M.A.T. Teaching Shakespeare, Smith College in Washington, DC, 1968; Sociology, Dominican College, San Rafael, California,1971-2. Sue’s working career includes: Administrative Assistant, The Asia Foundation, San Francisco and New York; Administrative Assistant and Researcher, Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Administrative Assistant, Institute for Energy Analysis, Washington, DC and Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Program Officer, International Visitor Program (USIA and State Department), Meridian International Center, Washington, DC. Over a 30 year period, she had intensive career in international exchange of students and professionals, arranging programs for individuals and groups in US cultural, educational and governmental affairs, both in the US and abroad. Sue volunteers for Youth for Understanding, Washington, DC. Presently, she is a member, Steering Committee, The Asia Foundation Alumni Association. She has traveled in Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, and Africa.

Ariun Sanjaajamts
Liaison Officer in Mongolia
ariun@ggfom.org

Ms. Ariun Sanjaajamts has an MBA, from Mills College in Oakland, CA. She has over 15 years of working experience in the private sector and in international non-profit organizations. Ms. Ariun Sanjaajamts supervised and managed teams of employees with an emphasis on teamwork, and managed intercultural conflicts between national and foreign team members. She monitored and managed numerous projects at the national level and organized training materials and programs, as well as established a resource center. She has given numerous public speeches to the foreign-donor groups. In the private sector, she formed partnerships to initiate a first half privately owned dollar shop for foreign tourists in Mongolia. Ms. Ariun Sanjaajamts enjoys working with international teams and organizations, traveling, intercultural exchange activities, fashion, films, reading, and horse riding. She has also expressed her creative side as a member of the international actors group in Mongolia.