Salem, Oregon - Juan Sepúlveda, executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans will be the first keynote speaker at an historic two day Summit organized by the Oregon Latino Agenda for Action (OLAA) Titled “One United Voice – Una Voz Unida,”  the event is slated for Oct.17 and 18, 2010, at the Salem Conference Center to gather Latino leadership from throughout the state to formulate and coordinate statewide efforts promoting the social and economic well-being, political capacity, and civic leadership of the Latino community in Oregon.  Sepulveda will address the assembly on the first afternoon.

Sepúlveda was appointed by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on May 19, 2009, to the position of director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. In this capacity, he is responsible for directing the efforts of the White House Initiative in engaging Hispanic students, parents, families, organizations, and anyone working in or with the education system in communities nationwide as active participants in improving the academic achievement of Hispanic Americans.

For the last 20 years, Sepúlveda has been a senior executive, strategist, and advocate in the nonprofit and philanthropic communities, with a focus in community development, capacity building, and transformational management. Prior to assuming his current position at the Department, Sepúlveda was president of The Common Enterprise (TCE), which he founded in 1995 as an outgrowth of a national Rockefeller Foundation initiative to help build stronger communities across America by making nonprofits, philanthropic organizations, governments, businesses, and communities more effective as they tackled significant critical social issues in more than 35 states and nationally.

Sepúlveda received a bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard University. The third Latino ever to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, he graduated with a combined degree in politics, philosophy, and economics from the Queens College of Oxford University. He received a J.D. from Stanford University and has been admitted to the Texas Bar.   For additional information see:  http://www2.ed.gov/news/staff/bios/sepulveda.html