Our Board
Founder and President Sam Carpenter
5/1/2012
Sam has visited Pakistan and Azad Kashmir six times, paying for the trips out of his own pocket and through gracious donations.
He brings years of telecommunications and business experience to Kashmir Family Aid. Sam is author of the new book, “Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less, no in it’s 3rd edition.”
Sam is also president and CEO of Centratel, located in Bend, Or. For more information about Sam, go here.
Vice President Sam Kirkaldie
“I am most interested in Kashmir Family Aid’s focus on children and schools. So many were destroyed in the quake. And also for the opportunity to instill in them the feelings of goodwill toward Americans through our effort to help them rebuild.”
Sam brings more than 30 years of media and telecommunications experience to Kashmir Family Aid.
He has special interest in community affairs, writing, systems organization and public relations. Sam has served as a board member and president of various media and broadcasting trade organizations and built a major Central Oregon radio station from the ground up.
He also has a deep knowledge of nonprofits. Sam has been with Kashmir Family Aid since the beginning and was chairman of the J Bar J Youth Services, an Oregon nonprofit that helps at-risk youth.
In addition, Sam is Centratel’s vice president, customer services manager and a stockholder since 2001.
A native of Montana and an Oregonian since 1972, Sam has many outside interests including travelling, fishing, camping, hiking, golf, skiing, racquetball and running (in his younger Montana years, Sam was also a rodeo bull rider). He and his wife, Bev, live in Bend and have three boys.
Board Member Dennis Hanson
“In a small, but growing way, Kashmir Family Aid can address a number of desperate Third World problems – poverty, women’s rights, children’s education – without any view toward partisan politics or religion, or even unwelcome attention to the broader struggle of worldwide terrorism.”
Dennis brings more than 20 years of financial planning to Kashmir Family Aid.
He is president of Northwind Financial Concepts in Bend and also has a background in journalism and the outdoors that continues to take him extensively around the world.
Dennis is the former CEO of Yosemite Institute, the world’s largest outdoor education organization. He is also a former senior editor of “Audubon Magazine” in New York, the former public affairs director of the National Wildlife Federation in Washington, D.C., and a former legislative aide to the U.S. House of Representatives.
In addition, Dennis also served as an airborne U.S. Army officer in Korea, Laos, and Vietnam. He has a degree in journalism from the University of Oregon and is a widely-published writer and photographer, including for “Outside Magazine,” “Smithsonian Magazine” and “National Geographic.”
When Dennis is not working, he loves to trek through the Alps, Andes, Himalayas and the Antarctic.
Board Member Susie Lucas
Susie brings a strong educational background to Kashmir Family Aid.
She is a teacher at Highland Magnet School in Central Oregon’s Bend-La Pine Schools district. There she held a fundraiser in 2006, when her class gathered about $3,000 for the children of Pakistan.
Susie is currently working with us to set up an e-mail exchange program between her children and Pakistani students, many who have no means of learning how to use a computer because their building was partially destroyed by the 2005 earthquake. As an educator, Susie understands how important this type of knowledge is in the 21st century. Even in Pakistan, knowing how to use a computer is an essential skill now for anyone who wants to leave the impoverished rural areas and get a living-wage job.
Right now, female literacy in Kashmir villages is just 3 percent. More than 70 percent of females in Pakistan can’t read, let along use a computer. If these students can get computers, they will be able to e-mail children like those Susie teaches in Bend, Ore.
