Bonnie Joy Kaslan
Winner of the 1999 Women of Distinction Award
The
Honorable Bonnie Joy Kaslan, Consul General of the Turkish
Republic, is Executive Vice President of Kaslan Associates,
Inc., a Sonoma based Structural and Geotechnical Engineering
firm. She has served the Turkish American Community since
1978. Mrs. Kaslan, former graduate student at the Sorbonne,
Paris, educator and department chairperson, was president of the
Turkish American Association from 1983-1985. She served as the
first woman on the Board of Directors of the Assembly of Turkish
American Associations as Western region Vice President from
1982-1986. In 1982 she was named woman of the year for the
Turkish American Community in California. She is a national
chairman of the Assembly’s Curriculum Committee History and
Social Science.
She has represented
Turkish American interests at high level State Department
meetings, addressed human relation commissions nationwide,
worked on a one to one basis with innumerable congressional
representatives and their staffs as well as delivered expert
testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relation Relations.
She was the first non-Turkish woman worldwide to represent the
Republic of Turkey as Honorary Consul General developing and
implementing educational and public relations programs as deemed
necessary. She has appeared on radio and television nationwide
as an educator, advocate and facilitator for a better
understanding of Turkey and her people.
In addition to her
advocacy for the betterment of Turkish American relations,
Bonnie Joy is a former Member of the Board of Directors of
Soroptimist International of Oakland. She is a graduate of the
Coro Foundation’s Public Affairs Leadership program for women,
as well as past member of the Board of Directors of American
Women for International Understanding.
She was awarded
Soroptimist’s distinguished “Women Helping Woman” award and
honored as a role model for women on all levels’ local, national
and international. The Assembly honored her with the
Distinguished Service Award in 1987 and Meritorious Service
Award in 1989. The International Institute of the East Bay
honored her as the recipient of the Women of Tribute Award in
1991. She was honored for her leadership and contributions
toward peaceful and greater international understanding.
She has been appointed to the Ethnic Advisory Commission for the
State of California’s Department of Rehabilitation and serves as
the President of the Sonoma Valley Chamber of Commerce.
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