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  • Middlesex Sheriff James V. DiPaola was elected on November 7, 1996 and sworn into office as the 29th Middlesex Sheriff on November 27, 1996 to fill out the remaining two years of the former Sheriff's term. He has since been re-elected to two full six year terms, the first on November 3, 1998 and most recently November 2, 2004. Prior to being elected Sheriff, DiPaola served two terms as the state representative from Malden's Thirty-Sixth Middlesex District. He was first elected in November of 1992 and re-elected in November of 1994. In January of 1993, DiPaola was elected President of his class by his peers in the House and Senate. Before serving as state representative, DiPaola was an eighteen-year veteran of the Malden Police Department, serving with distinction as a patrolman, a sergeant and as an undercover narcotics detective. In addition, DiPaola has also served over 25 years in the United States Military Reserves. In the past eight years, Sheriff DiPaola has completely overhauled the hiring, promotional, training, purchasing, classification, civil process and prisoner rehabilitation programs, as well as created or revitalized numerous community outreach programs for the Middlesex Sheriff's Office. He has also secured funding for and broken ground on the first renovation and modernization project in the history of the Billerica House of Correction, thus ensuring a safe and secure facility for the Middlesex Sheriff's Office to fulfill its mission well into the twenty-first century.
  • Nam Van Pham has been a community activist for more than 20 years. He has traveled to many states and countries to inform the American and international public about human right abuses in Vietnam by the current Vietnamese government. In 2002 he co-founded the Massachusetts Commission for Human Rights in Vietnam, a coalition of Vietnamese American organizations and leading activists to advocate for respect of religious freedom and other individual rights for Vietnam. He has established the Next Vietnam Foundation, whose goal is to advocate for a democratic Vietnamese society.
  • Dr. Peter Nien-chu Kiang is Professor of Education and Director of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston where he has taught since 1987. Under his leadership, UMass Boston has developed the most Asian American Studies courses, faculty, and community linkages of any university in New England. Peter currently serves as co-president of the Chinese Historical Society of New England and chair of the Massachusetts Advisory Committee for the US Commission on Civil Rights.
  • Rev. Jeffrey L. Brown, M.Div., is co-founder and past chairperson of the Boston Ten Point Coalition, an ecumenical group of Christian clergy and lay leaders who mobilize the community around issues affecting black youth, especially those at-risk for violence, drug abuse and other destructive behaviors. In April 1999, he founded Ten Point International, a resource for churches around the world interested in overcoming violence in their communities. Brown is the author of articles on religion, youth and violence; a columnist for the *Cambridge Chronicle*; and a contributor to *The Boston Globe*'s op-ed page.
  • A.E. Hotchner is an American author and graduate of Washington University (LA and JD, 1940) who briefly practiced law in St. Louis. In 1942 he joined the United States Air Force and directed the London and Paris bureau of The Air Force Magazine from 1946 to 1948. After a period of freelance work in Paris from 1949 to 1950, Hotchner went to work for Cosmopolitan magazine as a feature writer from 1950 until 1954. He then returned to serious freelancing and sold stories and articles to well circulated magazines. Hotchner later wrote for television and the stage. A full length novel, The Dangerous American, was published in 1958, and his plays such as The White House were produced in New York. In 1955, he began various adaptations for stage and television of work by Ernest Hemingway. The two were friends until Hemingway's death in 1961. Papa Hemingway, Hotchner's controversial memoir, was published in 1966 by Random House.
  • Justin Kaplan received his bachelor of science degree from Harvard University in 1944. After pursuing a post-graduate degree for two years, he left graduate school to work for a publishing house, where he eventually became senior editor. Kaplan left publishing for writing in 1959 and began work on his first biography, *Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain*, a study of the famous author that was published in 1966. The book was a tremendous critical success, winning both the Pulitzer Prize for biography and a National Book Award in 1967. He followed this up with two more well-received biographies, *Lincoln Steffens, A Biography* (1974) and *Walt Whitman, A Life* (1980), which won an American Book Award, He also edited several anthologies and the 16th edition of Bartlett
  • Jack Cinquegrana is chair of the firm's Government Enforcement & Compliance Group. He is also a member of the firms Executive Committee. He is a veteran trial lawyer with over 25 years experience in litigation and state and federal government enforcement matters. Jack is one of Bostons most recognized lawyers. He is a past President of the Boston Bar Association and one of 10 Boston lawyers included in Best Lawyers in Americas Annual Guide to Bet-The-Company Litigation. He has been elected a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, and he is listed in Massachusetts Super Lawyers Top 100, Best Lawyers in America, Chambers USA and The International Whos Who of Business Crime Lawyers. In 2009 he was appointed by the Supreme Judicial Court to serve on the Committee for Public Counsel Services, which oversees the provision of legal representation to indigent persons in criminal and civil cases in Massachusetts.
  • Rita Poussaint Nethersole is the Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies for Academic and Student and Student Affairs at the University of Massachusetts Boston.