FRANK J. SAFERTAL - SVU Secretary General

Frank Safertal, Secretary General of SVU, was born in Prague in 1942. His father was jailed by Nazis for resistance activities and Frank grew up with his mother until 1945 when his father returned from Nazi concentration camp. Frank attended Industrial College in Prague and continued his studies at Prague School of Economics, Faculty of Industrial Engineering. He graduated in 1965 with Dipl. Ing. degree and joined Business Machines in Prague as Project Manager. Frank was active in Czech youth organizations. Following Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Frank and his wife Otakara moved to Vienna with the intent to emigrate to Canada or USA. Thanks to Canadian government " open door" policy for political refugees, Frank and Otakara arrived in October 1968 in Toronto, Canada. After spending several months in English language course, Frank joined Canadian high tech giant Nortel in the position of computer programmer. He rose through the ranks of the company to become project leader, department manager and eventually director of systems development in Digital Switching Division. Frank is a high technology executive with over twenty five years of communications, sales and marketing, program management and customer service experience and he and Otakara moved to USA in 1997 from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They now reside in Bethesda, Maryland. Their children, Dr. Andrea Loewen and Natalie, live in Calgary, Alberta and Washington, DC respectively. While Andrea is now resident in internal medicine in Foothills Hospital in Calgary, Natalie is a program assistant at Centre for Corporate Citizenship, US Chamber of Commerce.

Frank is currently employed by Bechtel Telecommunications as Senior Global Business Development Manager and he is responsible for Bechtel's business development activities in Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union.

Prior to joining Bechtel, he held senior marketing and program management positions with Hughes Network Systems, Harris Canada, Dun and Bradstreet, and customer services and total quality positions with Novatel Inc. and Geac Computers. Frank enjoys several extracurricular activities including membership in IEEE, ASM, ASQC and ITS and is a frequent speaker and lecturer on wireless communications conferences and industry meetings. He frequently authors papers and presentations on telecommunications, Internet and technology.

Frank's activities in Czech and Slovak community in North America include membership in SVU Washington Chapter, Sokol Toronto (1968-1975), Nove Divadlo Toronto (1969-1989), chairmanship of Canada/ Czech Republic Chamber of Commerce in Alberta (1989-1993) and membership in the US/Czech and Slovak Republics Chambers of Commerce Business Council in Washington, DC.

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