Transforming Self: Personal Narratives
Michelle is the first Filipina to reach the top level of open-wheel motorsports, racing of vehicles with the wheels outside the car’s main body and in most cases one seat.
Known throughout the Philippines as the Asian Karting Queen, Michele has blazed a trail in the karting world winning championships, breaking barriers, and representing her country on the international motorsports stage.
She made her debut into single-seat racing with the National Karting Series in the Philippines in 1999 at the age of ten. She was the first female winner in the Asian Formula 3 Series and the youngest female participant in 2006.
Michele became the first female champion of the Rock Island Grand Prix in Rock Island, Illinois, the world’s largest street karting race and made her Pro Mazda debut at Sebring in 2008.
She is now racing on the Mazda Road to Indy, the ladder system for drivers seeking to compete in the Verizon Indy Car Series and of course, the greatest spectacle in racing, The Indianapolis 500.
Michele blogs for Top Gear Philippines.
Cris has been the executive chef for the White House since 2005 and is the first woman and person of ethnic minority origin to hold the position.
She was hired as assistant chef in 1995 and appointed as head of the White House kitchen by the First Lady Laura Bush and retained by the Obama administration.
Her love for cooking was nurtured by her mother, whom she assisted in the kitchen as a child. Cris has over 26 years of culinary experience including studying food technology at the University of the Philippines and working at various restaurants and hotels in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Vienna, Austria.
She is a member of the exclusive Le Club des Chefs des Chefs, a global association of chefs of heads of state. Cris has teamed up with the First Lady Obama’s Let’s Move Initiative to help promote healthy and nourishing food.
Aside from being known for her food’s vibrant colors and flavors, Cris is also a dedicated mentor, church deacon, wife, and mother.
Kristine M. Custodio, ACP
Senior Paralegal and Business Development Director
Butterfield Schecter and Van Clief, LLP
CHRONICLES OF A MEETING QUEEN
Kristine is a Senior Paralegal/Business Development Director for Butterfield Schechter & Van Clief LLP. She did her paralegal studies at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in 2004, became a Certified Paralegal in 2006, and received her Advanced Certified Paralegal designations in Discovery (2009) and Trial Practice (2010).
In 2006, she obtained her Human Resource Management certificate from UCSD while serving as an administrator for her family’s adult residential facility for developmentally disabled adults.
Her many elected and appointed positions include: Vice President of Policy for the California Alliance of Paralegal Associations (2014), member of National Association of Legal Assistants-Paralegals (NALA) Continuing Education Council (2014), Rancho Peñasquitos Town Council (2103), Commissioner for the City of San Diego’s Citizens Equal Opportunity Commission (2013), ethics chair for the Professional Development Committee (2009), and UCSD’s Lambda Epsilon Chi, the National Honor Society in Paralegal/Legal Assistant Studies (2011).
Sonia T. Delen-Fitzsimmons
Senior Vice President
Bank of America Merrill Lynch;
Board Member
Filipina Women's Network
FROM THE BOONDOCKS TO THE BOARDROOM
Sonia is known for her business acumen and support for many global causes. She is a Senior Vice President for Bank of America Merrill Lynch in San Francisco.
She was the Executive Producer of the documentary Harana. Sonia sits on boards of the Filipina Women's Network, Philippine International Aid, the University of the Philippines Alumni Association of San Francisco, and the Apl.de.ap Foundation International.
She co-founded Kulinarya, an amateur and professional chefs competition to raise awareness about Filipino cuisine. As an entrepreneur, she co-founded AcuGlobal Endeavors, an international trading and licensing company that exchanges goods and services in Asia.
In 2010, Sonia received the Presidential Citation from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for her decades of service in the Fil-Am community in the San Francisco Bay Area, and for raising funds for those affected by Typhoon Ketsana.
Sonia appears on the FWN YouTube Channel’s mentoring program. Sonia enjoys golf, classical music, and opera. She is married to Christopher Fitzsimmons and they have three sons—David, Justin, and Matthew.
Ernestina delos Santos-Mac, M.D.
President
Philippine American Community Center of Michigan
LEADERSHIP BY INSPIRATION
Determined to extricate herself from poverty, Ernie devised a plan to fulfill her dream of a better life. Her plan was simple and based on getting a good education.
Since elementary school, she single-mindedly pursued her plan to obtain the best possible education. She hurdled obstacles posed by ‘non-believers’ who frowned on women who wanted to obtain college education.
Her sacrifices included living in a depressed area in San Andres Bukid, Manila and walking every day to the University of Santo Tomas campus.
Another obstacle was her father’s opposition to her plan to take the test needed for medical jobs in the U. S. However, an uncle gave her the money to take the qualifying exam.
Living in the U. S. for more than 40 years transformed the indigent girl from Bicol to a lady whose heart bleeds when she sees the woeful plight of the poor. She made a lifetime commitment to help the less fortunate through charitable activities benefiting poor people in the Philippines and in Michigan.
Judge Cheryl Nora Moss
Family Court Judge
Nevada Eighth District Court
NEVADA’S FIRST FILIPINA DISTRICT COURT JUDGE
Judge Cheryl Nora Moss was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is a first generation Filipino-American and daughter of two medical doctors, Dr. Demetrio T. Nora and Dr. Rena Oquendo Magno Nora, who both graduated from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, Philippines.
Judge Moss has served in public office as the State of Nevada’s first Filipino elected to a District Court.
Judge Moss has two siblings, a brother who is an oncology surgeon in Los Angeles, California, and a sister who is a corporate executive in New York City.
Judge Moss is married and her husband has been involved in the construction of City Center, Trump Tower Las Vegas, Red Rock Hotel & Casino, Hoover Dam Bypass, and The Las Vegas Springs Preserve. She has three dogs.
Janet Susan Rodriguez Nepales
Hollywood Journalist
Member, Hollywood Foreign Press Association
WRITING FOR SAINTHOOD
Janet is the first and only Filipina member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association that gives the Golden Globe Awards.
Since 2007, she has sponsored the ‘Janet Susan Rodriguez Nepales Journalism Awards’ for deserving journalism students at her alma mater, Quezon City High School. She is a member of the International Women’s Media Foundation, National Association of Professional Women, and LA Press Club.
Janet won 1st prize in the Outstanding Entertainment category for the 2012 Philippine American Press Club’s Plaridel Journalism Awards and 2nd prize in the Best Columnist/ Critic-International Journalism category for the 2013 LA Press Club’s Southern CA Journalism Awards.
She is a columnist for the Manila Bulletin and Philippine News, a contributing editor at Balikbayan Magazine, and a correspondent for GMA-7.
Awards she has received include the 2005 Celebrity Chronicle Journalist of the Year Award, the 2007 Asian PR-Wire Journalist of the Month Award, and the 2008 Quezon CityAlumni Association Multi-Media Award.
She graduated cum laude from the University of Santo Tomas.
Col. Shirley S. Raguindin
Chief of Diversity
National Guard Bureau;
Chief Diversity Officer
AirNational Guard
BEATING THE ODDS
Colonel Shirley S. Raguindin serves as Chief of National Guard Diversity to the Chief, National Guard Bureau (NGB), General Frank J. Grass.
In her dual role she serves as Chief Diversity Officer as principal advisor to Director, Air National Guard (ANG). Lieutenant General Stanley E. Clarke III. She is responsible for the strategic direction, implementation, and alignment of ANG’s integrated global diversity and inclusion initiatives to achieve the highest state of military readiness for over 458,000 Soldiers, Airmen, and civilians.
Shirley was commissioned in 1986 as a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps program from the University of Hawaii. She is the recipient of the Diversity Training University International Diversity Executive Leadership Award (2014), International Women’s Outstanding Leadership Award (2013), and Diversity Officer LeadershipAward by Diversity Best Practices, Inc.
Janet is a teacher, performer, and author of Crushing Soft Rubies and Midnight Peaches, Two O’clock Patience.
She has taught ethnic studies, social justice, and other subjects at the high school level and is a professor of Humanities at Napa Valley College where she teaches Filipina(o)-American Heritage, American Mind, and Introduction to Africana Studies.
She founded and is a facilitator of the Broken Shackle Developmental Training Program, a program that promotes the use of healing techniques to help reduce the effects of internalized racism. Her books have been used in courses colleges across the country.
As a spoken word artist she has performed at venues across the country. Through her literature and performances, she explores issues of love, motherhood, resilience, ancestral connection, and joy.
She holds an M.A. in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State University, an M.A. in Religion and Society from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Irvine.