Page 5 - AACL 25th anniversary

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HON. JOSEPH J. DIOGUARDI was the first Member of Congress to bring the
issue of Albanian rights in the Balkans to the attention of the U.S. government through a Congressional Resolution as a new Member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986. After leaving Congress in 1989, he founded the Albanian American Civic League and Foundation, which he serves as volunteer president, and has made more than forty trips to the Balkans. DioGuardi has worked with members on both sides of the political aisle in an effort to bring lasting peace and stability to Southeast Europe. In May 1990, even before Albania was recognized diplomatically again by the United States after 45 years of brutal Stalinist communism, Congressman Lantos traveled with DioGuardi there and discovered the unknown story of the Albanian rescue of Jews during the Holocaust. DioGuardi and Shirley Cloyes (whom he married in 1998) have since worked to bring the unique, saving role of Albanians in Albania and Kosova during World War II to international attention. DioGuardi has testified many times before Congress, most recently on April 29, 2015, about marginalized Albanians in Kosova and Macedonia and a history of failed US foreign policy in the Western Balkans.
Before coming to Congress, DioGuardi was a practicing Certified Public Accountant who served twenty-two years with the international accounting firm of Arthur Andersen & Co., twelve of them as a partner. In 1984, he became the first practicing CPA ever elected to the U.S. Congress. In addition to his human rights work while in the House, DioGuardi took the lead in sounding the call for federal financial reform. After leaving Congress in 1989, he established a nonpartisan foundation, Truth In Government, and in 1992 published a book entitled Unaccountable Congress: It Doesn’t Add Up. The book was updated in early 2010 before he unsuccessfully ran for the US Senate, having won the Republican nomination in a hotly contested three-way primary in September 2010.
Born and raised in the Bronx, DioGuardi is a graduate of Fordham Prep and Fordham University with honors. His late father, Giuseppe DioGuardi, was an ethnic Albanian born in Greci, near Naples, the oldest of the 51 Albanian-speaking towns and villages in Italy today.
RONALD RETTNER is a successful business executive, developer, community leader, and
a visionary advocate for the advancement of higher education and social justice. Since 1976, he has served as the president of Rettner Management Corporation, a commercial real estate and investment company, and since 1980 as managing partner of Baron Associates. Under his leadership as director of the Morris B. Rettner Foundation, the foundation has helped fund scholarships, research, university facilities, and civic projects since 1975. In 2012, Ron was named a trustee of the University of Rochester, and in 2013 a new center, the Ronald Rettner Hall for Media Arts and Innovation, was named in his honor. Ron has served on numerous civic and charitable boards. Among his many leadership roles, he served on the National Council of Arts and Sciences for more than 25 years and was named a “distinguished alumnus” at Washington University in St. Louis, where the Rettner Gallery in the Laboratory Science Building and the Earth and Planetary Sciences Library are named in his honor. In 2014, the Albanian American Civic League and Foundation appointed him Jewish Affairs Adviser in recognition of his important contribution to bringing international attention to the unique role that Albanians played in saving every Jew who either lived in Albania or sought refuge their during the Nazi Holocaust. Ron earned his undergraduate degree with honors at Washington University and his master’s degree in business administration and urban planning from Columbia University. He lives with his wife, Karen, in Rye Brook, New York. They have two successful adult children, Matthew, in real estate, and Meredith, in social work.
CO-CHAIRS
88 Saluting Albanian Religious Tolerance in an Age of Intolerance 5