Latina to Head National Catholic Organization

PRESS RELEASE

SAN ANTONIO (November 26, 2012) –The Catholic Association of Latino Leaders (CALL) (www.call-usa.org) today announced that Diana Richardson Vela will assume the position of President and CEO effective January 1, 2013. She replaces CALL’s founding President/CEO, Robert Aguirre, who step s down from the post on December 31.

“I am pleased to make the announcement of Diana Vela as CALL’s new president effective January 1,” stated Ruben M. Escobedo, chairman of the organization’s board of directors. “We will look to her to continue the efforts to build CALL into a strong national organization with expanded membership and strong chapters. I ask all members to join me in welcoming Diana to the post of president,” he continued, “even as we join together to thank our founding President Robert Aguirre for his efforts in establishing CALL over these past four years.”

Vela, a member of CALL since 2010, said, “This appointment gives me a wonderful opportunity to be of service to the Church and the Hispanic community. My commitment grows as I recall Archbishop Gomez’s words: ‘We are a part of something great here. We are part of a movement that is bigger than any one of us. Every day the need for this organization, for CALL, is growing’.”

Prior to joining the staff of CALL in May 2012 as the director of membership and chapters, Vela worked as the executive director of Guadalupe Radio, the first Catholic radio station in the Los Angeles area, serving a listener base of one million Hispanics in the region. Before becoming executive director, she managed a staff of 20 broadcasters and launched ten new radio shows, which made Guadalupe Radio the station with the highest Time Spent Listening with women in the Los Angeles area market. She managed the publication arm of the radio station as well as the special events, which gathered more than 50,000 people in different evangelization efforts throughout each calendar year. In addition to the radio station, she served on the board of the Right to Life League of Southern California. She currently resides in Phoenix where her husband, Rodrigo, is the CALL Chapter President. Vela has a B.A. in Communications, summa cum laude, from Monterrey ITESM.

According to Vela, her priorities as she assumes her new leadership post will concentrate on two areas. “First–building local chapters to deal with the present needs in our Church while achieving membership growth as well as commitment from the membership; and, second–supporting key strategic national organizations that can influence education, public policy and mass media to assure the shaping of minds and hearts of the generations to come,” she explained.

The Catholic Association of Latino Leaders is a national organization comprised of business and professional people dedicated to promoting the common good of Latinos, the Church and our nation. Established on the premise that it is the particular vocation to transform the world through “faithful citizenship,” CALL members do so by finding new and culturally relevant ways to promote the values of their faith–especially within the historical context that Hispanics were the first American Catholics. CALL provides a forum for members to strengthen their faith in community through prayer, education, service and leadership. CALL provides programs, services and events for the benefit of their community and country. CALL has chapters established in Los Angeles, OrangeCounty, Phoenix, Denver, Austin,San Antonio, Houston, Milwaukee, Miami, and WashingtonDC.

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