Greetings to my new OBI family,
My name is Sven Olson, and in this month’s newsletter I have the honor of introducing myself as a new member of the OBI Board of Directors. I have a long history of serving the military, having worn the uniform of the US Army for 27 years. I retired in Dec 2013 as a Military Diplomat at the US Embassy in Kyiv Ukraine, where I had finished out my career and not only married my Ukrainian wife but also adopted my Ukrainian daughter. Ever since I discovered the long history that OBI has with Ukraine and serving their men in uniform, I was all in to join the team! I now live in Chandler Arizona, where I met Jeff and Nancy Jernigan, who introduced me to OBI.
God has prepared me to join the OBI Board by nurturing a passion to serve during natural disasters. In the Army National Guard, I had the opportunity to lead teams that responded to forest fires, floods, earthquakes and hurricanes, and in several cases, those teams were international deployments. I also served multiple combat deployments in Iraq between 2003-2005. My diplomatic duty included tours of duty in Jamaica, Panama, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, and so much more in between.
My civilian work since retiring from the military has included serving as the Director for two different Home Health Hospice Services in Arizona, and I am an Adjunct Professor at Grand Canyon University. I teach undergraduate courses in the College of Nursing and graduate courses in the College of Humanities. Not surprisingly, I am active in the Ukrainian American Community in Arizona, as well as Arizona’s global affairs community through the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations.
In addition to my academic work, I will forever be connected to the military as a volunteer. The first week of March I spent with Wounded Warrior Project as a volunteer for “Operation Advocacy” to promote veterans’ legislation to our Arizona Senators and Congressmen. A small team of five of us from Arizona spent a week in Washington DC, with other teams from across the USA, meeting with our legislators and sharing our personal stories on why VA disability and PTSD research are important bills to pass this session. It was absolutely amazing!
In 2024 I traveled with OBI to Nairobi, Kenya and I will help lead a Mental Health team again this year in August 2025. I am so excited to be a small part of this amazing team and organization and believe that God is doing truly GREAT and WONDERFUL things through HIS PEOPLE as we each answer HIS CALLING!!
Sven (Sveno) Olson
Board Member,
OBI Mental Health & Wellness Team
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