The Duluth Sister Cities International Staff & Board of Directors
Romesh Lakhan
Romesh Lakhan was born and raised in Duluth MN. He graduated from the College of St. Scholastica and the University of MN School of Medicine and has been teaching high school and college science classes for over 18 years.
During this time he caught the travel bug from his parents, Jill and Koresh Lakhan, and has had to opportunity to chaperone a group of students to our sister city of Ohara-Isumi. He has served on boards of several organizations in the community and various committees at UMD.
Romesh is married with three children who generally consider him a bad influence because they too love to travel more than is fiscally prudent. In his spare time he enjoys reading, mountain biking, hiking, cooking, and ahem…traveling to new places and meeting new people.
John Schmidt
John Schmidt is a retired Duluth Public School teacher and social worker. His commitment to service continues after retirement, through volunteer work in the community.
He followed the work of Duluth Sister Cities during his professional life and invited visiting delegations into his classroom and attended many Sister Cities events. The members of Duluth Sister Cities were people in the community he admired and respected. He saw the work of the organization making significant contributions to the health of his community and John believed in the mission that involved promoting peace and understanding through person to person relationships.
John and his wife, Chelly are committed to promoting peace and sustainability in their community and the world. They know that relationship building with people is the best way to promote peace and sustainability.
Several years ago, John and Chelly, joined a delegation on a trip to Växjö where they gathered information on sustainability through carbon neutral initiatives, city planning, human service work and art. They also returned home with many new friends and a significant present day Swedish culture understanding. Recently, delegations of Växjö and Isumi City residents visited Duluth. They shopped, they ate out, they toured, they visited many sites but most importantly, they formed new friendships.
John strongly believes in the mission of DSCI and is interested in discovering avenues that make Duluth Sister Cities experiences more accessible to all members of our community. He is proud of all the impacts Duluth Sister Cities has had on Duluth. He values the access we have to our global community through computer assisted communication, but he knows the impact of “real life” people to people encounters are far more powerful.
Tim Velner
Tim moved to Duluth in 1976 from his childhood home in Minnetonka. He attended UMD and graduated with a BS degree in Biology and BS minor in Chemistry along with a teaching science license. Most of Tim’s adult life has been teaching in Duluth Public Schools including coaching the Duluth East Daredevils Robotics Team for 12 years.
Tim has a long history of working with Duluth Sister Cities. In the early 90’s Tim participated in a Russian/American bike exchange and has participated in numerous events with the Duluth East Robotics Team at Enger Park and the DECC. In 2017 the Duluth East Robotics Team helped start a team in our sister city Växjö, Sweden. The team competed in Duluth for three seasons before Covid hit the planet. Tim is now chairperson of the Växjö committee planning events between the two cities.
In a world where two or more people can video talk (Jetson style) in real time, makes the world so much smaller and more connected. Knowing each other and understanding one another is of paramount importance. Tim is committed to participating in a world of connectedness.
Some of Tim’s favorite activities are Traveling, camping, eclipse hunting, biking and pickleball.
Kremena Stoyanova
The majority of Kremena’s professional experience has been in the educational world and mostly in higher education. She holds an administrative position at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and in addition to that, Kremena teaches a couple of classes in order to stay connected to students and expand her perspective when working with instructors on her team.
Throughout her career, she has traveled extensively around the world to support cooperative internationalization efforts. Last year, she served as the President on the Duluth Sister Cities International Board whose mission of building bridges to global understanding strongly aligns with her vision. Kremena grew up in Bulgaria, so she speaks Bulgarian, Russian, and Serbian.
Her family regularly hosts international college age students and sees great benefits in these cultural and social exchanges. One of her inspirations is to create gourmet dishes with ingredients from locally sourced farms, so you can regularly find her at the Farmers' Market.
In her spare time, she enjoys reading, biking, walking on the beach, working in her art studio, and other creative activities that involve her family.
Melissa Hepokoski
Melissa Hepokoski is a long-time resident of Duluth, Minnesota. While in high school, Melissa was active in Family Career and Community Leaders of America. In the summer of 1989, Melissa was awarded a scholarship to spend eight weeks in Japan through FCCLA and Youth for Understanding. During that summer in Tokyo, Melissa lived with a gracious host family who provided her with abundant opportunities to learn about Japanese culture. This enriching experience was a pivot-point in Melissa’s life, igniting her passion for learning about people all over the globe.
After graduating from high school, Melissa attended the University of Minnesota, Duluth (UMD). While attending UMD, Melissa participated in a nine-month study abroad program in Birmingham, England. In Europe, Melissa was able to participate in additional first-hand experiences that enhanced her studies in history, culture, and language. In 1995, Melissa graduated from UMD with a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations.
Later, Melissa decided to pursue a career in Education. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Superior in 2009 with a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education and in 2016 she completed a Master of Education degree through St. Mary’s University of Minnesota.
Tom Zelman
Tom Zelman is a Professor of English at the College of St. Scholastica, where he has worked since 1988. As an undergraduate, he spent a year studying in France, a very powerful experience that has led him to seek opportunities to get to know people from other countries, in the US and abroad. In his work, he has helped to lead college study programs to Russia (Petrozavodsk), Ireland, and China. He has also directed the China Summer Programs at St. Scholastica. His family has hosted visitors from Russia, Uruguay, and Spain.
At St. Scholastica, Tom teaches several courses in the novel and a variety of writing courses. He is a member of the Honors Faculty and a former member of the Dignitas Faculty. He has served as Benedictine Chair of General Education and chair of the English Department. Most of his publications have been in the field of modern Irish poetry.
Tom is married to Patricia Hagen and together they have one adult son (Andy) who spent a year working in Zhuhai, China.
Neil Glazman
Neil Glazman was born and raised in Duluth. After high school, he and a buddy spent the summer traveling via Eurail Passes through Europe and Israel. He also spent a summer while in high school on a kibbutz in Israel picking pears and cleaning chicken coops. He then attended UMD and graduated from the University of Nevada Las Vegas with a Bachelor in Science degree in Hotel Administration.
Several years later, he returned to Duluth to join his family business. In 1990 he was part of the Sister City delegation to Petrozavodsk. He has served on many boards and committees for local non-profits.
Neil and his wife Barbara Russ, have hosted two visitors from Petrozavodsk. They both enjoy traveling in the U.S. and internationally.
Ed Crawford
Ed Crawford, a retired assistant superintendent from Duluth Public Schools, spent 36 years in the district working as a social worker, guidance counselor, assistant principal and principal. His entire career has been with the Duluth schools, and he has called the city home since he was 13.
Born in Paris and educated for a time in French boarding schools, Crawford’s family moved to Duluth when his father was transferred here by the U.S. Air Force. Ed graduated from Duluth Central in 1974 and went on to earn degrees from the College of St. Scholastica, the University of Wisconsin-Superior and St. Cloud State University.
His early life, he said, “certainly solidified who I am as a person and how I deal with people. Kids who struggle in school — those are kids I have who I admire”. Ed has worked hard to develop programs to help kids stay in school. New programs include those for language immersion and for online study through the district, in line with his vision for helping at-risk students and helping them make better decisions.
Ed is currently employed by the University of Minnesota, Duluth as an adjunct professor in the Department of Education. He serves on the St. Scholastica Board of Trustees and is a member of the Duluth Area Family YMCA Heritage Foundation Board of Trustees.
Beth Fait
Beth has always been interested in learning about other countries and exchanges. In 1998 her husband came home from his side-job as a soccer coach and asked if we could host a player from Norway that was looking for a home. Spending a year hosting a student was a powerful experience and demonstrated the benefits of student exchanges first-hand. That student is now grown with his own family and career and Beth has now benefited from getting advice from him on how to improve systems here.
The soccer connection from Beth’s husband also led to participation with the Duluth Växjö Soccer Exchange with trips to Växjö and hosting players here in Duluth. After participating in a trip to Sweden in 2019, Beth took over as the president with the program being halted in 2020 due to the pandemic. Beth has been working with folks in Växjö to develop an exchange with teens that can get the program restarted.
Beth participated in a Duluth/Växjö city exchange in the summer of 2023 and found there were many opportunities for Duluth to learn from Växjö. Beth’s background is in healthcare, teaching, and public health. This fall she was able to set up an exchange where the health director from Kronoberg County where Växjö is located partnered with Beth to give a presentation to the St. Louis County health department about the pandemic response.
Sharnell Valentine
Shar Valentine MD has been a Duluth resident for 21 years. She’s a pediatrician at Essentia Health. Upon finishing residency training in Madison Wisconsin and moving to Duluth, her mentor’s sendoff included a six pack of beer and a book on ice fishing. While she hasn’t cracked that book, she appreciates the beauty of Lake Superior, the area’s mountain bike trails and the BWCA and loves to share it with visitors.
An avid traveler in her medical and military career, she and her partner, Pete, look forward to being delegates to our sister cities and opening up their home to visiting delegations. She looks forward to promoting the Sister Cities mission of peace by sparking local interest in our DSCI’s initiatives, especially with youth and families.
Christy Rounds
Christy Rounds is a 4th generation native of Two Harbors, MN, who just returned to northern Minnesota after spending most of her adult life in Michigan, Colorado, California and western New York.
After graduating from Gustavus Adolphus College with a degree in International Relations with an Eastern European focus, Christy worked for an international cultural exchange organization called Friendship Ambassadors. During the Cold War, she traveled with American performing groups behind the Iron Curtain and organized trips in the U.S. for Eastern European performing groups touring the U.S.
After the Cold War ended, Christy and her husband spent two decades running several successful business ventures in the outdoor industry, including:
An independent manufacturer’s rep business in the outdoor recreational industry
A distributorship selling helmet cameras from Argentina to Alaska
A manufacturer of inflatable stand up paddle boards and pumps
A private label roaster and coffee shop in western New York
An outdoor store in western New York
Christy has had the opportunity to travel to over thirty countries, live outside the United States for a month or longer a dozen times, hike the Inca Trail in Peru twice, and summit Aconcogua, which is the highest mountain in the western hemisphere.
In December of 2022, she published her first book, Escape Bound, which is a travel memoir documenting an 18,000 mile road trip with her teenage daughter in the wake of a divorce.
Christy loves running, mountain biking, cross country skiing, international travel, high altitude hiking, writing, playing piano and singing.
Leila Jindeel
Leila Jindeel was born in CA and moved to Duluth in 2011. She is currently a clinic dentist at the Lake Superior Community Health Center. She loves to play outdoors and to dance. Leila is excited to meet new friends and to foster relationships with Duluth’s sister cities.
Cory Erickson
Cory Erickson was born and raised in Duluth, MN until he left to attend Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. After a number of years away he moved back to Duluth where he is now an Analyst at Minnesota Power with a focus on energy forecasting and the mining industry.
In his teenage years, he was a part of the Duluth-Växjö Soccer Exchange where he traveled to Sweden to play soccer. He quickly developed a bond with his host family that's lasted to this day and are now essentially family. In college he also volunteered as a U.S. citizenship test tutor for elderly Burmese refugees.
Cory is a track and field coach at Duluth East High School, an avid triathlete, and in his free time enjoys spending time with his dog, riding his motorcycle, traveling, trying new foods, and having new experiences.
Mary Hoffman
Mary Hoffman was born and raised in Michigan. She attended Eastern Michigan University and Michigan State University before moving to upper Michigan as a special education consultant. Here she met and married her husband Dave Skolasinski. Before landing in Duluth in 1998, Mary worked as a case manager for Hmong hearing impaired in California and science and art teacher in Salt Lake City.
Dave and Mary came to Duluth with their two daughters and three sons. This began the adventure with DSCI when their son Lee went on a student delegation. In 2004, the family toured several Asian countries with homestays in Japan (with the family that hosted Lee), South Korea, Hong Kong, and China.
From 2007-2017 Mary was involved in “Rural School Initiative” which meant travel to a boarding school for 8-10 weeks each fall to work with Chinese teachers who taught English. Mary has also chaperoned Girl Scouts on trips to Ecuador, London, Mexico, France, and Switzerland and traveled to India to present workshops in the arts to young adults.
Dave and Mary have hosted many students from overseas. Some stayed a few days and others were here for a year. Our children always liked having a foreign student attend high school with them. Our family strongly believes in the benefits of travel to foster world understanding.