Grand Forks, ND 1982

Raised in Oregon by an Estonian mother and Scan-dinavian father, Leif received his bachelor's degree in European Studies from Ore-gon State University. After briefly studying at the Univer-sity of Tartu, Leif subsequently earned a master's degree from the University of British Columbia, where his work focused on Estonian security and citizenship policies. Following in his mother's footsteps, he has since found a fulfilling career in libraries and holds a Master of Library Science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Ma-dison. Now residing in North Dakota, he enjoys the great outdoors and watching his little nephews grow up in the wind and snow of the northern plains.

As a three-term Council member, I've had the privilege of serving the Estonian-American community for the past 12 years. I'm renewing my candidacy for the Council because I believe that my professional background and personal experience can help further the organization's commitment to serve all Estonian-Americans, regardless of where they reside. Additio-nally, as an American-born Estonian, I believe my pre-sence on the Council provides our organization with a unifying intergenerational cohesion. Estonian-related issues have always been a passion of mine, so it would truly be an honor to be re-elected to the Council.

My involvement at EANC has included but is not limited to most annual meetings 2010-2021,

Constitution and Bylaws Committee: Committee Chair (2021-present), Member (2016-2020).

Together with my partner in crime, Gilda Karu, I help coordinate changes to the EANC's Constitution and Bylaws,

E-Voting Ad Hoc Committee,

Committee Chair (2021-2022).

Our committee carried out the Council's primary investigation into incorporating and implementing e-voting in the 2022 election.

Estonian Books Project, 2016-2017

With assistance from other Council members and Dr. Liisi Esse, I helped coordinate the logistics of shipping underutilized and unwanted Estonian language books to Stanford University Libraries where they are either added to the collection or distributed to other libraries.