NOTES ON PEOPLE (06/04/06)

NOTES ON PEOPLE

Folk dancer starts promotional business

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. - Ukrainian folk dancer Peter Fil has started a promotional products business, Bulava Promotions, and is doing so with no venture capital.

Most dancers move on to becoming dance instructors, choreographers and artistic directors of their own schools and companies. For Mr. Fil, that just wasn't enough. He has had his share of teaching, choreographing and even running his own dance school for several years.

Having performed in some of the greatest theaters, arenas and opera houses, Mr. Fil now wanted to put his mark on the business world. He started Bulava Promotions, a custom imprinted promotional products business. Using money from his own accounts set aside for his idea, he has successfully brought on clientele in both the Ukrainian and dance communities and is reaching out to major big businesses across the country.

Mr. Fil, owner of Bulava Promotions said, "Making the move from backstage to big business just made sense seeing as how I was always being asked to print up shirts for people or design art for printing. The great thing about promotional products is that they really work and there are thousands of products to use for fund-raisers, advertising, trade show giveaways, employee recognition and incentives." Bulava Promotions can imprint products in both English and Ukrainian and offers a unique 5 percent discount on all prepaid orders.

Mr. Fil is a member of Ukrainian National Association Branch 13.

For more information about Bulava Promotions, its products and services, readers may log on to http://www.BULAVA.com.

Using old and new technology, Bulava Promotions provides one of the industry's largest online searchable product catalogues for customer convenience as well as traditional phone support and personal visits. Bulava Promotions can customize hundreds of thousands of products, from shirts to pens to mugs.

Named manager of the year at Macy's

LIVINGSTON, N.J. - Anna (Bobrek) Koziupa of Cedar Knolls, N.J., has been named Manager of the Year for Macy's Livingston, N.J. She is a group manager of jewelry, watches, handbags, hosiery and accessories.

For special promotional events, Ms. Koziupa has often invited Ukrainian musicians to perform in the jewelry department to attract customers. She has helped hire many new Ukrainian immigrants to work at Macy's.

If you've ever watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, you've probably seen Ms. Koziupa as a captain leading one of the floats. She has been in the parade for the last seven years and was awarded a Macy's Rollie Award for her commitment. She always manages to recruit a number of Ukrainians, young and old, to be part of her float in the parade.

Ms. Koziupa is also the manager-in-charge of community service in Macy's Livingston and promotes various fund-raisers with her employees. She is also manager-in-charge of "selling specialists" and is involved in training and promoting the best salespeople.

Ms. Koziupa is a member of Ukrainian National Association Branch 76, Newark, N.J. She is also an active member of Ukrainian National Women's League of America Branch 75, in which she has held various executive positions.

You will also find her packing clothes for the Dollar for Ukraine group in her spare time. On Easter, with her "Soyuzianky," she helps to deliver blessed Easter baskets to the elderly and shut-ins.

This past March she took two weeks' vacation to volunteer as an international election observer in Ukraine. She is also a parishioner of St. John Ukrainian Catholic Church in Whippany, N.J.

Ms. Koziupa enjoys spending time with her family: husband, Michael, daughter, Tatyana, and son, Danylo. She loves traveling, friends, community service and people.

Lawyer receives environmental award

SAN FRANCISCO - Six individuals representing the regions of the world were awarded the Goldman Foundation Environmental Award, the most prestigious and largest prize of its kind for grass-roots environmentalists, in the amount of $125,000 on April 24 as was reported in the April 29-30 Weekend Edition of the San Francisco Examiner.

According to the article, the Goldman Environmental Prize was started by civic leader and philanthropist, Richard N. Goldman, in 1990 with his late wife, Rhoda H. Goldman. Prize winners are selected by an international jury from confidential nominations submitted by a worldwide network of environmental organizations and individuals. Since its inception, the foundation has awarded activists from 67 countries.

Among this year's recipients was 26-year-old attorney Olya Melen of Ukraine, who represented Europe, for temporarily halting the Kuchma government's construction of a canal on the Danube Delta.

The canal would have severely damaged one of the world's most valuable wetlands, and is classified as a Wetland of International Importance by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Ramsar Convention (an inter-governmental treaty adopted on February 2, 1971, in Ramsar, Iran, with over 150 participating nations, which provides a framework for national action and international cooperation in the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands.) The government began dredging and shoring up narrow and shallow sections of a 106-mile delta waterway to create a canal that would allow large vessels to travel directly between the Danube River and the Black Sea.

Despite her lack of courtroom experience, Ms. Melen assumed the lead role on the case, working with the Environment-People-Law firm in Lviv, which filed suits to halt the construction. She also won a key court case against the government in February 2004, proving that an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the Danube-Black Sea Canal was inadequate and that the proposed construction disregarded environmental laws.

Her initiatives were further propelled by the Orange Revolution that transformed the government in particular, the new minister of environmental protection of Ukraine, Pavlo Ihnatenko, who rejected plans for the second phase of the proposed canal.

However, the Danube Delta remains threatened due to the scheduled completion of the canal, as approved by President Viktor Yushchenko in December 2005, according to the article. Ms. Melen and others are prepared to use every available legal means to protect the most sensitive areas of the wetlands.

Notes on people is a feature geared toward reporting on the achievements of members of the Ukrainian National Association. All submissions should be concise due to space limitations and must include the person's UNA branch number. Items will be published as soon as possible after their receipt, when space permits.

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