Featured speaker: Tom Alonzo, Chair & Executive Director, Equality Kansas
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Musical guest: Parker Mason (https://www.instagram.com/haikusforemus)
Community moment: TBA
Featured speaker: Tom Alonzo, Chair & Executive Director, Equality Kansas
Thomas (Tom) Alonzo was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He attended Kansas City Kansas Community College and University of Kansas. In 1976, Tom enlisted in the USAF and spent the next nine years in three different jobs. After the Air Force, Tom started working for the IRS, where he has been since 1986. He spent 15 years in management and the past eight years as a tax analyst.
Tom was an instructor for IRS in Front Line Leadership and Employee/Labor Relations, teaching classes all over the country during his tenure as a manager. He also began to get involved in Diversity and Equity in 1989 and served in leadership capacities, which culminated in his tenure as chair of the Greater Kansas City Hispanic Employment Managers Council in 1995. In 2015, Tom became an advocate and activist for the LGBTQ community. He was instrumental in lobbying the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, to pass a nondiscrimination ordinance inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity, making Wyandotte County the only county in Kansas with a countywide NDO and the cities within the county only the fourth series of municipalities to pass the ordinance, after Lawrence, Manhattan and Roeland Park.
Tom is the chair and executive director for Equality Kansas. He is also the Second District Representative to the Unified Government’s Advisory Commission on Human Relations and Disabilities Issues (ACHRDI). Tom is also a board member with the Kansas City, Kansas, and Rosedale Farmers Markets, which operate about five different urban farmers markets in Kansas City, Kansas. He is also a part-time farmer.
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