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Birol and Sue joined Tigard Rotary Club in 1998 just after moving to Tigard from Columbia, Missouri.  They loved the fun and informal meetings and made many lasting friendships.  But things change in all our lives, and changes in responsibilities at work and home led both Yesiladas to leave the club in 2018.

Sue and Birol met in college and have been together 43 years.  Sue spent many years as a financial analyst and market researcher before going into finance administration.  Finding she missed having a customer connection that was absent from her management position, she became a financial advisor and purchased several financial management companies in 2011.

Birol is now the Director of the Hatfield School of Government at PSU.  He was the interim director for a short period of time and was subsequently asked to step up permanently.  The first thing he did was to contact Antoinette Hatfield.  Over the past year, he has developed an important working relationship with the widow who is now in her 90’s and for whose family the School is named.  Her late husband, Mark, served for 30 years as a Republican United States Senator from Oregon and was also chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The Hatfield School has three departments: political science, public administration, and criminology/criminal justice, and offers a Master’s in Public Policy and a Ph.D in Administration and Public Policy.  The School was placed at PSU in order to bridge the gap between urban and rural Oregon.