HONORARY CHAIRMAN
Lyndon L. Olson, Jr. was the US Ambassador to Sweden from 1998-2001.He previously served as President and CEO of Travelers Insurance Holdings, Inc., and the Associated Madison Companies, Inc. He has served as the President of the National Group Corporation, and he also has been President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Group Insurance Company. He was Chairman of the Texas State Board of Insurance from 1979 until 1981, and from February 1983 until August 1987. He also served as President of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in 1982. He was appointed to the negotiation team on international reinsurance issues at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1987 and lectured to ASEAN nations in 1985 and 1989 at the United Nations Conferences on Trade and Development, Program of Insurance in Manila. He was one of the negotiators for the United States-Israeli Free Trade Agreement relating to services between the two nations; he led a Trade Delegation on Financial Services to Russia and China in 1985.He served as a member of the Texas State House of Representatives from 1973 until 1978. During his tenure, he was a member of several committees and served as Chairman of the Committee on Higher Education, the Rules Subcommittee and the House Standing Committee on Local Government. In 1988, he was Co-Chairman of the Texas Delegation to the Democratic National Convention, and in 1974 he was Delegate to the Texas Constitutional Convention.He has been the recipient of many honors and awards, including the Liberty Bell Award (McLennan County Bar Association), the Gates of Jerusalem Award (State of Israel), and the Baylor Young Outstanding Alumni Award. He also has been named “Outstanding Public Official” by the Texas Municipal League and “Distinguished Public Official” by the Texas Medical Association. Ambassador Olson graduated from Baylor University in 1969 and attended Baylor Law School, where he served as Freshman Class President and Chairman of the Law Student Division of the American Bar Association.
OFFICERS
Soren Marklund is the President of Eurecat US Inc. He has an MS in Chemical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
His background includes 25 years of corporate management in chemicals, equipment manufacturing, road contracting and lately in refinery and petrochemical industry services. Soren is also a partner is ASM Development, a consulting company.
Peter was born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden. Before moving to Austin in 2007, Peter worked with telecommunications giant Ericsson in Europe, China and Latin America. He has held a range of management positions within sales, marketing and operations.
Peter now works for a start-up company specialized in providing contact center solutions and related professional services to large and medium sized corporations. Peter has a business degree from Uppsala University, Sweden and an MBA from Henley Business School, UK.
Henrik is the COO and founder of Boundless Network, a leading solution provider to the promotional products industry. Before Boundless he most recently served as the president of Everydaywealth, an online financial services company, and before that he was the founder and president of Creditland, an online credit and lending marketplace.
Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Henrik was a management consultant with Andersen Consulting in the U.S. and in Stockholm. He was born in Varnamo and got his MSc at The Institute of Technology in Linkoping.
Bo is a Realtor, and an associate with Virginia Cook Realtors in Dallas, Texas. As a realtor he serves his clients within residential real estate; but also provides some commercial services. After living in Brazil in 1981-1983 running his own squash club and later working with and playing squash in Germany (from 1984 until 1993).
Bo moved to the United States and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration (Marketing & Professional Golf Management) from New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico. He became a PGA Golf Professional in 1997 (and still is) and worked with his own Golf Management Company until dissolving it in 2001. He has also played squash for Sweden for many years and his team became European Team Champions during the year of 1980 in Helsinki, Finland. In addition, he also reached the top 16 in the World Championship in Karachi, Pakistan in 1984, and has won several Swedish team championships and the Finnish Open Championship in 1981.
Sarah Sweet is a relationship manager for the International Division of JPMorgan Chase. She focuses on developing relationships with the U.S. subsidiaries of European multinational companies in the Houston Market.
Sarah recently moved to Houston from Cleveland, Ohio where she worked for National City Bank financing trade with focus on the Latin American Market. She has over five years banking experience in International Trade Finance and Mortgage Lending. She is actively gaining involvement in the Swedish business development arena. She is also an active member of the French and Italian-American Chambers of Commerce. She speaks Spanish and Portuguese and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish from Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.
DIRECTORS - AUSTIN
Bertil Fredstrom, has worked for IBM in various management positions in Europe and in the US for more than 24 years. He has also worked for the Swedish Trade Council and held the position as Assistant Trade Commissioner in Los Angeles 1984-85. Bertil moved to Austin, Texas in 1998.
He holds an MBA from the Stockholm School of Economics and Business Administration. In his spare time he is also performing as the Magician Black Bert and is among other things, the permanent secretary of the Magic Academy of Sweden and a member of the Magic Castle in Hollywood since 1984. He was once the youngest president of the Swedish Magic Circle ever at the age of 26. He held this position for a total of four years.
Hakan Thyr is a native of Sweden. He was born in Uppsala about 45 miles north of Stockholm.
During his current IBM tenure of 20 years, he has held several management positions within the Sales and Marketing organizations. Many of these positions have come with regional or worldwide responsibility. Hakan has a long and proven track record of business-to-business marketing and sales, working with many of the major multi-national Swedish companies. After a one-year international assignment in Copenhagen he was sent on an assignment to Austin in 1995. He returned to Sweden in 1998 but always wanted to return to Austin, which he did in May 2006. He is currently a Senior Marketing Manager with IBM in Austin. Hakan is an active officer in the Swedish Army Reserve and holds the rank of Captain. He serves as a Movement Control specialist and was sent to Phuket a week after the tsunami in 2004 to support the emergency response team led by the Swedish Rescue Services Agency.
Hakan holds an M.S. in Engineering Physics and a MBA in International Business from Uppsala University and a M.S. in Computer Engineering from Clemson University where he held a Fulbright scholarship.
Swedish Technologies Transfer Office, LLC, Austin Texas. Founder Anders Nilsson, Swedish Technology Transfer Office was formed to work with Lumitec AB www.lumitec.se in the North American markets commercialising a number of new research projects from Lund University in Sweden. Lund University www.lu.se was founded in 1666 and is the largest institute for research and higher education in Scandinavia. STTO also represent Taurus Energy AB www.taurusenergy.eu and Jolife AB www.jolife.com from Lund.
Swedish Medical group LLC, Dallas Texas. President Anders Nilsson,Swedish Medical Group was formed to extend marketing of Lumitec AB’s portfolio to other foreign markets including North Africa i.e., Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt and to GCC – Gulf Cooperation Council Countries i.e., Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.Anders Nilsson 1997-2010 Vice President of the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce, Texas.
Anders has worked to develop and cultivate an extensive network of professionals in public and private sectors over the last 10 years. This includes high-level officials from the State of Texas, the City of Austin and the University of Texas, the second largest public University in the US.Since 2003 - Served as chief production officer for laser manufacturing for Sunetics International. www.sunetics.com Lasers are manufactured for low-level laser therapy and are sold and shipped to hospitals and dermatologist worldwide.
Served as International Ambassador to Sweden and the European Union for the 15th World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) in 2006. This was attended by industry leaders and delegates from over 80 Country’s and was hosted by the City of Austin, May 1-5, 2006.
Other past experience includes working with Akorbi Language Consulting as an expert interpreter/translator on behalf of Ericsson, in the world’s largest patent dispute case. This was filed with the International Trade Commission in Washington DC and involved over 60 patent infringement claims between Ericsson and Samsung.
DIRECTORS - DALLAS
Daniel is currently continuing his studies in Product Development, Mechanical Engineering at Blekinge Institute of Technology. He holds a diploma from Lernia AB in Industrial Engineering, Cutting Tools Technology. Between 1999 and 2005 Daniel worked in plastic molding injection manufacturing during his years at Plastal Group, Sweden, with clients such as Saab, Scania and Volvo. He has worked in the Dallas Metroplex since 2005 in management for a Fortune 300 company, as well as in Social Commerce Technology as a Foreign Language Analyst.
Daniel is also a dedicated tennis player with a great passion for vintage cars, and has been published several times in the Swedish Street Rod Association magazine.
Magnus is a native of Sweden, born in Örebro, raised in Åkersberga outside Stockholm. Magnus has lived and worked in Texas since 2001.
After studies at Stockholm University in Computer and Systems sciences, Magnus did some consulting at Ericsson, Telia and Manpower Consulting. After a short session at Swedbank he joined Cadence Design Systems, Inc. where he worked more than 10 years in 3 different countries at different levels within IT Systems Engineering. Magnus now works at Research In Motion Limited in Irving, TX.
With over 14 years in the information technology field, Magnus is specializing in Systems Engineering, Enterprise Storage, Unix and virtualization.
Magnus enjoys spending time with his family, mountain-biking, running and playing golf.
Michael Skelton is the founder and president of EstablishUS, an international consulting company whose charter is to assist foreign technology companies launch their North American business.
His background includes being the President, CEO and General Manager of several software companies. Mike Skelton has a degree in Business Administration from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
DIRECTORS - HOUSTON
In 1977, Goran Haag graduated B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from KTH, or in English - RIT (Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm, Sweden, the town where he also grew up in. He worked in the chemical industry in Europe and Asia before coming to USA in 1986.
Goran founded Champion Fiberglass, Inc. in 1988 which today is the largest manufacturer of fiberglass conduit for the electric industry in North America. Goran has been a member of SACC TX since 1986 and served as president in 1993 and 1994.
Magnus is the Distinguished Professor Neva & Wesley West Chair, Center for Infectious and Inflammatory Diseases at Texas A&M. He earned a B.S. in biochemistry and Ph.D. in medical chemistry at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. He was an associate professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences before moving to the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1980. There he rose to hold professorial positions in biochemistry, microbiology, and cell biology and was an associate professor of ophthamology. In 1992 Dr. Höök joined IBT as the director of the Center for Infectious and Inflammatory Diseases and a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Texas A&M University. Dr. Höök is an adjunct professor in the Departments of Cell Biology at Baylor College of Medicine and also in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He is a faculty member of University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
Margret Kollen - is the Manager of the Houston IKEA Business Department, a commercial consulting and design service assisting customers throughout the USA, as well as internationally.
Ms. Kollen was born in Norrtalje, Sweden. She earned a degree in Advertising and Window Dressing from Kopmanna Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden in 1976 and a degree in Interior Design from the University of Houston in 1995.
Christopher Westerlund is currently the Director of External Relations for Young Professionals in Energy. Previous experience includes: Nordea Bank, Stena Bulk and Medikus.
Born and raised in Sweden, Christopher is married to a native Houstonian. He completed his Master of Science in Advanced Finance from the School of Business Economics and Law at Goteborg University.
Swedish Representative
Richard Koehler, IKR Corporation President
Advisory Board
Robert Alpert Jr.
Richard S. Condon
Susan Erickson
Garry Johnson
Jan Lindelow
Astrid Marklund
Carrin Patman
John Welch
Swedish American Chamber of Commerce - Texas