Theodore Polychronis is one of the founding members of the Save Cyprus Council (later the American Hellenic Council). Following the invasion of Cyprus in 1974, he joined with like-minded activists to bring together Greek Americans throughout the region and country in support of the people of Cyprus. He has dedicated over 40 years to tirelessly promoting justice and the rule of law for Greece and supporting the organization’s efforts to advocate for democracy, human rights, peace, and stability in Southern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Theodore began his engineering career at the Climax Molybdenum Company, a mining operation in Colorado. He went on to work at the Honeywell Corporation, and later the Los Angeles County Flood Control District. An early pioneer in the fight against climate change and a life-long champion for environmental justice, Theodore joined the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) in 1970, where he devoted over three decades to developing innovative solutions and policies at the forefront of the nation’s air pollution reduction efforts for the 17 million people who inhabit the Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties.

Theodore was born in the Nea Smyrni neighborhood of Athens, to survivors of the Hellenic Genocide of 1922. He completed his secondary education in Athens and moved to the United States in 1952, where he attended the University of California, Los Angeles and later the University of Arizona, where he received his Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Eleftheria Polychronis serves as the Vice President of the American Hellenic Council Board of Directors. She has been an active member of the Member of AHC (formerly the Save Cyprus Council) for nearly thirty years. A former President of the Council, Eleftheria is a long-standing advocate for Greece, and has been a force of nature in driving the organization’s vision as the focal point of political advocacy for Greek American issues in the US Congress.

In 1977, Eleftheria and her two siblings, Costas Fergadis and Marianna Courlas, co-founded Fergadis Enterprises, Inc., a wholesale grocery and distribution company.  Started in a small one-room warehouse in Venice, the company flourished to a fifty-thousand square foot facility in Vernon, CA — serving hundreds of customers across the Southern California region when it was sold in 1996. Eleftheria then began a second career in commercial real estate investment, and has remained active in political and civic matters locally and in Greece.

Eleftheria was born in Greece on the island of Skyros. She moved to Athens to complete high school and obtained her Bachelor’s Degree from the National University of Economics in Athens. At the age of 30, she moved to Los Angeles to begin her graduate studies in economics at California State University, Northridge.