Chapter History

NOCVA History in Washington State

At the start, Antonio (Ton) LeonGuerrero called for a meeting on May 24, 2012 to organize the Washington State Chapter for the newly organized National Organization of Chamorro Veterans in America (NOCVA). Present for the meeting were Ton LeonGuerrero, Anthony (Tony) Aguon, Atanacio (Ace) Untalan and Roberto Maañao. The first meeting was held at the Round Table Pizza at 1401 Marvin Road NE, Lacey WA 98516 at 12:30 PM. This went on for the duration of the year 2012. We then became the Washington State Coordinators for national. The Chairman is Ton LeonGuerrero, Recorder is Roberto Maañao, Treasurer is Ace Untalan.

In the year 2012 we accomplished getting our business cards and approved a banner for our display use during Chamorro events within the State. We also started working on our Washington State patch to sewn onto our approved blue polo shirts. We would wear our blue polo shirt when performing the Special Tribute poem to our fallen Chamorro veteran. The patch project is getting close to being finished and hopefully approved by membership.

The year 2013, we setup a Calendar of Events. We had attended a few Chamorro events, such as the Veterans Day Dinner Dance, Dededo fiesta, attended the Guamanian Club of Bremerton & Vicinity, Tacoma Guam Club and the Chamorro Golf Club of WA meetings. Roy Leon Guerrero also joined us Coordinators in April 2013.

All the while, we were waiting for national to establish a constitution and also be registered with the State of Maryland and the IRS.

During all our meetings in the past 1 ½ years we have established the Special Tribute translation to Chamorro and have participated in 8 Special Tributes for our Chamorro veterans that passed away since our establishment in May 2012. This was a great way to honor our Chamorro Veterans and also advertise NOCVA to our Chamorro communities.

In June 2013 meeting we adopted our By-Laws. In November meeting we came to an agreement to start membership in February 8, 2014 after making all the appropriate actions to have a hall that would be large enough to accommodate our meeting. The Articles of Incorporation application was signed by all the Coordinators and submitted to the Washington Secretary of State office in the month of November. We are officially registered with the State with an anniversary date of November 25. Our UBI number is 603-361-183.The Employee Identification Number was also submitted to IRS in November, but a correction on the form needed to made and was then resubmitted in January 2014. So our EIN is still pending from the IRS.

Also during the November 15, 2013 meeting, we the Coordinators agreed to be the first officers for the NOCVA-WSC since we are all very knowledgeable with the mission of NOCVA. The first officers are as such; President, Roberto Maañao, Vice President, Roy Leon Guerrero, Secretary, Ton LeonGuerrero, Treasurer, Ace Untalan and Sergeant-at-Arms, Tony Aguon.

This concludes the history of NOCVA’s beginning in the State of Washington. I Roberto Maañao the author of this written history request that this writing be a part of the NOCVA Washington State Chapter history.