Chhean brings nearly ten years of administrative experience and personal experience as a child of refugees to the RST Board of Directors
Refugee Services of Texas is proud to welcome Chhunny Chhean, City of Dallas Procurement Director, to the 2022 Board of Directors.
Chhunny serves as the Director of Procurement Services for the City of Dallas, where she champions efforts to integrate equity and sustainability into the City's contracting process. Prior to this, she was the Chief of Community Prosecution for the City, leading an affirmative litigation unit enforcing environmental laws and building and zoning codes. Chhunny also has experience advising the City on governance, ethics, and pension matters.
In addition to her work as a Procurement Director, Chhunny will bring her personal experience as a child of peace seekers who survived the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia and lived in a refugee camp in Thailand for over two years before navigating their way to the U.S.
“With almost a decade of experience in administration and as a child of Cambodian refugees, Chhunny is intimately familiar with the sacrifices and hardships refugee families must endure in the United States,” said Russell Smith, LMSW, CEO of Refugee Services of Texas. “Bringing Chhunny on board is an incredible opportunity for RST to learn and grow from her incredible expertise and personal experience as we aim to serve vulnerable populations coming from all over the world.”
A graduate of California State University, Long Beach, the UC Berkeley School of Law, and an executive education program from Harvard's School of Public Health in Sustainability Leadership, Chhunny brings her impressive credentials to the RST Board of Directors to assist in helping RST serve its clients well during one of the most pressing humanitarian crises in decades.
Chhean is one of seven new board members elected to serve two-year terms on the 18-member board. The new board members will join RST at a critical time as agencies across the U.S. scramble to resettle the unexpected influx of refugees from Afghanistan and others from across the globe.
She began her term in January 2022.
