Community Food Bank CEO to Keynote 1/11/11 Dinner January 11, 2011

The Chief Executive Officer of the Community Food Bank will keynote the New Year’s Dinner of California’s oldest Armenian Church.
Andrew T. Souza will address the Men’s Fellowship of the First Armenian Presbyterian Church of Fresno on Tuesday evening, January 11, 2011. The event will take place at the Church Campus, 430 South First Street at Huntington Boulevard, with appetizers at 6:30 p.m. and a barbecue dinner at 7 p.m. Reservations are $12 per person and may be made by calling (559) 434-9009.
Andrew Thomas Souza was educated at California State University, Fresno where he earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting. He worked for the firm of Touche, Ross and Company in the early 1980s and was licensed as a California Certified Public Accountant in October 1984.
He served as a Trustee of Caruthers Elementary School, was a member of the Kingsburg Planning Commission, and served for four years as a member of the Kingsburg City Council.
In the late 1980s, he began a career in executive management with the City of Fresno. In a tenure spanning the administrations of Mayors Jim Patterson, Alan Autry, and Ashley Swearengin, Mr. Souza served as City Revenue Manager, Chief Accountant and Chief Auditor, City Controller, Director of Administrative Services, Assistant City Manager, Interim City Manager, and from February 2005 through January 2010, as City Manager of Fresno.
During his municipal service, Mr. Souza was involved in committees for the Governmental Finance Officers Association and League of California Cities. He also served on the Board of the United Way of Fresno County and as President, Treasurer, and Director of Valley Teen Ranch. He has taught courses at Fresno Pacific University and coached a number of youth sports, including softball, soccer, and baseball. Andy is married to Marcia and they have three children, Robyn, Kevin, and Trent.
On October 25, 2010, Mr. Souza was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Community Food Bank, a nonprofit hunger-fighting organization that provided more than 23 million pounds of food to a network of 130 local partner agencies across Fresno, Madera, and Kings Counties in 2010. According to a 2008 U.S. Department of Agriculture study, one in six Americans is “food insecure” and one in four American children lives in a food-insecure household.
Chartered on July 25, 1897, First Armenian Presbyterian Church today is a multilingual congregation of 400 drawn from the New and Old Worlds. Reverend Mgrdich Melkonian is the Senior Pastor, Reverend Eric E. Thompson is the Interim Associate Pastor, and Edward N. Esajian is Chair of the Men’s Fellowship Executive Committee.
FAPC is a member congregation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Armenian Evangelical Union of North America. “A New Community” is the theme of the congregation for calendar year 2011.