Board Members

Vijay Pendse – Mr. Pendse has been the founding member who had the original idea for making Pune a sister city of San Jose. He put together a group of interested people and worked on this idea for almost 2 years to get Pune approved as a sister city by the San Jose City Council in 1989. He was the president of the organization for the first 6 years and continues to be on the board of Pacific neighbors which oversees all the San Jose sister cities.

Mr. Pendse graduated from CalPoly, San Luis Obispo with a major in Business Management and Finance. He holds the position of a loan officer at Beneficial Finance. Vijay was born and raised in Pune. He has lived in the bay Area for more then 20 years.

Suneel Kelkar – Mr. Kelkar has been a founder member of SJPSC and has worked closely with MR. Pendse to help the organization grow over the years. He is the current president. He has worked for various computer companies over the last 20 years and had held many senior engineering and marketing positions. He is keen on technology transfer type programs for Pune.

Mr. Kelkar holds an MS in EE and Computers from Michigan State and a BS from IIT, Bombay. He works as Director of Marketing at Navigation Technology.

Nima Gujar – Mrs. Gujar has been the founder member of SJPSC. She has along history of social work starting with President of LEO Club of Pune in 1975. (LEO is youth wing of LIONS Club of Pune.). For more than 7 years she worked on the Committee member of ICOP-Indian community outreach program for battered women.(later on known as AASRA. This was the first organization in the area for battered women. In addition she has been involved with many other professional and social organizations: President of Rajasthan Association of North America (1988), Vice President of Asian Indian Architects Association, (1997), Committee member of Architecture review for Jain Temple, Milpitas, California (1997).

She is an Architect by profession and works for a private company in San Jose.

Shyamkant Rangole – Mr. Rangole is a longtime resident of Bay Area who has been associated with multiple non-profit organizations as well as for-profit software corporations. He was past President of Maharashtra Mandal Bay Area, Country View Custom Estates Homeowners’ Association and is currently on the Boards of Santa Clara Valley Chapter of American Red Cross and San Jose Pune Sister City Organization.

He holds M.S. in Industrial Engineering-Operations Research from University of Oklahoma and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Nagpur University. He retired as Vice President of Information Technology from Sun Microsystems.

Ashok V. Kulkarni – Mr. Kulkarni graduated from IIT Bombay (’68) majoring in EE, received his MS in EE/CS from UC Berkeley in 1969 and Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Maryland (College Park) in 1976. His technical areas of expertise are image processing and pattern recognition. He works in KLA-Tencor Labs, a research group within KLA-Tencor, investigating algorithms for semiconductor wafer inspection. He holds several patents in this domain. His hobbies are reading, gardening, music, hiking, travel and cricket. In addition to SJPSC, he is actively involved in several non-profit organizations including the Chitrapur Heritage Foundation and KAOCA (Konkani Association of California).

Sameer Nigade – Mr. Nigade holds B.S. degree in Electronics and Master of Management Science from Pune University, currently working as software professional at San Jose. His hobbies are drawing, painting, hiking, traveling and photography. He loves nature and strongly would like to participate in activities for keeping pollution free environment. He would like to contribute to various activities in education and economic development which will be beneficial for both residents of San Jose as well as of Pune and will help to develop better ties.

Nilesh Dixit – Mr. Dixit is a computer engineer working in the Bay Area since 2001 and worked with various computer software industries for over 8 years. He joined SJPSC in early 2006. His primary interest is in developing and supporting programs related to educational and technology exchange with Pune.

Nilesh holds a BS degree in Electronics.

Sanjay Wanzakhade – Mr. Wanzakhade is a resident of San Jose, since 1996. He was born and raised in Pune. He graduated from University of Pune, with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, and completed his Masters from IIT Bombay, majoring in Microelectronics. He has been working in the field of VLSI design for the last 13+ years. Sanjay has been associated with San Jose Pune Sister City(SJPSC) Organization since 2005. His keen interests are in projects and activities that strengthen the ties between San Jose and Pune. His current interest is in Fund raising activities for San Jose Pune Sister City(SJPSC) Organization.

Shana Patadia – Ms. Patadia’s involvement with SJPSC began when she observed the conditions at Hutatma Rajguru School, Pune in 2005, while visiting her family. The girls’ positive attitudes inspired her to find ways to provide them with financial support and emotional encouragement to continue their education. With the support of St. Francis High School she approached the City of San Jose for help in founding a project to help the students at Hutatma Rajguru. Since then, she has been actively involved in the Hutatma Rajguru Project and the SJPSC organization.

Ms. Patadia is currently attending UC Berkeley. She will be graduating in spring 2010 with a B.S. in Business Administration, a B.A. in Economics, and a minor in Energy and Resources. She is also involved in other nonprofit efforts and is currently External Relations Director for the Right to Education for All Children (REACH) program at Stanford University.