Staff

Ms. Arlene Garcia Gunderson 
Executive Director
arlene.gunderson@nebraska.gov 

A native ASL user, born to Puerto Rican Deaf parents and raised in a Spanish speaking community in the Bronx, Arlene brings a wealth of professional experiences in advocacy, ASL, Deaf education, human service, and interpreting.    

Arlene has more than ten years of administrative experience as well as backgrounds in teaching, training, and mentoring in K-12 and higher education. Her personal strength is in strategic planning, setting priorities and managing budgets based on identified goals to lead programs and services. Arlene has made leadership contributions to various community organizations because she feels authentic grass root networking, inter-community resource building, and advocacy are the best way to support diverse, multicultural individuals and enable everyone’s fullest potential.

Arlene was the first Person of Color to serve as the president of the national American Sign Language Teachers Association, serving two terms on top of several years of being on the Board. Arlene values lifelong learning and is dedicated to broadening understanding and sensitivity to the needs of Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Deaf-Blind, Deaf-Plus (Disabled) and BIPOC populations, their families and service providers/professionals who works with them.