Volodymyr Orest Bazarko – biography

TREASURER

Volodymyr Orest Bazarko has been a member of St. Sophia Religious Association of Ukrainian Catholics, USA since 2019 and currently serves on its Executive Board.

      Bazarko has been a community activist, attorney, engineer, mathematician, research scientist, officer in the United States Army, college lecturer, author of scientific papers and literary articles, world leader of PLAST, banker, and president or officer of numerous American and Ukrainian organizations. He is married to Lydia (née Chylak) for 60 years, and father of Andrew and George, grandfather of Vivien, Clara, Nicholas, Zachary and Ariana, and father-in-law of Jacqueline and Dawn.  

Bazarko earned his B.S. in Engineering Science with honors in 1962 at the Pratt Institute where he was a member of the Tau Beta Pi honor society. He was awarded a Fellowship to study for a doctorate in Physics and earned his M.S. degree in Mathematics at John Carroll University in 1966, and a juris doctor with honors at Cleveland State University and elected to the Law Review. He is a commissioned officer in United States Army who was on active duty from 1963 to 1965 when he was assigned to NASA where he served as an Aerospace Research Scientist until 1968.

     He is the author of various research papers and translator of numerous technical works from Russian to English for the American Rocket Society.  He was a partner of Bazarko, Futey & Oryshkewych, attorneys in Parma, Ohio and practiced until 2018. Bazarko was selected in 1978 to Board of Directors of Century Bank and served as chairman of the Board from 2005 until 2010.

     Bazarko was a member of Board of Directors of Cleveland Selfreliance Credit Union from 1965 to 1968, and Vice-President of United Ukrainian Organizations (UZO,) Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA) branch in Cleveland, as well as an executive or member of the executive boards of numerous community and church organizations and/or committees. In 1978 he co-founded the Ukrainian American Bar Association (UABA) and served as its vice-president from 1981 to 1984. In 1990 he represented the UABA at the founding convention of the Ukrainian Bar Association in Kyiv and became an honorary member. He served on the Board of Trustees Parma Bar Association from 2009 until 2016.

     Bazarko was an official observer for the City of Parma and the Cleveland Bar Association at the Independence Referendum in Ukraine in 1991. He subsequently organized exchange visits between Ukrainian judges and the Supreme Court of Ohio. In 1993 to 1998, he co-founded a state-of-the art digital telephone company in Lviv, which still serves its citizens.

    He is, since 1946, an active member of the Ukrainian youth organization, PLAST. From 1988 until 1994, he served as vice-president of the World PLAST Executive (HPB) and from 1990 until 1994 he facilitated the rebirth process of PLAST in Ukraine. From 2006 to 2013 he was the CEO of HPB and from 2013 to 2019 he was the Head of the World PLAST Review Board (HPR). 

    From 2018 to 2021, Bazarko served on the Editorial Board of the Encyclopedia of the Ukrainian Diaspora of the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh.) He was elected President of the Philadelphia Branch of NTSh in 2021. He was elected President of Ukrainian American Senior Citizens of Philadelphia in 2022.