The WLCU man of the year 2014: Eng Anise Garabet (past World President) received the Annual Humanitarian Award.
Anis Garabet :Golden State Jewelry, CEO
Owner, Golden Pacific Jewelry, Los Angeles, CA
Anis Garabet, the son of Leon and Margaret Garabet, was born in Beirut, Lebanon before his family moved to Brooklyn, New York in 1972. They moved again to settle in Los Angeles, California in 1979.
Anis earned a Civil Engineering B.S. degree from New Jersey Institute of Technology, in 1978 and terminated the graduate program towards the Master’s Degree in Seismology from the University of Southern California in 1980. He also earned the Professional Engineering license from the State of California in 1982. He joined the staff of NASA’s space shuttle program working for Rockwell International in 1979 and received an award from Columbia’s first mission astronauts, John Young and Robert Crippen, for successfully testing the Thermal Protection System for the space shuttle.
Anis was involved in the construction business and land development, commercial and residential.
In January, 1973, he joined The World Lebanese Cultural Union [WLCU] in New York City.
In 2000, he was one of the proud founders of the House of Lebanon in Los Angeles, as he served on its Board of Directors until present.
In May, 2005 he was elected in Sydney, Australia as the World President of the World Lebanese Cultural Union (WLCU), the sole Lebanese official representative of the Lebanese Diaspora. He successfully applied for the WLCU to become an NGO associated and accredited at the DPI and ECOSOC of the United Nations. He has participated in numerous UN conferences dealing with the Millennium Developments Goals (MDG’S). In 2014, he proudly participated, with the support of a brilliant WLCU team, in donating the statue of Gibran Khalil Gibran to the City of Los Angeles, the statue is unveiled at the LA Central Library. He received numerous awards from WLCU affiliated institutions in the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Great Britain, Australia and South Africa. He was selected as the Man of the Year at the Lebanese Kataeb Banquet in 2007 and has been named as the recipient of the Annual Humanitarian Award for the WLCU California Ladies Organization in 2014. In November, 2007 he joined the Board of the Lebanese American Renaissance Foundation , LARP, based in Washington, DC.
In 1983, Anis Garabet married Leila Tohme who is originally from Rachaya Elwadi, Lebanon. They have three beautiful children, two daughters, Margaret and Pauline and a son, Jonathan.
Coming from a family of jewelers, Anis founded Golden Pacific Jewelry in 1984 after earning a degree in gemology from the Gemological Institute of America, GIA. In 2010, he acquired Golden State Jewelry, located in the fashionable Los Angeles Downtown Jewelry District.
Anis loves to design jewelry. He speaks five languages, writes Lebanese poetry, he is also a pianist who is very much influenced by Feyruz and the Rahbani brothers.