Darius Udrys, PhD

Current position: Specialist of Public Relations and Organisational Development

Darius Udrys is a specialist in the field of public relations and organisational development with twenty years of international professional experience in Europe and the United States of America. Currently, Darius is Director of the Public Institution GO Vilnius and a lecturer at Vilnius University. He is a Strategy Director of Neue Unica and consultant to Fipra Lithuania. Since 2015, he have been a member of the Liberal Movement, a political party in the Republic of Lithuania; in the summer of 2016, Darius was elected to act as a member in the Ethics and Transparency Commission of the party. In 2011–2015, Darius acted as a Vice-chancellor for Development and Communication of the European Humanities University in Vilnius.

Darius was born and raised in a Lithuanian family in America. Before coming to live in Lithuania in 2011, he actively contributed to the fostering of the Lithuanian culture abroad; he was the President of the Los Angeles Lithuanian Community and Head of the Los Angeles–Kaunas Sister Cities Program. Darius worked as a journalist for the Lithuanian Editorial Office of the Radio Free Europe in Prague and correspondent for the National Radio of Lithuania. Darius used to manage programmes of the US Centre of Civic Education for Eastern Europe and acted as the Development Director for this public undertaking. In 2006, Darius graduated from the Claremont Graduate University in California with a Doctor of Philosophy degree.

Darius grandparents and great-grandparents were active Lithuanian citizens, teachers and public servants. His great-grandfather Juozapas Akmenskis was a member of the Constituent Assembly of Lithuania and the First Seimas of Lithuania, and a public inspector; his other great-grandfather Vincas Ruzgas was a teacher and a museum expert (you can visit the Pedagogical Museum established by him in Kaunas). His grandmother Elena Akmenskaitė-Ruzgienė acted as a Principal of a Lithuanian school in New York for a number of years; her sister Ona Žilius-Žilevičienė and her husband Danielius received the honorific of the Righteous Among the Nations in Israel for saving a Jewish girl from the Holocaust. Darius other grandmother Vincenta Rapšytė-Udrienė was a teacher in the independent Lithuania. After receiving information on the threat of repressions, she, her husband Teodoras Udrys and their two young children (one of them – Darius father Arūnas) emigrated to the West. Darius grandfather Algirdas Ruzgas was a famous philatelist and numismatist.

Darius father Arūnas worked as an attorney for Consumers Energy for many years; Darius mother Virginija Rūta is a teacher of foreign languages. They both live in Michigan (USA). Darius have a sister and two brothers; one of them – Almis – has established and heads the Analysis and Results Division of the Municipality of San Diego.

For more details about Darius work, please visit my Facebook account (in Lithuanian).