On October 14, 15 founding members formed VATAN (Ventura County American Turkish AssociatioN) by becoming members and approving the bylaws for this new organization. They also elected seven members as the VATAN executive board as listed below:

President Vega Sankur vega@vatan-sc.org
Vice President Vedat Akdağ vedat@vatan-sc.org	Secretary Michael (Hikmet) Akseven michael@vatan-sc.org
Treasurer Dean Sümer dean@vatan-sc.org	School Activities Bengi Hanyal bengi@vatan-sc.org
Social Activities Cem Ersönmez cem@vatan-sc.org	Member at Large Leyla Cohen leyla@vatan-sc.org