Advisory Council

Sel Erder YACKLEY: Sel is owner and manager of "Say it and See it With Sel", a public relations agency organizing tours for Americans visiting Turkey and doing promotional work for Turkish clients. She is finishing her memoirs with hopes of publishing them in 2006.

Sel was 16 when she came from Ankara Koleji to Phoenix, Arizona as an AFS exchange student. After working for TUSLOG (The US Logistics Group in Ankara) She returned to Arizona and received her bachelor degree in journalism from Arizona State University. The next year she earned a Master’s from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

As an award-winning journalist with the Chicago Tribune and United Press International, her writing and public relations skills helped her raise funds for such causes as the Kanuni Suleyman Professorship, Turkish Language Lectureship and the Amuq Valley Excavation Projects at the University of Chicago. Active in Democratic politics, Sel has reached across the U.S. to help Oz Bengur with his run for U.S. Congress. She herself has been elected to boards such as the Illinois Valley Community College and the Ottawa (Illinois) Elementary Schools.

In Chicago, she serves on the board of the International Women Associates, which has a very active Turkish Culture component; she chairs the Amuq Valley Excavations Project connected to the Oriental Institute at U of C and is a member of Turkish American Women Scholarship Fund (TAWSF) as well as the Turkish American Cultural Alliances (TACA).

Sel was recognized as a Daughter of Ataturk at the turn of the century since she has played a leading role in many Turkish causes in the Midwest including the founding of the Turkish American Cultural Alliance (TACA) in the 1960s. She was also honored with a Meritorious Service Award by ATAA in 2002.

Sel has three children: The oldest, John, owns a money management company in Chicago with clients from South America, Canada, Germany, Russia and Turkey. Daughter, Ayla, is a foreign correspondent in Turkey—having lived in Ankara and Istanbul since 2000. The younger son Joe, speaks five languages and is getting his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Middle Eastern Economic Development.

Her husband Frank Yackley was elected State’s Attorney and then Circuit Judge, presiding over three counties in central Illinois, where they raised their children. Upon his death Sel moved back to Chicago and became active in the travel business.