Board Member
Patrick Erlandson was director of Horizon Art Gallery in Houston, Texas from 1984 – 1992, and taught English as a Second Language in Fukuoka, Japan from 1992 -2000.
Owned and operated Changing Hands Thrift Store in Lomita, California, 2002 – 2005, to support several projects working with children in Zambia, Africa as well as medical assistance to Niger where his wife, Machiko, had led medical teams as a volunteer coordinator with Women’s Federation For World Peace, Japan. During the two years Mr. Erlandson worked with USA for UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, he first learned about organ trafficking which led to extensive research into human trafficking both internationally and domestically. He took over as head of the prevention subcommittee of the Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force in 2011. In 2011 he also launched socalhumantraffickingevents.info as a hub for events occurring around Southern California in fighting human trafficking. In 2005 he helped initiate Care 18’s Men Standing Against Trafficking (MSAT) which promotes men’s engagement in the fight against human trafficking by demonstrations in support of the victims and messaging to the customers of prostituted children and the vulnerable on the streets where trafficking is occurring.
Mr Erlandson co-founded the Youth Exploitation Safety Symposium in Long Beach as a community awareness and educational event in 2016.
He is the Founder and Creative Director of See it End it Film and Arts Festival to raise awareness of human trafficking through film and the arts. He is also the founder of Father-con which is an educational awareness conference to support fathers as critical to ending human exploitation and providing training for foster fathers. Mr Erlandson partners with many organizations around Southern California, such as Saving Innocence, the YWCA, Gems Uncovered, Journey Out and many more.
Erlandson has spoken on many panels, given presentations as part of training on the links between human trafficking and pornography for both the faith community and secular organizations. His focus in all of his efforts and endeavors is for prevention of human trafficking and changing the narrative of male entitlement that drives much of the demand for exploited children and the most vulnerable of our population.
His wife is Japanese and he has two grown daughters.