Adi was born and grew up in Germany to Slovenian parents (Adolf Berglez and Christina Rozman) who in the early 1950’s came as guest workers to Germany from the region around Slovenske Konjice in Štajerska. During his childhood, he spent every summer vacation on his grandparents’ farm in the village of Loče pri Poljcanah.

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Adi joined the Slovenian Club about 3 years ago after a random encounter with Jozef Antolin who recognized his Slovenian car sticker at a gas station in Healdsburg. He has volunteered at several Grape Harvest Fests and took 3 quarters (so far) of Slovenian language classes to activate his currently mainly passive vocabulary. In early 2025 he was invited to join the board of the Slovenian Hall with an initial focus on technology (WiFi, phone/email, and expanding to web pages) as well as contributing through his decades of business management experience.

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Adi is a retired (since 2018) mid-level business executive with international experience in program management, marketing, and operations of services and channel partners. He spent almost 30 years working in high tech, mainly in Silicon Valley for IT companies. Adi has a bachelor’s degree in international business (1985) from FHW/now University of Pforzheim in Germany, as well as an MBA in international marketing (1987, as a Fulbright scholar from Germany) and a MA in History (2021), both from San Francisco State University where he also met his wife Cynthia during MBA classes. He studied and worked in Germany, France, and the USA, has lived permanently in the US since 1988, and holds dual German/US citizenships.

 

Adi is also a member of the Advisory Board for SFSU's Business School’s Mentorship Program and continues to take classes through the ElderCollege at SFSU. He is a member of the SF Jazz Center, SFFD’s NERT program, and collects antique maps of the Pacific Rim (1500-1700) as well as fosters rescue and feral kittens.