About Dagnija Lacis
Dagnija’s message throughout her life has been: “Stick to your goals. When confronted with obstacles, don’t give up. Find another path forward!”
DAGNIJA LACIS was born in Latvia in 1943. Her family fled their beloved homeland in 1944 as the communists took over. After five years in a displaced persons camp in Germany, she immigrated with her family to Indianapolis. In Germany, her family was given the option of emigrating to Australia, California or Indiana. Her mother told Dagnija later, “My thinking was, ‘Australia was too far; California could fall off into the ocean, and Indiana is in the middle of America, a much safer place.’”
Dagnija (also known as “Daggie”) graduated cum laude from Butler University with a B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics. Long before the women’s movement, Daggie chose a career in the male-dominated field of IT. She was the first woman programmer at Burroughs Corporation, then the second largest worldwide IT. company. During the 1970s and 1980s, Daggie was usually the only female in meetings among males as she was promoted from one position to another—technical manager, branch sales manager, marketing director, then named the first female line VP at Burroughs/Unisys.
When the Berlin Wall fell, the newly elected Latvian prime minister and foreign minister asked Dagnija to install modern technology in the country’s foreign ministry. That began her work to modernize Latvia, allowing Latvia to do business with the West. In 1991, Dagnija founded and continues to participate in running the Baltic Technology Group with locations in the US and Latvia. She and her husband, Andris, have two children. Andris serves as the Honorary Consul for Latvia for the State of Michigan. The couple lives in West Bloomfield, a suburb of Detroit. THE WALL FALLS, A WOMAN RISES, a Memoir is Dagnija's first book.
“As Dagnija Lacis was introducing the latest Western technology to Latvians, I often collaborated with Andris and Dagnija in Riga during the early 1990s. I was proud of our efforts, which resulted in the Latvian military meeting NATO standards and Latvia becoming a NATO member.”
—Major General E. Gordon Stump, Retired Adjutant General of the Michigan National Guard
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Publication date: March 18, 2025
“Dagnija Lacis’ memoir is a story of courage, upheaval, and persistence... Watching through her memoir, we see her tenacity and resilience when confronted with obstacles. The way she always finds a path forward is inspirational for us all.”
—Lynn Miller, author of Sweating Bullets, historical fiction
