A resident of Lake Oswego, Oregon, Ms. Lantow holds a BA in Business Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.  She is an advisory board member of Portland State University’s MBA program, and serves on the board of the Oregon and Southwest Washington Chapter.of the American Heart Association.

Mae Numata’s extensive financial background includes her current position as Chief Operating and Chief Financial Officer for Schnitzer Investment Corp. of Portland, Oregon, an investment firm with interests in commercial, industrial and multi-family properties, ocean shipping and other industries.  Ms. Numata also held the positions of Interim President and Interim Chief Financial Officer for her clients as a partner of Tatum LLC.  She has served as SVP/Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary for Fisher Communications and VP/Chief Financial Officer for the Seattle Times Company, and held senior management positions with KeyBank in Seattle. 

A resident of Mercer Island, Washington, Ms. Numata is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Washington Society of Certified Public Accountants, and the National Institute of Investor Relations.  She is a current and founding member of the Japanese American Chamber of Commerce, a board member of NCE Enterprises, Inc., a board member and secretary for the Executive Development Institute, and is a board member, second vice president and investment committee chair for Girl Scouts of Western Washington. ]]> http://ediorg.org/mae-numata-joins-columbia-banking-system-board/feed/ 0 http://ediorg.org/leadership-together-conference-a-success/ http://ediorg.org/leadership-together-conference-a-success/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:42:35 +0000 Valarie http://ediorg.org/?p=2585

On Saturday, January 28th EDI shined!  We held our 3rd Annual Leadership Together Conference, “Sharpening Your Leadership Edge” and about 120 professionals attended.  Congratulations goes to the committee members for organizing a terrific workshop.  On a scale of one to five, five being highest,the majority of attendees evaluated the conference a four or five, and everyone said they would attend again.   The keynote speaker was Kevin Nakao, President & COO, White Pages.  The following were the featured workshops and speakers:

• Helene Cho,  “Managing Change Effectively”
• Dr. Ronald Sakaguchi, “Tips & Tools for a More Rewarding Workday”
• Colleen Yamaguchi,  “Grow Your Leadership UVP to Become Indispensible”
• Dan Leahy,  “The Awareness Dance for Emotional Intelligence”

Thanks everyone for participating and working together to make this a productive leadership workshop!

Charlene Grinolds is a retired banker with 38 years of experience at KeyBank.  Currently, she is a community volunteer serving on three other nonprofit boards.  Char is an EDI alumna, class of 1996, and served as EDI’s board president from 2004 to 2009. 

Sandy Hedington is principal and senior HR consultant for Peak Performance Human Resources Consulting.  She is a 1997 graduate of the EDI and served as EDI’s co-chair for two years following her graduation. 

Vanna Novak is a nationally recognized expert on developing and delivering presentations designed to influence the thinking and decisions of audiences.  She is a co-founder of EDI and has served on EDI’s board from 2004 to 2011.  EDI students enjoy Vanna’s “Speak to Persuade” class.

Mae Fujita Numata, CPA, is founder of Numata Consulting PLLC with more than a 30-year career in finance, accounting, banking, mergers and acquisitions, real estate, commercial lending and values driven leadership.  She is a graduate of EDI’s inaugural class of 1994 and served as EDI’s program chair from 1995 to 1998 and a board officer from 2002 to 2007.

Sue Taoka currently serves as executive vice president at Enterprise Cascadia.  Her primary focus is organizational development.  She is also developing the urban market with a focus on distressed and immigrant communities. 

We welcome you to the EDI board and look forward to your leadership!

Congratulations Colleen!

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Martin Luther King Jr. Day isn’t just a celebration, it’s a reminder of how much has been invested in the American experiment in democracy. Gordon Hirabayashi reminds us that fulfilling America’s promise is a constant struggle, and that we owe a debt to those who carried the burden before us.  Through his actions and convictions, Hirabayashi demonstrated a one-of-a-kind LEADERSHIP.  He is a true role model. 

Hirabayashi died on Jan. 2 this year at 93. He grew up in Auburn and was a University of Washington student when his government decided to gather people of Japanese descent — citizens or not — and send them to internment camps.

Hirabayashi was sentenced to prison in 1942 because he refused to get on the bus.

“We had constitutional rights. I didn’t think anything could happen to us,” he said at the time. He appealed his sentence all the way to the Supreme Court. He lost.

His refusal and that of others to tolerate a violation of their rights made a difference, stirring the country to reconsider what it had done long before Hirabayashi was officially absolved of any crime. His vindication didn’t come until 1987. Rights and freedoms erode unless citizens vigorously guard them, and we can thank Hirabayashi for doing more than his part.

(Excerpts from Jerry Large, Seattle Times, Jan. 16, 2012)

See a detailed tribute to Gordon Hirabayashi by Tom Ikeda in the DENSHO newsletter:  https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:1407806.7415215898/rid:8c9fe6a321f1e7afe1dacff2be779655

Below is the Seattle Times obituary of Christina Kim Choi who passed away on Dec. 28, 2011: 

Christina Choi, Seattle culinary artist, dies at 34

Christina Choi stands behind the counter at her Eastlake eatery Nettletown, which closed in August. (Photo by Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)

When Christina Choi’s short-lived but much-applauded Eastlake restaurant, Nettletown, closed in August, fans mourned the loss. Today, those who knew Choi as one of the bright lights in Seattle’s food community mourn her passing. Choi died due to complications from a brain aneurysm, diagnosed Dec. 12.

“Today we lost our sister, our daughter, our best friend,” her family wrote Dec. 28 on the blog they’ve been keeping through her diagnosis, a long and difficult surgery and what they had hoped would be her recovery process. “We surrounded her with love, the way she surrounded us with love.”

The Seattle native, 34, was a graduate of Seattle Central Community College’s culinary program, co-founder of Foraged & Found Edibles and a familiar face from restaurants throughout the city where she’s lent her talent over the years.

“This is a huge loss,” said her friend Jason Stratton, chef at Spinasse and Artusi on Capitol Hill. “She was a person closely aligned with and intertwined with so much of what is wonderful with the Seattle food scene right now.”

“She taught me a lot from a culinary standpoint,” recalls Dave Sanford, who lent a hand at Nettletown and relied on Choi for advice as he prepared to open his own restaurant, Belle Clementine, in Ballard. “I think about her often when I’m in the kitchen, and I know I always will. Christina was an amazing woman. She came after life with a huge amount of gusto, and the only thing I can take away from this situation is that we should all do that. She would have wanted us to do that.”

This year’s EDI graduates are professionals representing Microsoft Corporation, The Boeing Company, REI, Wells Fargo Bank, Nike, Liberty Mutual, State Farm Insurance, Puget Sound Energy, Ernst & Young, Symetra Financial, Bonneville Power Administration, Schnitzer Investment Corp, KeyBank, United Way of the Columbia-Willamette, Mercer, NW Natural, Uwajimaya, and Weyerhaeuser Company.

Karen Narasaki, president and executive director of the Asian American Justice Center, gave the keynote address. She pointed out that customers, employees, donors, volunteers, partners are all changing, along with shifting demographics not only in the U.S. but globally as well.

Narasaki stressed the importance of diversity in an institution, and having it be a central component of strategic planning.

“If your employees and management teams aren’t able to work across cultures and languages, your institution will reach a point, in the not too distant future, where you will not be able to grow, to compete, to maximize your profits or serve your mission,” she said.

Steve Shinoda, Director of Information Technology at Uwajimaya who graduated from the the EDI Leadership Navigation Program for senior managers agrees. He said his experience with the program has been enriching both professionally and personally.

“I believe anyone interested in seeking an edge in life should consider [it] a must-do item,” Shinoda said. “I found the experience to be exhilarating, fun, with the right balance of risk taking and challenge within an environment that allows each of us to be authentic.”

EDI is the only Pacific Northwest nonprofit organization focusing on leadership training for multiethnic professionals.  For the past 18 years, EDI has collaborated with 50 Northwest corporations to provide business-relevant, culturally-tailored leadership training for Asian and Hispanic participants. More than 600 professionals in various fields have graduated from EDI.

The Atsuhiko and Ina Goodwin Tateuchi Foundation has awarded the Executive Development Institute a grant of $3,850 for one participant to attend Leadership Discovery. Interested candidates should be recognized as emerging Asian leaders working at nonprofit agencies with a strong desire to move into senior leadership roles. 

Application due by January 31, 2012.

Selection announced on February 15, 2012.

For more information or to apply, click here.