Hometown: Denver, Colorado
Professional title: Senior Regional Criminal Enforcement Counsel, Region 8, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Community involvement: Founding member of the Asian Pacific Bar Association of Colorado, President in 1998–99
Lives in: Denver, Colorado
What is your favorite part about your job at the EPA?
From a purely personal standpoint as a geek, I enjoy working with capable, smart scientists. While working on any given case, the technical staff teach me, for example, how a hydrologic cycle works to recharge wetlands, or how emission controls work on vehicles and what a marvelous job the technology is doing to keep our air breathable. Toxicologists explain how substances such as asbestos scar the human lung or what lead does to the developing brain of a child once it enters the bloodstream. Working on these cases requires not only an understanding of the environmental laws, but also the science behind the laws. I get paid to learn from these hands-on tutorials and it’s constantly challenging and intriguing.
Who are some of your role models, professionally and personally?
First and foremost, my parents, who were children of Japanese immigrants. They began life with very little but never lost their resolve that they would control their futures. They persevered through the hysteria of World War II and just kept moving forward, as so many people who start from scratch still do every day. I count myself lucky to have learned life lessons from them. Another personal role model is my great friend Kathryn Haight, who had grace, humor, and an unshakeable sense of self. To this day, whenever I face a question of how to stay true to myself, I ask what Kathryn would do. As do many lawyers, I count Brooke Wunnicke (’45) as a professional role model. I admired her strength of will and her belief in the law. And my friend Ken Scott, an international human rights lawyer who continues to fight for the rule of law and whose work reminds me that our civilization cannot survive without it.
Who was the biggest influence on your career?
Because I met her when I was young, I would say the person who influenced my career the most was Patricia Locke, whom I worked for as an undergraduate. Pat was half Chippewa and half Sioux and grew up on the Fort Hall Indian reservation. She was a force of nature who cajoled and bullied private foundations and the federal government into establishing community colleges on tribal reservations. She was instrumental in establishing the Indian Education Act, which gave the tribes autonomy over their schools’ curricula. I’ll never forget that she even let me help draft portions of the bill. She was my mentor who took me to reservations so I could see why we were doing our work. Most important, she encouraged me to have confidence that change is possible, and commit to making a difference, wherever I landed.
What advice would you give to recent law graduates and students who are preparing to graduate?
If you intend to enter into public service, be proud of that motivation and hang onto it. There will be times when you will wonder if you are tilting at windmills and maybe think it would be better to just make more money in the private sector. To be sure, some public sector jobs are not particularly soul satisfying. But if you secure a position where your mission is to improve some segment of society, try to zoom out from time to time to keep your perspective. You may face internal obstacles from mind-numbing bureaucratic rules or get a whiff of condescension from someone in the private bar who believes that attorneys who work for the government or a nonprofit couldn’t make it elsewhere. You may have to buy your own supplies, and don’t even think about an office with a window. But on those days when you wonder if it’s worth it, remind yourself to take a step back and take the 10,000-foot view of what you are trying to accomplish. If your job is to make the world better by preventing securities fraud, ensuring that our food and medicines are safe, fighting to keep the criminal justice system honest or fighting to protect the public from wrongdoers, promoting fairness or safety in the workplace, keeping the air and water clean, or performing any of the myriad functions that the public expects of the government so that our society can keep running, remember that you are working towards something that matters. Every day I realize I am fortunate to have work that has meaning because its purpose is to help protect the planet for everyone. That meaning has value far beyond any bonus.
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