Interview by Ben Mundy
You’ve had a compelling career prior to coming to UC Davis. Can you give us a brief overview of your background?
I've been blessed to work with several outstanding organizations in my career, each providing unique and relevant experiences. I worked in national roles for Bank of America during a time of significant growth through mergers and acquisitions, and for Kaiser Permanente during a time of consolidation and standardization across regions. World Vision provided an opportunity to lead HR across 8 countries in East Asia with measurable goals that included reduction of poverty, increasing access to education, and working with governments to curb human trafficking.
What brought you to UC Davis?
On the personal side, we moved the family from Hawaii back to the area I grew up in to be closer to my parents, who just celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary! I also have several connections to UC Davis. My brother, sister, and I all attended UCs (UCD, UCB, UCSB) and my father has been receiving outstanding care as an oncology patient of UCDH.
On the professional side, something I look for in an organization is one that's mission-based; that values its customers and employees and invests back in its community. UC Davis checks all of these boxes, and more. The work being done here not only serves our current customers, patients, and students; it’s literally helping shape a better future for all.
What are some of the changes you've been a part of in your time here?
I came to UCD just as we were transitioning to UCPath. It was the center of focus in late 2019. Little did we know what was around the corner! When Covid hit, we all transitioned to remote work. This change was significant and immediate, and the teams did a phenomenal job ensuring it went smoothly for our customers while addressing their own personal situations.
We’ve seen several transitions of systems, leadership, and organizational design deployments of Aggie Enterprise, Job Builder, and revamps of our purchasing and pre-approval systems, to name a few. At this point, I believe the foundation has been laid for transformational change.
Please expand on that
Transitional change can be significant, like implementing or consolidating a new system, for example, but it is still done incrementally. With changing external demands and restrictions, and new tech advances in areas like AI, we will need to pursue transformational change to maintain the well-deserved and hard-earned reputation we currently enjoy.
How would you define transformation versus transition?
For me, transition represents incremental change where you can look back and clearly see the steps you took to get to where you are today. Whereas, with transformational change, the new ways of doing things bears minimal resemblance to the past - think caterpillar to butterfly.
What do you do in your free time?
Outside of work I’m focused on my amazing family - my wife Nam, and two boys ages 8 and 10. We’re fortunate that we all like to be active outside; biking, paddleboarding, hiking in the summer, and in the winter we like to spend as much time as possible in the snow. If we can add music to any event it’s even better. We also enjoy volunteering in our community and with our church. We just really have a fun time together.
Any final thoughts?
I'll share a quote from UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, the winningest coach ever, that I find relevant to the work we’re doing every day:
“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do”
John Wooden, UCLA
If we keep that in mind as we face barriers, which we will, and not let setbacks stop our momentum, we’ll not only enjoy working more, but be more productive, which helps ourselves and our customers.