Marlon Meyer
Northwest Asia Weekly
Tom’s Gin
When Ted Yamamura asked Vanna Novak if she wanted to start a nonprofit to train Japanese-American professionals, she prayed that she would have the strength to say no.
“Please, please, give me the courage to say no,” she recalled. “That’s what I thought. I heard me say, ‘Sure. “I didn’t realize that one word could change the trajectory of my life forever.”
Novak’s words, written in a letter to Mountain Village after his death in 2013, reflect the feelings of generations of alumni who have gone through intense, life-changing programs — as many have described them — saying for the Executive Development Institute (EDI).
But now, with COVID-19 draining students’ energy in classrooms across the country, EDI is facing the same challenges as other learning institutions, only more intense.
Incorporated into its “DNA,” as new board chairman Tom Gin describes it, is a strong, family-like, face-to-face interaction culture that he hopes will be replicated in the new hybrid release.
Born in a refugee camp in Thailand and raised in Los Angeles, Gin completed the project in 2019 — the last in-person iteration.
“The friendships and connections I’ve made really underscore the importance of a sense of community and intimacy,” he said. “My classmates and I are friends and some of us still talk a lot. EDI achieves this intimacy through the program. It gives us a safe place to learn, be ourselves, and also allow us to understand who we are, and How we can be leaders in business and community and do things our way.”
Founded in 1994 with the support of the Japanese American Chamber of Commerce, EDI was created for exactly this purpose – to give Japanese Americans greater weight in the workplace at the time.
It has suffered tragedies over the years, with Yamamura’s death in 2017 and Al Sugiyama dying of cancer. Sugiyama was Executive Director from 2013 to 2015.
Along the way, EDI has expanded from an institution with extensive Boeing ties to a broader playing field, with ties to many organizations and companies and educational activities, including other Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Latino .
More than 1,500 alumni passed through the classroom, engaging in close, intense, face-to-face interaction, group sessions and role-playing, and plenty of food as the glue that held them together.
Some classrooms, often donated by Boeing, have thick air amidst heated conversation and laughter.
They provide a safe space for professionals to lead with the values of their own culture.
Leni Phan, who joined EDI in 2018, recently moved from a senior role at Boeing to a global leadership role at Nike. In her recommendation letter, she wrote that EDI taught her “how to lead and be who I am in a culture different from where I grew up. EDI helped educate myself and my work team about these differences.”
Then the pandemic hit.
EDI finds itself in the position of many other nonprofits and schools that rely on face-to-face interaction as their lifeblood.
But with EDI, this may be even more the case.
“EDI did have a virtual cohort early in the pandemic, but we recognized that to continue operating in a post-pandemic world, the program needed to improve,” Gin said.
The older generation of alumni has been dealing with fundraising and outreach in the traditional way.
But now that its programs are effectively shut down, the very existence of EDI has been called into question.
Even recent alumni wonder what happened to this network that provided so much social support, and during the program itself, it allowed them to believe in their own strengths without having to imitate managers from different cultures.
This is the case with Gin.
“I haven’t heard anything from EDI in a while, so I’m starting to worry,” he said.
After contacting the board, he found that the institute was facing significant challenges. He volunteered to help and became a board member.
In Southern California, Gin built prototypes for the auto show. Some go into production.
After moving to Seattle, he began dabbling in robotics and eventually worked at Boeing.
Like many other institutions, EDI is in a transition period between in-person and online learning, he said.
“I would say that Covid has basically shown the weakness of our organization and broke the pattern of our reliance on outreach,” he said. “We took the opportunity to look at how the program could be improved in a way that would allow us to work in a virtual or hybrid program. That’s what we’re doing today — modernizing the program.”
Gin was eventually named chairman of the board. He accepted.
At the same time, almost the entire board is changing. Of the eight board members, only two former board members remain. Gin also persuaded one of his 2019 classmates to join the board.
EDI has now fully embraced the idea of a hybrid model, and a committee is currently working to adapt its curriculum, he said.
“Now as a brand new board, we are trying to bring EDI back in a way that still maintains its identity, but in an age where face-to-face learning is not always possible. This will expand our reach, but also allow others Easier access to it,” he said.
Fundraising and outreach are also changing.
In the past, fundraising relied on committed donors from the older generation, and Gin hopes to expand this approach to include all alumni, including recent graduates.
“For someone like me, with a young family and less disposable income, I may not be able to give much, but I can pick up the phone or email and ask a friend to ask his friend to ask his friend,” he said.
With this approach, Gin hopes to expand the reach of the institute to a larger number of people.
Still, he said, relying on early graduates was still essential, not just for financial support.
“They do know they need to change,” he said.
The new approach to gin and boards will be tested in the coming months. In fact, it already is.
He had to face the first major crisis of his term in March, when a newly elected executive director abruptly resigned, shortly before a virtual town hall was planned. Gin had hoped to provide “academy status” and encourage alumni to join.
“The board had to stop and take a hard look at our future direction,” he said.
He is still planning to have a town hall for all alumni sometime in the near future.
Mahlon can reach info@nwasianweekly.com.
