IN 1988 I was steering committee chairman for Gov. John Waihee's Congress on Hawaii's International Role. We prepared a list of 1,500 to invite as delegates, hoping at least 400 would accept. We got 800 instead and sensed a great enthusiasm for having Hawaii become more involved in the Asia-Pacific region. UH could use more
Honda-type giftsI wish I could say that since then our hopes have been as overfulfilled as the delegate sign-up, but it's not true.
Progress has been spotty. But one of the delegates has just made a $250,000 pledge to the community colleges of the University of Hawaii that is totally in keeping with one of our key goals: "Through education, equip Hawaii's students for an international role."
Paul S. Honda has set up an International Opportunities Fund to provide travel and other cross-cultural experiences for community college students. This follows a $100,000 gift to the Pacific and Asian Affairs Council's programs for high school students. He plans to increase the UH Honda Fund later if it succeeds.
He has a fascinating life story. He was born in Manchuria in 1928. His father was there from Japan to oversee construction of a steel plant. The family soon returned to Tokyo where he grew up and had high school wartime training to be a suicide glider pilot. He returned to Manchuria in February 1945, at age 16, as the youngest exchange student ever accepted at the National University of Manchuria.
When the Red Army took control of Manchuria as a spoil of war he was among Japanese students chosen to go to Moscow University. He refused, was forced to do hard labor 18 hours a day and fled to Dalien. There he became a Russian-Chinese-Japanese interpreter until he was repatriated to Japan in 1947. He studied international economics at Nagoya University and became a national leader of the student activist group known as Zengakuren.
He wanted to return to Manchuria, was refused and redirected his love of wide-open spaces to America instead. On a foreign student scholarship at the University of Denver he earned a master of business administration degree.
As a student he started a gem business in Denver funded with seven strands of pearls his mother gave him to sell when he needed the money. At the end of 1955 he moved Honda and Co. to New York and did further study at Columbia University.
By 1985 Honda and Co. had succeeded so well he could afford early retirement and moved with his wife, Michiko, to settle in Hawaii. Here he has been active in PAAC, the Japan-America Society, Rotary and more.
HONDA-TYPE gifts are something the University of Hawaii needs more of. The UH Foundation is perking up under the leadership of President Kenneth Mortimer and foundation Executive Director Donna Howard. They hope to boost UH's present $50 million endowment by $125 million in the next five years.
They have a role model in Penn State, where both had previous connections and where I am a life member of the alumni association. Penn State's is one of the successful alumni involvement programs in the U.S. A recent $30 million alumnus gift for an Honors College is its biggest ever, but it has had plenty of others. These give added vitality to the university, a land grant college like UH.
Paul Honda isn't even an alumnus of UH, but he has become a concerned citizen of Hawaii convinced that more international understanding among our young people is important to our future.