Board
Meet the Governing Board
2010-2011
CHAIR
The chair presides at all meetings of the Coalition and the Board of Directors. The Chair provides leadership for the strategic direction of the Coalition.
Clifford Chang, MPH
Clifford is currently the Executive Director for Pacific Islands Primary Health Care Association. He is no stranger to the tobacco control community. He was the first Executive Director for the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawai’i and the project director of the first Robert Wood Johnson funded SmokeLess States grant. Clifford was instrumental in passage of the $1.00 tax increase on a package of cigarettes in 1998 and spearheaded smoke free dining ordinances on neighbor islands.
CHAIR ELECT
The Vice Chair assumes the responsibilities and performs the duties of the Chair in the absence, inability or refusal to act of the Chair or whenever the office of Chair is vacant.
Steve Pavao, MHR
Born and raised in Hilo. Steve has a Bachelors Degree from UH-Hilo in Psychology and a Masters Degree from Clemson University in South Carolina. He is the Executive Director of the Brantley Center in Honoka’a, which provides services to the disabled community in North Hawaii. He is an active community leader having recently served as the Chair of the County of Hawaii’s Environmental Management Commission. He also served as the President of the Big Island Road Runners and as Big Island Regions Director for Hawaii PONY Baseball. He currently serves as the Hawaii County Chair of the Democratic Party. Steve is a former smoker who credits the work the Coalition for saving his life. “The Coalition’s advocacy and the resulting policy changes in Hawai’i were one of the primary reasons I quit after thirty years.” Steve has since become an avid runner and has run over 30 marathons including the prestigious Boston Marathon. He will be running the Marine Corps and New York Marathons later this year.
IMMEDIATE PAST CHAIR/SECRETARY
Kimberly Miyazawa Frank
Kimberly is the owner of Kimberly Frank Consulting. She has 20 years of experience in Organizational Development (OD); Kimberly has enhanced clients’ overall business performance through the strategic implementation of OD initiatives. Her experience encompasses the broadest range of capacity-building strategies including assessment of organizational needs, design and delivery of training curricula in many content areas, process design, strategic planning and implementation of succession planning programs for organizational endurance and other talent management initiatives designed to increase organizations’ competitive edge. She is a frequent speaker and presenter at industry conferences and leadership retreats. Previous employment includes OD Manager in Honolulu, HI; Senior Consultant at Towers Perrin in San Francisco, CA; Senior Managing Consultant at The Gallup Organization in Lincoln, NE, Los Angeles, CA and San Francisco, CA; and Project Manager at Global Lead, Inc. in Cincinnati, OH.
She received her Bachelor of Science from Miami University, Oxford, OH and her Juris Doctor from Rutgers School of Law, Camden, NJ
Kimberly was born and raised in Hawai‘i, and recently returned to Honolulu, having pursued her education and much of her career on the mainland. Kimberly and husband, Trey, live with their two daughters and son in Manoa, Hawai’i.
TREASURER
Kent Kasaoka, CPA
Kent is a Certified Public Accountant with CW Associates, CPAs. He has 10 years of public accounting experience, initially as an auditor, then transitioned to focus on tax compliance and consulting. CW Associates’ practice has an emphasis on the construction and not-for-profit industries.
Kent is an Eagle Scout and currently assists with adult leader training for the Aloha Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He participates in the Hawai’i Society of CPAs as committee member on the Young CPA and Tax Committees. He is a graduate of Punahou School and has a bachelor’s degree with distinction in accounting from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.
MEMBER AT LARGE
Maria Chun, Ph.D.
Maria Chun is the Associate Chair of Administration and Finance for the University of Hawai’i’s Department of Surgery. She has a Ph.D. in psychology (community and cross-cultural concentration). She has been a public servant for my entire career and has worked for various state government agencies. For her current position, she reports directly to the Department Chair and her duties include the oversight of all administrative and fiscal matters within the department, including grants administration. Maria is currently working on cultural competency initiatives within her department, with a particular focus on surgical resident preparedness to provide cross-cultural care, which is based on work done nationally. Prior to Maria’s current position, she worked as a performance auditor/program evaluator for the Hawai’i State Auditor’s Office for 10 years. She also worked as the director of a regulatory reform project for the Office of the Lieutenant Governor and served as a legislative budget analyst for two sessions. Maria wrote her first novel in 2007 and she resides in Makiki with her husband and two children.
Marilyn Gagen, CPA
With over 37 years experience in public accounting, Marilyn worked in the audit and middle market services departments of Deloitte & Touche LLP for four years before transferring to tax in the Deloitte Cleveland Office. Marilyn became a partner of Deloitte in June 1981. She moved to Phoenix in 1985 to become the partner-in-charge of the Deloitte Phoenix tax practice, and moved to Honolulu in 1991 to become partner-in-charge of the Deloitte Hawai’i tax practice. In May 2002 Marilyn retired from Deloitte, and now serves several long-time clients in an “of counsel” role with Deloitte. At the time Marilyn was promoted to partner at Deloitte she was one of only 6 women partners out of 1,500 U. S. partners. At her retirement in 2002 she was the most senior woman partner with Deloitte.
Marilyn specializes in income tax planning, estate tax planning, charitable giving, and financial consulting services to high net worth individuals and their trusts, estates, private foundations, charitable remainder trusts, family partnerships and family offices.
Maile Goo, Psy.D.
Maile is a faculty member within the Student Equity, Excellence, and Diversity (SEED) Programs at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa. She has recruited students to attend the Intercultural Cancer Council Biennial Symposium which is designed to address the unequal burden of cancer and the medically underserved. Maile has been successful preparing students for obtaining entry into graduate school in the biomedical and behavioral sciences and is experienced in the administration of several Minority Biomedical Research Support programs funded by the National Institutes of Health. She continues similar efforts in her role as Director of Graduate Professional Access.
John Hunt, MPA
Originally from Miami, Florida, John moved to Kauai in 1993. After a brief stint at the Department of Health managing a hurricane recovery grant he took a position with the Research Corporation of the University of Hawai’i in the College of Business Administration. John has been the Public Health Administrative Officer for the Kauai District Health Office since 1998. John has worked in tobacco control in earnest since 2000 as a member of Tobacco-Free Kauai Coalition. He has been Chairman of TFK since 2003. John holds a Master Degree in Public Administration from Florida International University and has over 25 years experience working at various levels of local and state government.
Hye-ryeon Lee, Ph.D.
Dr. Hye-ryeon Lee is an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech Communication, and is on the faculty of the Cancer Research Center of Hawai’i, the Center for Korean Studies, and the Population Sciences Program at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. She has directed many research projects in the area of tobacco use prevention and control in California, Arizona and Hawai’i. She currently works on several projects including an exercise-based smoking cessation programs for college students, a community intervention to develop a minimum infrastructure for smoking cessation and health promotion within the Korean immigrant community, and a Cessation Network for Hawai’i Primary Care Association.
She received her Ph.D. (Communication) and M.A (Political Science) from Stanford University. Hye-ryeon’s primary teaching and research interests are in health communication and health policy research. Specifically, she is interested in studying the process through which interpersonal and mass-media communication influence individual perceptions about social norms and expectations regarding health behaviors.
Curtis Saiki, Esq.
Curtis Saiki currently serves as the Vice-President of the Wealth and Planning Department with First Hawaiian Bank. Curtis received his Juris Doctor at University of Oregon Law School with a business certificate in 1995. He also went on to pursue a license in taxation at the University of Washington Law School. He has been a practicing attorney in Hawai’i for more than 11 years and has experienced serving in the U.S. Tax Court, U.S. District Court, and Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Prior to joining First Hawaiian Bank, Curtis has served as an “of counsel” role with Cades Schutte, LLP specializing in tax, trust, and estate and as a Senior Associate Attorney with Kobayashi, Sugita & Goda practicing primarily in the areas of estate planning, taxation, succession in planning and business law. Additionally, he has also served as a member of the American Bar Association, Hawai’i State Bar Association and Washington Bar Association.
John A. H. Tomoso, MSW, ACSW, LSW
John A. H. Tomoso, is current the Executive Director for Hui No Ke Ola Pono on Maui. He earned a B.A. in Political Science and Sociology from the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1975. He earned his M.S.W. from the School of Social Work (now known as the Myron B. Thompson School of Social Work) at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa in 1977. John became a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers (ACSW) in 1981. He was awarded a teaching and research fellowship in Public Administration at the University of Wyoming in Laramie in 1981, where he won the John P. Ellbogen Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award for 1983. In 1994, John was chosen as a recipient of an Outstanding Hawaiian Educator Award by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and its Board of Trustees. He has been in professional social work practice since 1976, in various public and private sector settings and methods, including child and family welfare, child protection, mental health, family court, criminal justice, domestic violence, grantsmanship, community development, employee assistance programs and gerontology. He retired from public service as the Maui County Executive on Aging in 2008. He has also been appointed to serve on several State and County Commissions, including the Hawaiian Homes Commission from 1995 to 2003. John is licensed as a Social Worker in the State of Hawai’i (LSW) and, since 1985, he has maintained a private practice in social work, concentrating in family strengthening, addiction/co-dependency issues, community/ organizational development and employee assistance (EAP). John is a member of the Royal Order of Kamehameha the First and since 2007 has served as the appointed Kahuna Pule O Kahekili. Since 2003, John has written the monthly Kumunidad column in the Fil-Am Observer, a newspaper of general circulation in Maui County. He is a member of the inaugural class of the California/ Hawaii Public Health Leadership Institute. He is married and has two children.
Don Weisman
Weisman is the Hawai’i Communications and Marketing/Government Affairs director for the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. He joined the American Heart Association’s Hawai’i Affiliate in 1989 as its communications director, with advocacy responsibilities. He also serves as a volunteer on the Policy, Membership and Fundraising, Nominating and Personnel committees for the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawai’i and previously served on the Coalition Board in a term ending in 2006. He is also a steering committee member of the Hawai’i Nutrition and Physical Activity Coalition and chairs its School Work Group committee.
Prior to joining the American Heart Association, Don served for four years as the national communications manager for AIAC, a subsidiary of AIG Insurance Company. He served on the Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Honolulu Board from 1990-1992 and headed its Public Relations Committee in 1991.
