Celebrating the American Experience and US-Japan Relations: Irene Hirano Inouye, Her Life, Works and Achievements

 

Friday, May 15, 2015 (3:00 PM – 5:00 PM)
Hillcrest Appellate Courtroom, Underwood Law Library (map)

Irene Hirano Inouye, President, U.S.-Japan Council

Irene Hirano Inouye-headshot

Irene Hirano Inouye is President of the U.S.-Japan Council, a position she has held since the founding of the Council in late 2008. Through the U.S.-Japan Council, she also administers the TOMODACHI Initiative, a public-private partnership, with the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, born out of support for Japan’s recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake. The TOMODACHI Initiative invests in the next generation of Japanese and American leaders through educational and cultural exchanges and leadership programs. She is the former President and Founding CEO of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, a position she held for twenty years. A recipient of bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Public Administration from the University of Southern California, Ms. Hirano Inouye has extensive experience in non-profit administration, community education and public affairs with culturally diverse communities nationwide. Ms. Hirano Inouye’s current professional and community activities include serving as Trustee and immediate past Chair, Ford Foundation; Trustee and immediate past Chair, Kresge Foundation; Trustee, Washington Center; Trustee, Independent Sector, and Vice-Chair, Smithsonian Institution Asian Pacific American Center. Her previous positions include serving as former Chair Board of Directors of the American Association of Museums, Board Member, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Member, National Board Smithsonian Institution, Advisory Board, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Member Toyota Corporation’s Diversity Advisory Board, member, Business Advisory Board of Sodexho Corporation, President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities by Presidential appointment, and Chair California Commission on the Status of Women. She was married to the late U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii.


Admiral Patrick M. Walsh, U.S. Navy (Ret.), former Commander of the Pacific Fleet & Tower Center Senior Fellow, SMU

walshAdmiral Patrick M. Walsh is currently Senior Vice President, iSIGHT Partners, and General Manager of iSIGHT Partners’ ThreatSPACE® business unit, a live-fire cyber range and training facility where cyber security organizations earn hands-on experience in responding to cyber attacks.

Admiral Walsh, a Dallas native, retired from the Navy in 2012 after serving as the 59th Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.  He is a two-time Exercise RIMPAC leader, acting as the multinational strike group commander in 2004, and as overall operational leader in 2010.  With a 35-year career in training and leading joint forces, Walsh enables iSIGHT Partners to deliver specialized cyber training to large-scale and joint cyber security response operations.

After earning his Naval Aviator designation in 1979, Admiral Walsh went on to lead combat units at virtually every level of operation including squadron, wing, strike group, fleet, and regional fleet command.  Most recently, he commanded U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the U.S. 5th Fleet, while also commanding the Combined Maritime Forces conducting Operations Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom and maritime security operations in the Central Command area of responsibility.  He served as vice chief of Naval Operations and as a special assistant to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget as a White House Fellow.  He also chaired the Department of Leadership, Ethics and Law at the U.S. Naval Academy.

In 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates selected Walsh to conduct a 30-day review of operations at the U.S. Detention Center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, following President Obama’s order that the detention center be closed.

Admiral Walsh is serving currently a Senior Fellow at the John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University.

He is a 1977 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, and holds Master of Arts and Doctorate degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He also graduated with honors from Jesuit College Preparatory in Dallas, and was the second student in the sixty-year history of the school to receive both the Distinguished Graduate and Distinguished Alumnus awards.  His numerous military career awards include the Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Air Medal w/ Combat V, Navy Commendation Medal w/ Combat V, Navy, and the Presidential Service Badge.


Anny Wong, Tower Center Research Fellow, SMU

Anny IDAnny Wong joined the Tower Center in January 2013. Prior to moving to Dallas in the Fall of 2012, she was a political scientist at RAND Corporation in Arlington, Virginia, and conducted research on national security, human capital, international development, and science and technology policy for a variety of clients including the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and Japan’s National Institute for Science and Technology. She continued to consult at RAND, the World Bank, Freedom House, and other organizations, covering economics and politics in Japan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania. She a board member of the Japan-American Society of Dallas/Fort Worth and recently chaired a panel on Japanese and international business investments in North Texas at the Japan Update Program on February 13, 2015. Anny was an East-West Center graduate fellow in Honolulu, obtained her doctoral degree in political science from University of Hawai’i at Manoa, and has worked, lived, studied, and traveled widely across Asia.


Moderator | Hiroki Takeuchi, Associate Professor & Director of Sun & Star Program on Japan East Asia, Tower Center, SMU

HirokiHiroki Takeuchi is Associate Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Sun & Star Program on Japan and East Asia in the Tower Center, at Southern Methodist University. He Received his B.A. of Economics from Keio University in Japan, his M.A. of Asian Studies from University of California at Berkeley, and his Ph.D. of Political Science from University of California at Los Angeles. Previously, he taught at UCLA as a faculty fellow of the Political Science Department and at Stanford University as a postdoctoral teaching fellow of the Public Policy Program. His research and teaching interests include Chinese and Japanese politics, comparative authoritarianism, and political economy and international relations of East Asia, as well as applying game theory to political science. He is the author of Tax Reform in Rural China: Revenue, Resistance, and Authoritarian Rule (Cambridge University Press, 2014). He is also a regular contributor to Foresight, Japanese online journal.