Shirley Ann Higuchi
Shirley Ann Higuchi was elected Chair of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation Board of Directors in March 2010 and is the daughter of former Heart Mountain internees, Dr. William I. Higuchi and the late Setsuko Saito Higuchi. She is the Assistant Executive Director of Legal and Regulatory Affairs for the American Psychological Association and is past president, treasurer and board member of the D.C. Bar- a mandatory licensing organization. Ms. Higuchi was appointed to serve a six-year term with the District of Columbia Judicial Disabilities and Tenure Commission where she is responsible for reviewing misconduct, evaluating reappointments, and conducting fitness and performance reviews of the District’s judges. Ms. Higuchi was formerly in private practice with Epstein Becker and Green in Washington, DC and received her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and law degree from Georgetown University Law School.
Douglas Nelson
Douglas Nelson recently retired from his position as President and CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation after guiding that organization for 20 years from a moderately-sized institution to one of the nation’s most influential and respected large foundations. He is Vice-Chair of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and leads the Fundraising Committee. His social history of the World War II relocation of Japanese Americans, entitled Heart Mountain: The History of an American Concentration Camp, earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1976.
Richard Ewig
Richard (Rick) Ewig has a Master of Arts degree in history from the University of Wyoming. For ten years he worked at the Wyoming State Archives, Museums and Historical Department. Presently he is the associate director of the American Heritage Center, a manuscript repository at the University of Wyoming. Ewig currently serves as the editor of Annals of Wyoming: The Wyoming History Journal and has published articles on various topics, including Wyoming tourism, the Wyoming State Hospital, and woman's suffrage in Wyoming.
Claudia WadeClaudia Wade, a native of Wyoming, is the Marketing Director for the Park County Travel Council - a group responsible for bringing visitors to Park County, Wyoming. For nearly 20 years, her duties have included grants administration, overseeing all financial aspects of the Travel Council and developing and implementing marketing strategies. Claudia also serves as an executive board member for the Park County Leadership Institute and the Wyoming Travel Industry Coalition. She and her husband, Tim, live in Cody where they own North Fork Anglers, a fly fishing retail store and fishing guide service.
Prof. Eric Muller Eric Muller is considered one of the leading authorities on the constitutional implications of the WWII internment and is perhaps best known as the author of Free to Die for Their Country, the story of the Nisei resisters of World War II. He is a Distinguished Professor of Law from the University of North Carolina and serves as Co-Chair of the Heart Mountain Program Committee along with Denver educator Carolyn Takeshita.
Dr. Takashi Hoshizaki
Takashi (Tak) Hoshizaki earned his doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1961, worked as a research scientist at the Space Biology Laboratory, School of Health Sciences, UCLA for 13 years and retired from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology in 1989. He was twice president of the Southern California Academy of Sciences; published numerous scientific papers and articles; served as a consultant to NASA, Los Angeles County and the Encyclopedia Britannica. Dr. Hoshizaki was one of the 63 Resisters of Conscience at Heart Mountain who in 1944 contested the legality of the internment. He spent two years in a federal penitentiary as a result. He later served two years in the U.S. Army Medical Corps.
Alan Kumamoto
Alan Kumamoto is Founding Partner of Kumamoto Associates, a global marketing, management and communications firm, that brings clients and resources together to achieve optimum results. He is an internationally recognized consultant to major corporations, government agencies, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations. His career spans leadership positions with private businesses, government agencies and nonprofit corporations, and private enterprise. Alan serves on the boards of a number of regional and national organizations, including those committed to serving the Asian Pacific Islander communities. He and his family were interned at Heart Mountain.
Allyson Nakamoto
Ms. Nakamoto works at the Japanese American National Museum with educators and school districts from across the country to further the teaching of the Japanese American experience within the broader context of the United States' ethnic and cultural diversity. She has collaboratively developed teacher-created, standards-based curriculum with institutions and educators in Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah.
Prof. Peter Simpson
Dr. Simpson is an adjunct professor and the Milward Simpson Professor of Political Science at the University of Wyoming. He began his career as a college administrator. While serving as Dean of Instruction at Sheridan College, he was elected to the Wyoming State Legislature. In 1984, he became Vice President for Development and Executive Director of the University of Wyoming Foundation and later served as Vice President for Institutional Advancement. He is the brother of U.S. Senator Alan Simpson (ret.) and son of former Wyoming Gov. and U.S. Senator Milward Simpson.
Shigeru Yabu
Shigeru (Shig) Yabu was born and raised in San Francisco. In October 1942, his family was interned at Heart Mountain. After the war, he served in the Navy. He received his B.A. degree from San Diego State College and began a 28-year career working with the Boys Clubs and the Camarillo Health Care District. Yabu was chosen as the city of Camarillo's Young Man of the Year in 1968 and Man of the Year in 1974. In 1984, he carried the Olympic Torch in Oxnard, California. He has written two books: Doggone Excuses People Make for Smoking and Hello Maggie and is the subject of a new work, Boy of Heart Mountain by Barbara Bazaldua.
Kathleen Yuille
Kathleen Saito Yuille serves as Chair of the Grand Opening and Communications Committee and was born while her parents were interned at Heart Mountain internment camp. After attending the University of California at Berkeley, she accepted a dietetic internship at the University of Michigan, where she met her husband, David Yuille. After working as a dietitian in the public/private sector in Michigan and the San Francisco Bay Area, she and her husband moved from the coast and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she served as Board President of the Contemporary Art Society and continued her support of community-centric projects through fundraising.
LaDonna Zall
LaDonna Zall, a retired educator, is Acting Curator and serves as the principal docent and custodian of the Heart Mountain artifact collections. A pipeliner's daughter, she was ten years old when she watched the last train leave Heart Mountain carrying internees after World War II ended. She felt a connection to the Japanese Americans, many of whom had been confined over three years. As a docent, she has guided thousands of visitors around the Heart Mountain site, including students ranging from elementary to college age to adults from nearby schools, from across the United States, and from around the world.
HEART MOUNTAIN WYOMING FOUNDATION
Board of Directors
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