Distinguished Alumni to be honored

March 9th, 2009  |  by  |  Published in UHAA News

Chiyome Fukino

Chiyome Fukino

James Horton

James Horton

Lois Horton

Lois Horton

Dee Jay Mailer

Dee Jay Mailer

Sabrina McKenna

Sabrina McKenna

David and Wendie McClain

David and Wendie McClain

The University of Hawaiʻi and the UH Alumni Association will present the 2009 Distinguished Alumni Award and UH Founders Alumni Association Lifetime Achievement Award at a dinner at 5:30 p.m. on May 7, 2009 at the Sheraton Waikīkī Hotel.

This year, UHAA will also honor President David and Wendie McClain with the UHAA President’s Award. David McClain has led the 10-campus system since 2004; his term of appointment concludes on July 31, 2009.

Established in 1987, the Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes outstanding alumni who have used their UH education to excel professionally, extend inspirational leadership to others and provide service for the benefit of the community.

Register for the awards dinner.

Distinguished Alumni Award Recipients

Chiyome Fukino is a 1979 graduate of UH Mānoa’s John A. Burns School of Medicine. Director of the Hawaiʻi State Department of Health since 2002, she helped make Hawaiʻi the first state in the nation to offer a statewide school-based flu vaccination program and held the first Statewide Suicide Prevention Conference.

In 2005 Fukino was the first recipient of the Hawaiʻi Medical Association President’s Award for contributions to the medical community. She has conducted research to improve healthcare for Native Hawaiians and explore application of ancient Hawaiian healing practices in modern medicine.

James and Lois Horton both received their master’s degrees in 1969 from UH Mānoa and their PhDs from Brandeis University. They are historians who reach both academic and general audiences. One of their many books, Slavery and the Making of America, was the basis for a series of the same name on the Public Broadcasting Service.

They also served as advisors for the History Channel’s Emmy Award-winning series 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America. They continue to serve as visiting professors in Mānoa’s Department of American Studies.

Dee Jay Mailer received a BS from UH Mānoa’s School of Nursing in 1975 and her MBA from Mānoa’s Shidler College of Business in 1985.

Since 2004 she has served as chief executive officer at Kamehameha Schools, her alma mater. Previously she was chief operating officer of the United Nations-supported Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and chief executive officer for Kaiser Permanente.

Sabrina McKenna received her BA in Japanese at UH Mānoa in 1978 and her law degree from Mānoa’s William S. Richardson School of Law in 1982.

She has had a distinguished career as a lawyer and jurist. She was also an assistant professor of law at the William S. Richardson School of Law and a former member of the Rainbow Wahine Basketball team.

UH Founders Alumni Association Lifetime Achievement Award

Daniel B. T. Lau

Daniel B. T. Lau

Daniel B. T. Lau is a 1941 alumnus of the UH Colleges of Arts and Sciences, where he studied business economics. Two weeks after graduating, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in World War II.

He witnessed the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor and in 1943 and was accepted into the U.S. Army Aircorps for flight training, but was reassigned to train replacement soldiers in anticipation of D-Day casualties. Injured in the Battle of the Bulge, he received the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster.

In 1952 Lau co-founded Finance Factors; he still serves as chairman. He has established scholarships for UH students and serves on the UHAA Board of Directors.


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