The University of Hawaiʻi Alumni Association will honor six individuals for their outstanding achievements at an awards dinner and ceremony on Thursday, May 10 at the Sheraton Waikīkī Hotel.
The annual event raises funds for student scholarships and alumni activities, supports UHAA chapters and UH campuses and facilitates communication between UH and its alumni.
2012 Distinguished Alumni Awards
Robert Alm, JD (BA ’73 Mānoa)
Robert Alm is executive vice president of Hawaiian Electric Company, with the primary responsibility of moving the company to a clean energy future. He is also an executive officer of the Collaborative Leaders Network, an initiative designed to encourage more productive community dialog and decision-making. Alm currently teaches a graduate course in public administration leadership at UH Mānoa. He is active in community affairs and is currently board chair for Enterprise Honolulu and PBS Hawaiʻi. He also serves on the boards of Island Insurance Company, Helping Hands Hawaiʻi, Hawaiʻi Institute for Public Affairs and the American Judicature Society, Hawaiʻi Chapter.
Frederick D.S. Choi, PhD (BBA ’65, MBA ’68 Mānoa)
Frederick Choi is dean emeritus and Distinguished Service Professor of Business at the New York University Stern School of Business. A prolific author, he is a recognized expert in financial reporting and analysis. During his more than 30 years at NYU, Choi served as the Stern School’s vice dean, dean of its undergraduate college, chair of its accounting and international business departments and as a chaired professor. Previously, he was a professor of accounting at UH Mānoa’s College of Business Administration (now Shidler College of Business), where he was instrumental in establishing its School of Accountancy and chaired its accounting department.
Patrick H. DeLeon, PhD, JD (MPH ’73 Mānoa)
Patrick DeLeon began his public health internship with Senator Daniel Inouye on the first day of the Watergate hearings in 1973. He retired last fall as the senator’s chief of staff, having served 38–plus years. DeLeon is widely published and is known for his extensive public policy advocacy in the healthcare field, specifically in psychology and nursing. He was recently appointed Distinguished Professor of Uniformed Health Care Policy and Research at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, where he has been an adjunct professor since 2007. He has also been an adjunct professor at UH since 1979 in psychology and nursing at the Mānoa and Hilo campuses.
2012 UH Founders Alumni Association Lifetime Achievement Award
Ted T. Tsukiyama, JD (Attended ’39–’41, ’46 Mānoa)
Ted Tsukiyama was one of the founders of the Varsity Victory Volunteers, consisting of local Nisei men. He later served with the 442nd regiment before being transferred to the Military Intelligence Service as a linguist in the India–Burma Theater. After the war, Tsukiyama completed his UH degree and become an attorney. During his long and distinguished legal career he has been a labor arbitrator and mediator, and served on the Hawai’i Supreme Court’s bar examining committee. He is active in projects involving the 442nd regiment and 100th battalion and has donated his extensive research collection, now known as the Ted Tsukiyama Papers, to UH Mānoa’s Hamilton Library.
2012 UH Alumni Association President’s Awards
Virginia S. Hinshaw, PhD
As chancellor of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Virginia Hinshaw serves as the chief executive officer responsible for providing both administrative and academic leadership to the flagship campus of the University of Hawaiʻi System. Hinshaw is credited with elevating community engagement to new heights through numerous partnerships locally, nationally and internationally, and effectively communicating the value that UH Mānoa provides to Hawaiʻi and the world. She is a renowned scientist with expertise in microbiology whose work over the past 25 years has contributed to the understanding of the influenza virus and new approaches to vaccines.
Ann Dunham Soetoro, PhD (BA ’67, MA ’83, PhD ’92 Mānoa)
Ann Dunham Soetoro was an applied anthropologist who used her academic training to better understand the culture, political system and values that underpinned the struggles and successes of the rural poor in Southeast Asia. After she earned her PhD in anthropology from UH, her subsequent research and consulting work took her around the world. Soetoro returned to the U.S. after becoming ill in 1995 and was diagnosed with cancer. She passed away in November 1995. The Ann Dunham Soetoro Endowed Fund has been established at the UH Foundation as a collaborative effort between UH Mānoa and the East-West Center to honor her legacy.
