The East-West Center’s Board of Governors have reappointed Honolulu attorney Richard Turbin as the board’s chair for another one-year term. Turbin, a member of the board since 2011, has served as its chair since February 2016. At a meeting on October 16, the board also reappointed former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Kurt Campbell and Punahou School President James Kapaeʻalii Scott as vice-chairs.
Born in New York City, Turbin has been an attorney in Honolulu for close to 40 years and is a partner at the Turbin Chu Heidt law firm. He has served as president of the Hawaiʻi State Bar Association, chair of the American Bar Association’s Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section, and a member of the Hawaiʻi Civil Rights Commission. He currently serves as chair of the Waiʻalae-Kahala Neighborhood Board.
Campbell served as the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2009 to 2013, and is widely credited as being a key architect of the “pivot to Asia.” He is currently chair and CEO of The Asia Group strategic advisory and capital management firm, as well as chair of the Center for a New American Security and a non-resident fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center.
Scott became Punahou School’s 16th president in 1994, heading the largest coeducational, independent K–12 school on a single campus in the U.S., with more than 3,700 students. He is also engaged in a variety of nonprofit and business leadership roles at the local and national levels.
The East-West Center Board of Governors consists of 18 members, including five appointed by the governor of Hawaiʻi, five appointed by the U.S. secretary of state, five members from Asia and the Pacific Islands who are elected by the full board and three ex-officio members who include the governor of Hawaiʻi, the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs and the president of the University of Hawaiʻi.
