June 20, 2007

Northern California Chapter's Special Event on Leadership and Teaming

Asian Pacific Islanders for Professional and Community Advancement (APCA), an employee resource group at AT&T, hosted a special event on June 20 in San Ramon, California. To help celebrate Asian Heritage Month, the Northern California chapter of APCA hosted a bone marrow drive and a noontime program with guests, Yul Kwon, Management Consultant, and Winner - Survivor: Cook Islands, and Carol Gillespie, Executive Director - Asian American Donor Program (AADP).

Mae Jean Go, Business Manager - Governance, Strategy, Standards, and Competitive Intelligence Team, and APCA National Secretary, welcomed the audience of one hundred AT&T employees and community members to the event. Melba Muscarolas, Vice President and General Manager - San Francisco Market Area, AT&T, then introduced Yul Kwon.

Presenters From left: Melba Muscarolas, Yul Kwon, Carol Gillespie, and Mae Jean Go

Yul grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. After graduating from both Stanford University and Yale Law School, Yul has had a diverse career in both private and public sectors before being recruited to participate as a contestant in the CBS Program, Survivor: Cook Islands, that aired during the 2006 television season.

Speaking on the topic, "Using Leadership and Teaming Skills to Win," Yul discussed his decision to participate on Survivor as an opportunity to change negative stereotypes of Asian Americans and to meet other contestants from diverse backgrounds. He highlighted many of the leadership and teaming skills his four-person team used successfully against the opposing eight-person team to meet a series of challenges:

  • Lead by collaborating with others on the team
  • Encourage open communication, build mutual trust, and listen to everyone's ideas
  • Include everyone in the process
  • Recognize that everyone has something to offer
  • Leverage the diversity of everyone's skill sets, experiences, and backgrounds
  • Set a team goal to try to win every challenge

By the end of the program, his team had won every challenge, and Yul went on to become the remaining "survivor" with the $1million prize.

Yul closed his presentation by including comments on challenges faced by the Asian Pacific American community, the value of learning from mentors, the courage of speaking up, and the importance of being leaders in our communities. As a personal example, Yul spoke about supporting key community programs such as the Asian American Donor Program (AADP). The AADP is an official recruitment group of the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) focusing on outreach and donor drives in the Asian, Pacific Islander, and multi-racial communities.

Starting as a member of the original board of directors for the AADP and currently serving as its executive director, Carol Gillespie spoke about the critical need for people of all backgrounds to register as donors in order to increase the chance of finding a match. To date, AADP has recruited over 85,000 potential donors for the NMDP and helped save the lives of more than 100 patients through education and bone marrow drives.

The APCA event closed with Yul and Carol fielding a number of questions from the audience. AADP conducted a bone marrow drive as part of the event, resulting in 23 new registrants and more than $1,000 in donations.

For more information about this event, contact Mae Jean Go at (925) 355-3683.

Event Planning Committee and Yul Kwon The Event Planning Committee and Yul Kwon: (from left) Derek Richardson, Arlene Lum, Yul Kwon, Doreen Lew, Jiasie Chen, Mae Jean Go