Introduction to Peter S. Yao

By Peter S. Yao

I LIKE FOR YOU TO KNOW ME BETTER AND I LIKE TO SHARE MY VISION WITH YOU

My late father was a photographer who did work for the Colleges and my mom was a librarian at Honnold Library. I worked, too, at first by chasing golf balls at the Claremont Golf Course and then as the first male waiter at Griswold's Swedish Smorgasbord. No, wearing short skirt was not a requirement.

I worked my way through U.C. Berkeley and eventually earned masters degrees, in engineering, in business administration and in organizational management.

I stick with things. Claremont's been my home for 40 years, I've worked for the same corporation for 33 years, and I'm lucky enough to be married to Linda Yao for 29 years. She is Upland's Library Director. Our son Richard is an Eagle Scout and a high school senior. I am now a director of engineering. I've managed organizations with up to 600 employees and millions of dollars budget. I've managed factories and worldwide service support functions with profit responsibility.

So I am a Claremonter through and through. I vision Claremont as a diverse community sharing the good life.

We do well in the Good Life element. Good life includes everything we like and enjoy such as sports program, youth program, senior program, parks, good schools, economic success. We can continue to improve.

On diverse community, we need to do much more with diversity, especially economic diversity through affordable housing initiatives. A diverse community is vibrant, energetic and worldly.

On sharing, we need to overhaul our environment of Sharing. We need to be more open, more accessible and more inclusive.

Doing well in one out of three is a good start. You can xpect great things from your new city council after March 4. You and I working together can make it three out of three and make Claremont truly a diverse community sharing the good life.

Thank you very much.