Japan America Society of Colorado

Contact: Dilek Eccles

1625 Broadway, Suite 680 Denver, CO 80202 Tel: (303) 592-5364 E-mail: info@jascolorado.org http://www.jascolorado.org/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JAPANS AMBASSADOR TO SPEAK IN DENVER:

Japan: Where we are going
His Excellency Ichiro Fujisaki will present a keynote speech at the ColoradoYamagata 25th Anniversary Celebration Luncheon sponsored by Japan America Society of Colorado
Event: Luncheon marking 25 years of Colorado and Yamagata Sister State relationship Date: Saturday, August 6 Time: Registration from 11:30 a.m. Lunch from 12:00 p.m. Place: Brown Palace Hotel, Grand Ballroom 321 17th Street, Denver Cost: $35 students, $45 JASC members/educators, $60 non-members Contact: JASC at 303-592-5364 or info@jascolorado.org for reservations and additional details Denver, CO, (July 28-2011) The Japan America Society of Colorado (JASC) has announced that Japanese Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki will be in Denver August 6 to mark the 25th Anniversary Celebration luncheon honoring the Colorado-Yamagata sister-state relationship. The event will also feature a high-level delegation from Yamagata including its Vice Governor Takashi Takahashi and Kozo Taira, Chair of the Yamagata Prefectural Assembly (State Senate). In 1984, then governor of Yamagata came to Colorado on a mission to advance international relations in the Tohoku (Northern Japan) region. As a result, the opportunities for a sister-state relationship increased, and after government officials from both Colorado and Yamagata exchanged correspondence and visits, the State of Colorado and Yamagata Prefecture entered into their sister-state relationship by signing a sister-state agreement on December 2, 1986. Since that time, Yamagata and Colorado have regularly hosted cultural, educational, and business exchanges for both youth and adults. The noon luncheon will be held at the Brown Palace Hotel, and the public is invited to attend. Contact JASC at 303-592-5364 or info@jascolorado.org for reservations and additional details.

This is the first time Ambassador Fusjisaki has visited Colorado since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan, where efforts continue to rebuild. The Japan America Society of Colorado is donating more than $120,000 raised on Colorado directly to the Tohoku region. Yamagata Prefecture, located in the Tohoku Region, has been supporting the hardest hit neighboring prefectures. Ichiro Fujisaki served as the political minister of the Embassy of Japan in Washington, DC, from 1995-99 and became Ambassador of Japan to the United States in 2008, but his association with the United States goes back much farther. It started with a year in the early 1960s as a junior high school student in Seattle, Washington. He also studied one year each at Brown University and Stanford University Graduate School in the early 1970s. Fujisaki was a research associate at IISS (International Institute for Strategic Studies) in London from 1987-88. He taught as a lecturer of International Relations at Sophia University in Tokyo from 1991-95. Since his arrival, he has spoken at Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown, SAIS, Stanford, Yale, and Brigham Young University as well as at several think-tanks in Washington, DC, such as the Brookings Institution, AEI, Carnegie Endowment, CSIS, and Stimson Center. He speaks English and French fluently. As a diplomat, he has also served in Jakarta, Paris (OECD), and London. Prior to his current post, he served as Ambassador to the UN and to the WTO in Geneva. While there, he served as the Chairman of the Executive Committee of UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees). In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo, he has held such posts as Deputy Director-General for Asian Affairs and Director-General for North American Affairs before being appointed as the Deputy Foreign Minister. He has also served as the Sherpa, or the personal representative, of the Prime Minister to G8 Summit meetings. His wife Yoriko attended kindergarten at Ben Murch in Washington, DC. Their two daughters also attended school in the Washington area. The elder daughter Mari graduated from Stone Ridge High School in Bethesda, MD. The younger daughter Emi studied at the same school as well as at Somerset Elementary School in Montgomery County, MD. Both daughters now work as journalists in Japan.

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