Jounalist/writer/researcher. He was professor at Faculty of Business Administration of Aichi Toho University in Nagoya, Japan, from 2001 to 2013 (also dean from 2010 to 2013). Specialized in comparative civil society governance across the world, he wrote 7 books in Japanese.
Born and raised in Japan, he graduated from Meiji University in Tokyo (B. A., western history, 1974) and the University of California at Berkeley (B. S., conservation of natural resources, 1979). After working at PREC Institute, an environmental research institute in Tokyo, he was active as a free-lance journalist based in Tokyo and San Francisco for 20 years. He covered various social issues in the United States, including nonprofit organization and volunteer activities, social and economic impact of the Internet revolution, and multinational/multicultural society. Among his more than a dozen books, the sixth, *From San Francisco: Social Change NPOs* (Ochanomizu Shobo, 2000), received 2001 Research Award from Japan Consumer Cooperative Institute. The book introduced advocacy nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area, which combines social activism of the “left coast” and innovative entrepreneurship of Silicon Valley. Beside writing, he widely speaks and consults for nonprofit audiences/clients. In the 1990s, he organized more than 20 exchange tours for Japanese nonprofit leaders to learn from the American nonprofit sector, as well as three lecture series in Japan inviting American nonprofit experts.
In 2001, he became an associate professor at Aichi Toho University in Nagoya, Japan. He was promoted to professor in 2009 and Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration in 2010. He taught classes such as nonprofit organization, Internet society, cross-cultural communication, English, and seminar classes. Utilizing his cross-cultural experiences and expertise, he played a head role in organizing international exchange programs at the university. Retired in March 2013, he now focuses on civil societies in Asia.