Expand<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Susan Redfield, Sister Cities president, said, \u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to welcome Doug. His track record will accelerate our work across all of our Sister Cities as we prepare to launch our ninth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said Erber\u2019s hiring will strengthen the city\u2019s international ties and will open doors for cultural exchange, education and economic opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis hiring marks an exciting new chapter in advancing the city\u2019s role on the global stage, especially with the coming of the Olympics to Southern California in 2028,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n
Mary Barton, a longtime Sister Cities supporter, said this was the right time for a leader with a professional background in the international arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can feel proud of what our volunteers have done, for sure,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\u2019s a changing world, and it\u2019s best to be savvy about how we approach it. When the Olympic athletes and their fans descend on Long Beach from around the world, it will be great to have our own cadre of seasoned \u2018global citizens\u2019 to greet these visitors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since President Dwight Eisenhower founded the national Sister Cities program in the 1950s, its mission has been citizen diplomacy, Barton said. \u201cIt seems to me that the world needs that type of people-to-people relationship more than ever right now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Erber, a Long Beach resident and former president and executive director of the Japan America Society of Southern California, said he was excited about working to increase international understanding, friendship and global cultural awareness in Long Beach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m passionate about building international partnerships and meaningful relationships among the citizens of Long Beach and citizens of Sister Cities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Erber was born in Hollywood, but his family moved to Huntington Beach where he graduated from Huntington Beach High School.<\/p>\n
He began working on developing his international skills at an early age. When he was 18, he applied for a student ambassador exchange program through the Sister Cities Association of Huntington Beach with the city of Anjo in Japan. Anjo is located near Nagoya and not too far from Yokkaichi, Long Beach\u2019s first sister city.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people of Japan touched me,\u201d Erbe told me. \u201cI eventually learned to speak Japanese and taught English at middle schools in Anjo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked the greatest thing that happened to him since his first Sister City exchange in 1984, Erber quickly replied, \u201cI met my wife, Mieko, through Sister Cities! She was born and raised in Anjo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erber graduated from Cal State Long Beach and eventually began his long career with the Japan America Society of Southern California.<\/p>\n
When the Great East Earthquake struck Japan in 2011, Erber and the Japan America Society launched a Japan Relief Fund to raise disaster funds for victims.<\/p>\n
The quake and resulting Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster resulted in more than 19,000 deaths. The epicenter of the 9.1-magnitude quake was 80 miles off Japan\u2019s coast and resulted in tsunami waves that wiped out much of Japan\u2019s Northeast coast.<\/p>\n
In 2021 Erber was awarded Japan\u2019s rare Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays, for his decades of contributions to cross-cultural understanding, social affairs and international goodwill.<\/p>\n
The award, a beautiful medal, was to be presented in person by the Emperor of Japan, but because of travel restrictions brought about by COVID-19, Eber received the award in Los Angeles from Akira Muto, consul general of Japan in LA.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the greatest honor in my life,\u201d Erber said. \u201cI consider Japan my second country. What I did there changed my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erber and his wife have two children: Ryan, a graduate of the Sato Academy of Mathematics and Science in Long Beach who is now at Stanford University, and Katherine, a student at the Sato Academy of Mathematics and Science.<\/p>\n
Of all the public high schools in Long Beach, it seems fitting that the Erber children attended Sato Academy named after the Japanese-American Eunice Sato.<\/p>\n
She served as mayor of Long Beach in the early 1980s when the job was rotated among the council members and before it became an elected position. Sato was the first female mayor of Long Beach. She passed in 2021 at the age of 99.<\/p>\n
Erber said he is looking forward to finding ways to strengthen the Long Beach Sister Cities program.<\/p>\n
\u201cFundraising will be one of my top jobs,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can lift all the boats in the Sister Cities so they can all thrive together. Long Beach is a great global city, so diverse and culturally active. I love this opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here are the Long Beach Sister cities<\/p>\n
Yokkaichi, Japan (the oldest, started in 1963)
\nQingdao, China
\nSochi, Russia
\nPhnom Penh, Cambodia
\nMombasa, Kenya
\nTaoyuan, Taiwan
\nBacolod, Philippines
\nLa Paz, Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Erber encourages donations to support Sister Cities of Long Beach by clicking online: sistercitiesoflongbeach.org<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How many people do you know who have been awarded the prestigious \u201cOrder of the Rising Sun, Gold…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,23,131,133,132,137,741],"class_list":{"0":"post-33272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-long-beach","11":"tag-long-beach-headlines","12":"tag-long-beach-news","13":"tag-los-angeles-county","14":"tag-rich-archbold-columns"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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