George Ariyoshi

George Ryoichi Ariyoshi (有 吉 良 一Japanese, Ryoichi Ariyoshi, born March 12, 1926 in Honolulu, Hawaii ) is a former American politician (Democratic Party). He was the third Governor of the U.S. state of Hawaii.

Career

George Ariyoshi was born in 1926 in Honolulu and is the first American of Japanese descent, who held the office of governor in the United States. At the end of the Second World War he served as interpreter at the Military Intelligence Service of the U.S. Army in Japan. After the war he first attended the University of Hawaii and then the Michigan State University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. Then Ariyoshi was elected to the House of Representatives of the Hawaii Territory, four years later in the territorial Senate and finally after joining the Union in the state Senate. In 1973 he was elected to the office of Lieutenant Governor; In the same year he took over as acting tasks of the diseased governor John A. Burns, whom he took for the rest of his term. In 1974, he won then even the gubernatorial elections with 54.6 percent of the vote to Republican Randolph Crossley; 1978 and 1982 he succeeded each re-election.

As Governor, he had chaired the Western Governors ' Conference in 1978 and the first chairman of the newly established Western Governors' Association in 1984 and 1985. Moreover, he was a member and president of the Pacific Basin Development Council and a member of the Standing Committee of the Pacific Islands Conference. He also belonged to the 1969 House of Delegates of the American Bar Association on, was president of the Hawaii Bar Association, the Hawaii Bar Foundation and the Military Intelligence Service Veterans Club. As a businessman, he was Corporate Director of First Hawaiian Bank, Honolulu Gas Company and the Hawaiian Insurance and Guaranty Company. After he had left his public service, he joined the law firm Ing & Kawashima, specializing in international consulting transactions between Hawaii and the United States.

The Michigan State University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1979.