Ty Hisatomi on the YMCA Spirit, Mind, Body | November 20, 2019

[Music] my name is carrie tyree hisatomi but i go by tai he satomi that's what people know me as a short name i first came to southern oregon in the fall of 1977 and to come to school at that time it was sosc i was coming to school to do a graduate degree at that time called outdoor education and that was i think one of the precursors to the environmental ed and program now that's pretty much one of the uh most well-known degrees graduate degrees here at the sou but i was originally from the san francisco bay area cupertino california went to high school there went to do some i finished my degree at the university at california santa barbara in environmental studies and what brought me to southern oregon was the outdoor education degree because at that time i had just finished working for the national park system at cape cod national seashore and decided to continue my education into an outdoor type of pursuit in vain i really have always felt that the outdoor environment has always been a very neutral environment for kids and people and where people can kind of really figure out who they are but before that i should also say that since this has some bearing to the ymca my first my first connection to the y was as a high school student i was a junior at at cupertino high school and a y director came and spoke to our football team i played football in high school and uh our coach gave him a couple minutes to recruit at that time young young high school boys that would possibly help to work out to volunteer for the y there and you know you're it's pretty awkward stage being a high school student and a football player and all the other stuff that's going on in your mind and what you should be doing but uh the guys the guy's name was doug cannon he was the director and he basically looked at us and to be honest with you i think most of my teammates just didn't really care too much about having a y director there but it really struck a chord with me um he basically kind of said that we that we all have a responsibility to help kids grow and and to find their way and we as athletes uh have a greater responsibility to do that and i never heard it in that way it never was framed that way to me so that year that summer i volunteered at the northwest ymca in cupertino and uh which was kind of interesting because that was probably my first inner well it was my first introduction to the y but what made it so odd was that i was i was a buddhist i was i went to uh buddhist church at the san jose bruce uh uh church and that was if i had any formal religion it was that is going to buddhist church with other japanese-american kids um and uh so that was the introduction to the ymca young men's christian association so from that point in uh basically 19 it had to be 1970 uh take in mind that at that time there were only boys going to y camp i was a camp counselor and so there was really no girls or women in the y except an administrative office nature types of things so even at an early age as a teenager unbeknownst to me that i was seeing the evolution of the y becoming more of a holistic and um non-sectarian type of organization and to me looking back at it now some 50 years later it has we always say that you know will you be on the correct side or the right side of history of making those decisions as some other non-profits have gone other way of of looking at just a focus on christianity a hardcore christian religion or serving males only the why really evolved to serve a the people in general regardless of their beliefs their religion their sex their gender their uh persuasion uh call it you know they they really kind of evolved into an organization as it is now which really is only concerned about people as people and not you know what color they are you know what culture they come from uh even what religion they believe in um i think as a member and a retiree and a board member now of the ashland family ymca i'm i look upon the why as being that organization that really uh looks at the person as a total person as a you know the spirit mind and body and trying to work on all those points and there's really even no thought about you know where you're coming from or or you know what family you're from or if you're male or female if you're a gay lesbian or straight it doesn't really make a difference you are a person and because you are a person you um we at the y try to uh allow you to grow to strengthen the body mind and spirit um in what you do and that's a a very general type of theme but i think that within that theme people can find their own place in their direction of where they want to go for me i've always had this question about religion and and what you should believe in and you know all this stuff and you know if there's a life after death and not to get too religious but i um i believe that there is a greater spirit you know i don't know what form that is i'm still searching for that but the why has helped me to understand that there's a spirit within people and to and to help them grow and do the things that help each other find their way either physically mentally spiritually and there's no pretense of what you should do or shouldn't do you know as long as you respect your friends your neighbors uh your family that's the way the y would like you to see the world i guess but going back to first coming to southern oregon i'm kind of rambling on here i think one of the interesting stories because at that time i didn't know that i was going to still be involved with the y because i was on the track to really to to work in the outdoors be be it a forest ranger or park service ranger or i has also some experience with the outward bound organization so that's where i thought i was going to go but i think one of the interesting things to put a perspective on ashland and southern oregon i can remember my first day at sou at the stevenson union this is a true story it's kind of wasn't funny at the time but it's kind of funny is that i was waiting for my first day of classes and i was in the union having a cup of coffee at one of the tables and i i just uh kind of gestured to this one uh student and uh it was okay to sit here and say yeah fine so we had a great conversation that's my first conversation with an oregonian so to speak and so we talked for about five ten minutes and then also he looked at his watch and said oh i gotta get going i'm late for class and so he got up and he turned to me he says you know by the way i just want to let you know is that you speak english very well and i didn't quite know how to take that at first but then i thought that okay this guy was like welcome to southern oregon you know and and i don't say that as a in a mean way but i just realized that there wasn't really a lot of asians or minorities at on campus at that time and to be honest with you there still really isn't a lot but it has is a growing population and and ashland has always been an environment to um to honor and protect diversity and that's the thing that's the beauty that i would want to see in southern oregon and of course i think you know you don't want to be foolish that a lot of bias and prejudice still does exist and it will probably continue to exist but i think ashland is one of the towns in in southern oregon that are is really going to stand up for uh rights and for diversity and uh and to really uh understand that you know people are people and that's why i'm so blessed to live here in a lot of ways and to really you know work for an organization like the y because it has been that uh organization that promotes and and really um and i agree with uh with uh what they try to what the why tries to present and i've kind of mirrored my life um in that whole um whole uh idea of you know helping people grow helping people understand helping people have some empathy for where other people are coming from you know when i first came to oregon um there were i think there was a uh a couple of let's see what it would have been i think the why evolved from this from the 70s i think into the mid 80s and then it got to a point where it became all-inclusive i don't know how that that direction came but when i came to oregon it was um boys and girls and i don't know how that decision was made that was that was probably during a time when i wasn't involved with the y but i i think that um you know rotary's another you know i'm a rotarian and i always and this kind of goes with a little bit of that story is that uh when i was invited to become a rotarian i was pretty i was a little indignant to be honest with you because i told the the gentleman that was asking me says i asked him why would i ever want to be an organization that has a history of being sexist and racist and he looked back at me like this and and he says okay tai well we are not now and you know you can have those thoughts or you can become a rotarian and help us change and so i think that's the i think that's the attitude that you have to have and i think that there is no question that we are a stronger organization because we are diverse that there's you know men women boys girls uh different ethnicities races cultures uh sexual uh persuasions or whatever you know there's no there's no doubt in my mind that being inclusive is is the way to go and um there is one story i'll share this one story and it was at the prescott ymca in arizona and i was a young director and a and we were struggling i mean we didn't have uh we couldn't pay our payroll taxes and it was a difficult situation but there was a time where a lesbian couple came in my office and said um you know we wanted you know we want a family membership and i said well there's no problem you please join us and i did not know they were a lesbian couple i just i for all i knew i thought they were a mother daughter or whatever but they were and and they said no but you may not understand we want a family membership and we're a lesbian couple and this is back in the 19 you know this is you know late 1980s i guess and prosecute arizona's pretty conservative group or a community and um so i talked with the board and the board you know said you know i think it's your decision to make and i and um and i i i so i approached these uh two women i said you know i i myself don't um know if i totally understand you know where you're coming from as a lesbian couple because i i'm not familiar with it and says but um but you know what i will tell you is that i will support and defend your right to believe that way um and i may not understand it or necessarily agree with it but uh to me your choice is more important and the y is going to honor that and and that was a big step for the y at the time because you know nobody wanted to deal with this whole stuff about um you know same-sex marriages or whatever they wouldn't um and it was new at that time too but again i think the why was on the right side of history of being of taking the way of being inclusive and open and and i think a lot of it is that we don't sometimes understand all that stuff and but um but you know ignorance is a really a big part of some of the problems that we have so we have to try to understand where people are coming from and as we know now he says you know you know people are all going to think differently and we have to respect that and but we're all still people and we can learn from our different beliefs being religious or you know being you know how you believe about marriage or whatever you know if we don't have the take the time to understand about our biases and and try to reveal them a little bit i i think that you know well we're going to still struggle but i think like i said the y has been on the right side it's been always open and we you know we now it's a ymca but we have female executive directors you know i mean that's great you know what we're better for it we're a lot better for it more than other organizations have that kept with a traditional way of looking at things you know and um you know i think uh you know looking back at um at the ashland y and the ashland y has seen so many different um phases you know i think i i believe that the bachelor in hawaii was first established in 1899 here and it has evolved into one of the uh premier single unit rural ymcas in the nation and that was because of you know some wonderful leadership on the board of directors and as well as staff you know lisa molnar in particular it doesn't happen by accident but i think i also have to say that the environment of ashland actually has enabled a ymca like the ashland y to be such a tremendous organization because it probably could not have happened in some other communities and i'll just be real fair with that one because some communities just not would not embrace what the wise is trying to do we are fortunate that most communities and across our nation do and that's why the y has been so successful i feel but i first when i first started here when i graduated i did graduate uh with my degree in a master's degree in outdoor education he said okay what do you do with that now um um i was working in a i had a a intern position at a an architecture studio it was patterson and stewart in medford and i was recruited to work there as an intern with architectural work and uh just so happened that the office manager uh a woman by the name of jan murphy uh was the uh uh janet jan heuners at that time later became jan murphy was seeing or dating one of my mentors mike murphy who was the executive director of the medford y and uh so he um jan wanted me to to meet him because she understood that i had worked for the y in the bay area and mike was very interested in that and he was recruiting trying to recruit some people to help out with the medford y so i interviewed with mike in the basement of the ashland ymca it was not where the y is now it was i think it's one of the office buildings on the main street of ashland street there and i was interviewing him with him in the child care center and i remember this distinctly it was a very interesting interview because you know we were sitting on like kids chairs and there was actually a a rabbit a loose rabbit running around you know around our feet and everything and and i think at that time uh pat flannery was the director of the ashland y mike was the director of the medford wine he uh offered to let since i lived in ashland to interview me there and it was a it was a good interview but i i think the one of the more uh uh poignant or memorable things that i'll that i'll recall about that interview is that i told mike i said um and and uh mike murphy i believe went to a jesuit school too in southern california so he had a christian type of background um and i i said you know i'll just be real honest with you i was raised buddhist and i'm not really sure about this jesus and christian thing and how um i i'm not sure if i totally accept all that and he looked at me and i thought that was going to be the deal breaker as far as okay now you're not going to get the job because you know you're not you know you're not a christian or you know you're not leaning that way and and mike looked at me and i'll remember that he said you know ty in our day and age [Music] i believe the words he said is that it doesn't make much sense for us to argue if the virgin mary was a virgin or not what's important and what the why should be doing is figuring out how we can raise kids teach kids to lead a life that is is full that is uh full of compassion and so that they can raise their themselves so that they can be a contributing part of society and not a part that takes from society that's what the y mission is and i thought about that and i said yeah i can get behind that and so that summer i worked as their day camp director at the medford y i worked for the medford y for about eight years and really was a very formative time in my life i met my dear wife lauren not through the y but through through going to school here but she actually worked for the ashland y at the time as a day camp leader so it was a a way to to continue uh my search as far as um a job and and a way to pursue um a lifestyle that you know you look back at things now and you think about well how did you get to where you are and and i and i i would have to say that you know it wasn't all a big plan i think things just happened things just kind of fell in place um i i i would i would have to you know credit myself a little bit for working hard and and trying to be true to a core mission of uh trying to help people uh trying to do the best we can um understanding that you know i'm never going to be a rich man uh but wealth is measured in a lot of different ways and i think i'm very wealthy in the sense of of um friends of of integrity of honor of trying to be true to just trying to help people out and from that of course very selfishly i get that help back as far as understanding my role and being purposeful and what i try to do so from that i you know working at the medford y i um my wife and i took a lawrence we actually applied to work to go overseas to japan and work at that time it was the mombusho english fellows program it was uh uh native speakers of english from new zealand uh united states australia england uh native speaking countries to have an english speaker in each classroom in japan it's now called the jet program and so going there another ymca connection i am a sance which is a third generation japanese american my parents were nisei which were second generation and my grandparents were ise first generation so i understood that i had relatives in japan but i have no more you know regarded myself as a japanese japanese you know i was an amer japanese american and so going to japan to actually see uh visit some of my relatives and and understanding all the weird japanese quirks i have kind of made it full circle but the funny thing or the interesting thing is that i finally was able to connect with one of my cousins and her name and nobuko watanabe and it was interesting because i was really reticent to speak to her because i didn't know if nobuco understood any english but when i called her she spoke perfect english and i go oh my gosh where did you learn how to speak english he says well i learned at the kyoto ymca so again there was another connection there so anyway i had a great time in japan we came back and i was all ready to come back came back to uh um ashland and i was already enrolled in um uh education classes here at that uh it was uh i think is i know it was sou at that time still sosc i believe so anyway came back here i was in my first week of classes to become a teacher and then i got a phone call from another friend who said that there is a ymca that is in need of an executive director in prescott arizona and so um i um i said what the heck you know i went interviewed and it was a y that was in um it was in uh dire dire need of of of some help and so i spent five years as the executive director at the prescott ymca and through the help of some really incredible board members and people we established a new ymca there and it's flourishing y right now i then went to was recruited to come back to oregon and was the director of the klamath county ymca and uh so i worked there for five years and to be fair with you the folks of klamath falls were great folks but it was a real difficult uh tour of uh duty so to speak for for me as a y director so i was able to to work there for five years i felt that i left the place the better that i found it but after a very tough five years of trying to build that y up i thought it was time to pack her up and move on so to speak and so i did and my wife and i basically traveled the western part of the united states out of our little pickup truck and uh and to be honestly i just try to find my smile because you know working as a ymca director there is no other job quite like it and i don't think anybody will ever understand it i mean everybody can say this about their own uh vocation or their career but there's so much involved as a y director you have to be a counselor you have to be a business expert you have to be a leader all these different things have to understand people and sometimes it's a difficult job and you have the right fit and sometimes it doesn't work out so well and i look back at that as a learning experience but fortunately i got to come back another ymca connection a guy named jeff hanson he used to be the manager at the mount ashland ski area camping at fish lake one day said hey come back to ashland and be our development director for the mount ashland so i did that for five years and so i had the great experience of working for mount ashland which is a tremendous organization so i got to fulfill one of my young man's dreams of becoming a to work for a ski area but i was pretty much an office boy and i wasn't out there you know guarding the slopes or saving people's lives i was in there you know behind trying to you know look at a development some development work and fundraising for the ski area so yeah it goes on from that point of being asked to come back to the medford y at that time a director by the name of mike cronin had i had worked with wanted me to come and work as a development director of which i did and then in the meantime you know going back you know lisa and i had lisa molnar we first pretty much started our y careers together as uh young staff members she asked me to to come to back to the ashland why so full circle uh came here and um i i believe it was 2010 to work as their development director and had the good fortune of of seeing how that why has just progressed under her leadership and the leadership of an incredible board and you know looking how this why is uh you know everybody talks about how it has 30 percent 36 percent of the uh maybe even greater than that of the population of of this whole region that's uh uh part of their part of their whole membership you know and uh um yeah it's it's it's crazy how uh every every not everybody of course but how so many people in ashland have been touched by the ashland y and as a board member now um and i work out there you know you can just see what happens um and of course as i age now you see how important those connections are for for people you know you go through these different transitions and phases in life as a infant child and you know growing up as an adolescent yeah you know all these different phases and i won't spend the time to try to explain all of them because i think we're all trying to figure that out in a lot of ways i i see now especially here in my 60s how important that connection is to have with your community and people and especially for myself and my wife we do not have children and if there's some regrets that i will have as i get older it may be that i don't have kids but i am told by people who do have kids that you shouldn't have any regrets in a lot of ways but that's neither here or there i think the ultimate uh growth and purpose of any individual is to be a father or mother and i i can't say that i've done that so i take my hat off to all the parents in the world because it's not an easy job just being around little kids and and some nephews and nieces i get that but you know so anyway uh but as a as a as a aging person you understand how those uh connections uh physical and mental uh spiritual connections of uh being around other people are are so important because that is uh that's really going to uh um enhance and really dictate a quality of life that a person will have i think uh it's so sad to to see uh people aging people kind of living in isolation and losing their connection to the human side and to me that is a tragedy and i i really feel that organizations like the y um can keep that connection to keep people connected together to talk because it's people who help people you know i mean that's we can depend on a lot of different things to get us through the day but it's really other people your family your friends those connections that you make are really what gets you through the day and uh and people can't pretend that that that that isn't true i believe if there's some truth that i know it's that is that people need people and uh um and we need to kind of help each other get get through because it's it's tough out there you know and uh your attitude is really important but there's there's some issues that are that you just need to get through and it's going to be a warm hand or a hand on the shoulder that gets you through the day and i think that's what the y provides in a lot of ways and and i will always think that you know i mentioned it before but the why made the decision to be on the correct or the right side of history to become open to become all inclusive to become an organization that is going to focus on your potential and not on your past i mean it's it's uh we're not a perfect organization by any means but we we strive to do the very best we can within the parameters of the mission of the y um you know to to help people grow and body mind and spirit you know i look back at little kids and if you've ever watched a kid you know learn how to swim or that first day a kid is you know in day camp trying a new skill like kicking a ball we i've understood it to be a term growth through crisis and crises you know we think crisis has a really bad negative thing but really crisis is a pretty good thing stress sometimes is a pretty good thing because it it it allows us to figure out who we are you know and what the why does is that you know when you teach a kid how to swim you're not going to just throw a kid and watch them hear [Music] she or he flounder in the water you have a guiding hand that's going to help you learn and you grow through this process of learning the new skill you know learning how to swim learning how to kick a soccer ball you know learning how to um you know hike up a mountain trail or learning about the world around you i mean but all these new experiences puts kids and people in an uncomfortable situation and i think being uncomfortable sometimes is how we learn but it's it's the way that that learning is directed now you can you know have some real jerk so to speak and and uh you know kind of always you know point down or talking down to you saying how come you can't do this or that right well that's not going to really help anybody learn adult or child you need that encouragement but you know you need a little tough love too to get a person to understand their potential as best they can but you know on the other side too it's not just always oh this encouragement i think what the why does is is understand that you know you are responsible for your own learning you know and we try to not to make any bones about it if you know kids do something wrong or say something that's hurtful they need to take they need to own that and then hopefully they need to correct that so that they don't make those types of decisions and in going back to decisions you know i'm kind of working with a lot of young people right now and seeing how they have not made the best decisions in their life but how do you make good decisions and i'm not smart enough to figure out okay this is how you make those decisions but i think through process of going through these activities at the y working with you know leadership and young adults that really want to help kids and they see themselves mirrored in the in the kids that are growing i think [Music] that's how you make those good decisions i think that you learn by other people and because you know face it sometimes we don't really listen to people i mean you could you can be there at the tender age of 10 years old making some bad decisions and having your parent or another aunt or uncle lecture you but you know you're going to learn by your own decisions and you if you can do that with a with a guiding hand great a little forgiveness helps now and then but also just learning how to make some decisions to navigate a pretty crazy world and i think that's what we try to do at the y but you know my story still continues and you know i think that having a major health setback uh last year and and being able to recover from that has really um put a different perspective on on life for me and it's if anything it's helped me um understand that uh i think i am on the right track as far as um you know being with the organization that um is uh looking at uh trying to um improve the uh the situation and understanding that there's a a lot of people that are struggling right now you know i my wife and i hug ourselves every night saying you know we are so fortunate but we understand that we are fortunate but we worked hard to to be in the position we are and what we try to do is to allow others to try to have those same experiences and those same positive opportunities that we had as uh as ymca director and her as a elementary school teacher so um it all continues and uh um don't know what else quite more to add to that [Music] but as far as ashland goes we i spent a good part of my younger life looking for the perfect town to live in and i've i've traveled many miles and i always wind up back here in ashland oregon there's still a lot of issues that i think we we struggle with here in town or in oregon in general but what i've always appreciated about oregon is the ability to [Music] to talk with each other to to try to understand different points of views and i think in our very contentious world these days with some of the political events that are going on are very troubling but i do feel that as an oregonian as a southern oregon going in that it's important that we still be open as the why is to welcome different different ideas different thoughts but they'll tear each other out i think we can kind of learn a lot from each other i think you have to stand your ground um but also you have to be open that you know just take that perspective of that other person now and then and i'm not saying that you're going to be convinced or whatever to to believe in something different but i think you always have to be open and i think that that openness um and that just that little crack in everybody's you know thick skin can can maybe uh um you know help us understand that we're all in this together and you know we wake up every morning and um you know it's it it's uh it takes a little work to get through the day but uh you know with the help from other people and and uh you know a hand now and then and or some encouragement i think we get through there but we have to start talking to each other and i think the y is a perfect uh venue for that because you know everybody that walks in that door they have a different story and you know we have a very i feel a really great board a great staff and as diverse as we can be here in in oregon which we could probably stand a little bit more diversity as far as different cultures different ethnicities different languages around um and that and that is a challenge um but the the environment um is open uh for that type of of a human connection here in in southern oregon and ashland especially and that's why it's such a remarkable place to live we have some work to do but um i think i think it's a great place to to uh to start and um the y has been a big part of that and i think you know if you look at the assets of our community shakespeare of course is one the college is another the ymca mount ashland um we have we have it all in this in the sense of being a community that's vital that's growing that is understanding and that's well connected [Music] you