ADVANCING AREAA’S INFLUENCE
Allen M. Okamoto Immediate Past Chair, AREAA By BUCK WARGO Allen M. Okamoto is giving the term “enterprise” a whole new meaning. When Okamoto announced during his installation speech as president of Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA) that he wanted to “boldly go where no man has gone before,” he wasn’t referring to the Starship Enterprise. Instead, Okamoto, broker-owner of the Bay Area’s T. Okamoto & Company, says he was referring to his vision of increasing homeownership within the Asian-American and Pacific-American communities. “I was trying to get a message across in a humorous way,” Okamoto says. “I meant I wanted to take Asians where they haven’t been before—to national prominence. There has never been a national Asian real estate association and, because of our numbers, we have to have a unifying Asian voice. It has been an underserved segment of the market. … We are now trying to elevate ourselves to have a voice.”
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Spring 2008
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I wanted to take Asians where they haven’t been before -to national prominence.
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