Dear KAPS members and friends,

I am pleased to announce the KAPS officer team for 2010-2011. Every member has contributed to our organization in a countless number of ways and easily deserves special recognition.

In order to best represent our team, please allow me to introduce each one of our officers.

Best,

Hana Marcus Kim
President, 2010-2011

Hana Kim is currently a User Interface Designer for the software consulting firm RedWhale Software, where he refines and redesigns client products to be more intuitive and easy to use.

Hana was born in the greater DC-Baltimore metropolitan area, and spent his entire life there before attending UC Berkeley as a Electrical Engineering and Computer Science major. After completing his undergraduate education in 2006, he moved to San Mateo, where he still resides.

As an officer in KAPS, Hana would like to help Korean American individuals develop strong connections that allow them to tap into the ever-growing Korean American community.

In his free time, Hana loves to play tennis, basketball, and rugby, and is a firm believer that laughter is the best medicine. Plus or minus clapping.

Andrew Dae-Hyun Ko is a Marketing Manager with Lincoln Financial Advisors, a high-end financial planning company. He graduated from UC-Berkeley (Go Bears!) as a Mechanical Engineering major, but decided he was more interested in pursuing a career in financial planning and marketing.

Andrew was born in upstate New York and lived in the East Coast until he was ten. He lived in Singapore, arguably the cleanest and most efficient country in the world, for two and a half years before graduating from Cupertino High School, home of the Pioneers.

While attending UC-Berkeley, Andrew spent two years learning the Korean language and immersing himself in Korean-American culture. He was an officer of the Korean American Student Organization (KASO), which led to his involvement in KAPS. As a KAPS officer, he has helped organize several events and has contributed to the growth of KAPS' Generation Y membership.

In his spare time, Andrew enjoys playing and watching sports and spending time with friends and family. He is an active member of his church and volunteers with multiple organizations.

JinUk is currently working as a project manager for Advantel, Inc. He manages projects - specifically projects revolving around the implementation of telecommunications integrations, but anything else for that matter. In fact, skills used at Advantel, Inc. were also used to write this very biography. Truely, work and life intersect in multiple ways for JinUk.

JinUk was born in Taegu, South Korea and immigrated into the United States at the age of 3. He has visited and lived through various parts of the United States, but the majority of his life has been spent in the Bay Area. He obtained his BA in Cognitive Science from the University of California, Berkeley. There, he was involved in various organizations, with a particular passion for the Asian Political Association, serving as a chair person for both the Issues and Networking committees.

As a member of KAPS since 2007, JinUk has come to appreciate both the social and community activities KAPS has become involved in. As an officer of KAPS, JinUk will be dedicated to working with organizations outside of KAPS as well as members within in order to create a stronger sense of community as a whole. By giving more Korean American Professionals the opportunities to network and develop a stronger base, JinUk hopes to be at the front of developing this network.

For fun, JinUk enjoys a good book, a good game of football, a good stand-up comedian, or any other type of activity involving the entertainment of JinUk. JinUk does not enjoy speaking in the third person, nor does JinUk enjoy the torturing of small animals. Obviously, he takes himself too seriously. Jason Han does not like that.

Min Lee is currently information systems professional at Amgen Inc, the world's largest biotechnology company, managing Amgen's external partner collaborations as they work to conduct clinical trials and bring therapeutic drugs to market. While he longs for the days when he actually developed computer programs, these days, he tends to baby-sit, send emails, and attend too many meetings.

Min graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Chemistry. However, Min decided to rebel and pursue his interests in information technology. His experiences has brought him to work in various roles/positions in the IT field from programming to managing development teams and IT project implementations. He has also worked in various company environments, from small startups to medium-sized firms to a Fortune 500 corporation.

Min moved to San Francisco in 2007 and found KAPS to be a great organization to connect with other Korean Americans. He hopes to contribute to KAPS by focusing on ways to help KAPS members grow professionally. Given his years, he feels that he's made lots of mistakes that other KAPS members could learn from and take advantage of ;)

In his spare time, Min tries to take advantage of San Francisco's great weather with outdoor activities such as bike riding and playing tennis. He also has interests in music, listening to his headphone collection and attending concerts at SF Symphony Hall as time allows.

Dennis Kwon is currently a Mechanical Engineer/Associate Producer working at small Mechanical Special Effect Television Production Company in San Francisco. At one time, he has also worked as an Aerospace Engineer for a satellite/spacecraft company.

Dennis graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in Mechanical Engineer as well as minors in both Mathematics and Economics. After working in NYC for a few years, Dennis moved to San Francisco to begin his career of sending “stuff” into space. After traveling around here and there for a bit, he then returned to San Francisco to begin a career in blowing “stuff” up in the name of science.

In 2009, Dennis became a member of KAPS and discovered a great group of professionals as well as a great group of friends. He hopes to contribute as KAPS Community Service Officer by sharing his experiences learned here and abroad.
Please, contact us, if you have any suggestions for a KAPS Community Service project.

Kristine Ko is a UC Davis graduate that was teaching English in Korea from Aug 2008-September 2009. Since coming back to the U.S., she has been searching for a job which has not been easy provided the current job market. Her interests are in finance and marketing, but she is also looking at other fields such as education.

Kristine’s experience living in Korea for a year is what motivated her to become active in KAPS. She had an amazing time there, learning about the culture, the people, and living abroad in such an awesome setting. She wants to continue to connect with people who share that same passion for learning and understanding their culture.

As a KAPS officer, Kristine hopes to organize many fun opportunities for members to interact and expand both their professional and social networks. It is her main goal to make sure everyone has a good time!

In her spare time, which is now all the time, Kristine enjoys meeting up with friends for movies, meals, tennis, and crafts. Dancing and singing are also two of her favorites! She also spends a lot of time taking care of Rusty, her four year-old jack russell terrier. Kristine is an over-all enthusiastic extremely person whose motto is “work hard, play harder,” actually scratch that, it’s just “play harder.”

Jason is currently working at a online market research firm called MarketTools as an account manager for the subscriptions based accounts. Because he does not like talking about work, he will end the work paragraph and begin the next paragraph after this sentence.

Jason was born in Korea. He spent the first half of his life in various locations in southern California, and he spent the other half mostly in the Silicon Valley, namely Cupertino. He graduated from Cupertino High School in 2002 and went on to UC Berkeley where he majored in Business Administration. He recently graduated in May 2006, and now currently resides in Richmond.

As an officer of KAPS, Jason's main focus is to increase the number of younger members by pushing for KAPS to be more active in the younger Korean American Community. He sees a great opportunity for younger and older Korean American professionals to interact and learn from each other in order to unite towards a stronger network of Korean American professionals.

In his spare time, Jason watches a lot of tv and movies. He also always up to party, play sports, go "no rae bang"ing. He likes Korean food, The Los Angeles Lakers and people who likes Korean food/the Lakers. He dislikes the New England Patriots, the Boston celtics, and people who take themselves too seriously.