Industrial & Engineering Technology: Information Technology Coordinator
Industrial & Engineering Technology
Information Technology Coordinator:
Kazuo Chambers
by Mike Yoshiura
For a teenager, fitting in means everything.
Kazuo Chambers moved to Hawaii not knowing where he fit in but what he eventually found, was paradise.
Kazuo, or Kaz moved to Hawaii with his family to attend his freshman year at Radford High School. His father was in the military so his family moved around a lot before they settled down in Hawaii.
"Actually, moving to Hawaii was easy for me. I'm hapa, right, so I'm half Japanese. It was actually much more difficult living in certain places on the mainland. They don't see too many Japanese people in Texas," said Chambers, as his face lit up with a smile. "They would look at me, and they thought I was Mexican or Indian. Actually, coming to Hawaii was really relaxing for me. I felt like I was at home."
The New Kid On The Block
Kaz was born in Illinois, but his family lived in Japan, California, and Texas before they moved to Hawaii in 1976. You could say he was familiar with being the new kid on the block. "Coming here you don't know where you fit in. Normally you come to a new place, and everyone's got their group of friends and things that they're interested in. Being the new person you don't really fit in."
The Turning Point
Kaz's family lived on the Hickam Air Force Base. About two weeks after moving onto the base, Kaz received an invitation to go to Makapuu beach with one of the kids from his neighborhood. "I knew right then that this was it! I borrowed a pair of his old fins that really didn't fit; and I actually lost one of the fins, so I felt really bad about that. It was a beautiful day, the sun was out, it was warm, the water was great, it wasn't big, and I knew right then that this was where I belonged."
A Day At A Time
Kaz made new friends and he defined his identity, yet he struggled to maintain his grades. "High school was not my better years… academically I was kind of a goof off. Really!! I spoke to my counselor when I was getting ready to graduate; and of course, I was a know-it-all high school kid so I thought, well… maybe I'd go to college. In shock they were like, 'what??' I struggled academically and my grades weren't the best. Just the thought of me going to college took them by surprise. I loved going to the beach, and I took everything day by day. I just goofed off."
I Once Was Lost…
After high school, Kaz spent the next five years attending school part time at Leeward Community College (LCC). "I figured I could get a part-time job because I knew I didn't want to go to school full time. The only problem was I didn't really have any skills. I wanted to go to the beach all the time, but I needed gas money to get there so I knew I had to get a job."
…But Now I'm Found
After a five-year stint at LCC, Kaz transferred to the University of Hawai'i Manoa on a part-time basis while he worked menial jobs and made time for the beach. He found part-time work at the former Castle Park and with a landscaping company, but in his heart he knew he wasn't on the right path. He spent another five years at UH before he finally graduated with a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science.
Working menial jobs brought Kaz to one conclusion. "You're working a lot, you're working hard, but you're making very little money. I knew I needed a way of making a living, and I knew education was the path I needed to follow. I knew I needed to hurry up and finish school. At the time, I would look in the newspaper, and there were a lot of accounting jobs. I was working toward an accounting degree, and one semester I took an ICS 100 class and it was like going to the beach all over again. That one class changed everything for me. I knew this was where I wanted to be. It's just the idea of technology and computers that seemed like really cool stuff."
It would take almost a decade to finish college, but Kaz stuck it out and he made what seemed like a far-fetched dream into a reality. Today, Kaz, otherwise known as Professor Chambers, is the Information Technology Coordinator at LCC. And as fate may have it, he teaches the same ICS 100 class that changed everything for him. If it's one thing he learned throughout all of his struggles, it's that if there's a will, there's definitely a way to get there!
"Bumming a ride, catching the bus, even when there wasn't a way there, we found a way to get there."