America: Land Of Opportunity -- March 9, 2025

Locator: 48477CHAO.

Bio:

• Elaine Lan Chao, waishengren: b. 1953, two years younger than I am. Born in Taipei, Taiwan.
• eight years of age: emigrated to the US, 37-day freight ship journey along with mother and two younger sisters
• eldest of six daughters
• Elaine raised on Long Island (Queens)
• her father had arrived in NYC three years earlier; had sent money until the rest of the family could join him in the US
• spoke no English upon arrival in US; father worked three jobs; five-member family lived in a one-bedroom apartment
• high school in an Asian community in Nassau County; student body 49% minority; 51% white; 42% Asian; 0.7% African-American; 10% eligible for free-lunch program
• her father: founds the Foremost Group, an American shipping company based in NYC
• naturalized US citizen at age 19
• education:
  
• undergraduate degree Mount Holyoke College: a highly elite private women's liberal arts college
• BA in Economics
• second semester of her junior year: studied money and banking at Dartmouth College
• Harvard MBA; about 1975
• early career:
• worked in financial institutions before taking senior US government positions
• established firsts in many of these senior government positions
• rose to senior positions in BofA (San Francisco); Citicorp in NY
• government:
• DOT: Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush
• chair of the Federal Maritime Commission (1988 - 1989; 35 years old)
• deputy secretary DOT (1989 - 1991; 36 years old)
• director, Peace Corps (1991 - 1992)
• expanded the Peace Corps' presence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia by establishing the first Peace Corps programs in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, including the first Peace Corps programs in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Russial
• president, United Way (1993 - 1996; 40 years old)
• continues to advance in government positions; played the long game
  
• personal life:
• married US Senator Mitch McConnell, 1993 -- forty years old
• other:
• described by NYT: "unapologetically ambitious"
• her father and extended family has contributed millions of dollars to political campaigns
• rolodex: served on boards of several Fortune 500 and nonprofits
• including ChargePoint, since 2021
• extended family: major contributors to Harvard Business School

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DOT 

Rolodex: ChargePoint, since 2021

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ChargePoint

ChargePoint (CHPT) not meeting listing requirements.

Link here.

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Trump And Chao 

It never quits: based in part on Foremost's Pacific-Rim trade, former US President Donald Trump referred to James Chao's daughter, Elaine Chao, labelled the Taiwan-born U.S. citizen as a "China lover." 

More Fox News: In early March, 2025, Trump named the last of his appointees to the Kennedy Center board: Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo: two Fox News personalities. Bartiromo not yet on the Kennedy Center web page; Ingraham is listed.

This is really quite a list: link here.

Honorary chairs: first ladies of all living presidents.

Officers of the Board

• Chair: President Donald J. Trump
• President: Richard Grenell (first openly gay Cabinet member in US history)
• day job: Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions
• prior to current day job, 2020 - 2024:
  

Would have never guessed: in August 2020, the American Center for Law and Justice announced that Grenell had been named Special Advisor for National Security and Foreign Policy. That month, Grenell became a senior advisor to the Republican National Committee, focusing on outreach to LGBT voters.

Members: an astounding list of movers, shakers, and big names within government; a Who's Who of American bigwigs.