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With her BS in Environmental and Occupational Health from CSU, Northridge, Akiko began her career in the
Deparment of Health Service (Environmental Heallth) program as a Registered Environmental Health Specialist inspecting apartments and restaurants for health code violations. Since then, she became a staff trainer for Environmental Health and conducted (and continues to conduct) various food safety related training for Environmental Health. In 2002, she obtained her Masters in Public Health degree from UC Los Angeles in Health Education and Health Promotion and was promoted to manager of the Public Health Training Unit in the
Department of Public Health Office of Organizational Development and Training where she managed various training projects such as HIPAA, Customer Service, New Hire Orientation, Core Functions of Public Health, Succession Planning, and Leadership training for the Departments' almost 4,000 employees. In June, 2007 Akiko transferred to the Alcohol and Drug Program Administration and has been able to bring all of her experiences together to work on projects associated with special initiatives, such as the development of a Co-Occurring Disorder Treatment Program with the Department of Mental Health and implementing process improvement models into provider agencies.
Akiko has held many positions and has been active as treasurer, secretary, president, awards committe chair, in various organizations in the past and present. Currently, she is Past Chair of the American Society for Quality, Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Division and advisory member to the Japan External Trade Organization and Japanese Restaurant Association. In 2002, Akiko was instrumental in chairing the California Environmental Health Association's annual conference. She also teaches as a part-time lecturer at CSULA in subjects such as Environmental Racism, Health Science for School Teachers K-12, and General Environmental Health.
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