HuffPost Greatest Person Of The Day: George Namkung And The Climb That Changed His Life

Huffington Post   
May 3rd, 2011

Credit: wwarby / Flickr

By Lucas Kavner

The phrase “He’s seen it all” isn’t usually taken literally. But for George Namkung, founder of the California-based nonprofit Kids of Kilimanjaro it holds a certain weight.

Born in 1942 in Shanghai, during a time of civil war and the looming threat of communist rule, George’s family moved to Hong Kong in 1949. And when communist activity began permeating that city, his family set out for Japan on a freight ship.

“Of course during our trip there,” George told The Huffington Post, “We hit a horrendous typhoon and lost everything we had.”

But they made it to Japan alive, and George ended up living there for the next 15 years, attending International Christian University in Tokyo, and making hundreds of friends from all over the world.

Many of his friends were planning to move to the United States after school, but due to a lack of Japanese government assistance, they found themselves clueless about U.S language and customs. So George, in one of his first major entrepreneurial decisions, started a one-of-a-kind program in the early 1960s, aimed at Japanese workers looking to transition to life in the United States.

The program brought in quite a bit of money, but George’s workaholic nature was pushing him over the edge.

“I was working 16 hours a day,” he remembered. “I fainted and collapsed and ended up in a hospital, and the doctors said, ‘If you keep this up, you’re going to kill yourself.’”

This article continues at Huffington Post.

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