Greg grew up enjoying sunny beaches and beautiful weather in Honolulu, Hawaii where he spent much of his childhood body boarding at Waikiki Beach, picking tasty mangos and fishing with his grandfather (do you know what kind of fish a "humuhumunukunukuapua'a" is?).

Curious about life on the East Coast, Greg attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and had an awesome time there despite the frigid Ithaca winters. He fondly remembers -15F (-26C) wind chill weather causing his eyelashes to freeze and making frozen snot icicles hang attractively from his numb nose.

While at Cornell, Greg devoted himself to the Taekwondo team where he was a black belt instructor and competed on the collegiate level in this full-contact martial art. Greg was also known to be quite partial to keg parties and was even seen -- on occasion -- in the school library.

As a fourth-generation ABC, Greg struggled to learn Mandarin. After limited progress in college, he decided to spend his junior year in China at Nanjing University and Beijing University.

During this period of total immersion, Greg not only learned Mandarin but also had the valuable opportunity to live in and fully appreciate a new culture. This life changing experience was the beginning of a career where Greg would bridge businesses between the East and the West.

Armed with no knowledge of Cantonese and no background in engineering, Greg's first job was at a Hong Kong plastics company with factories in China. Greg learned Cantonese from workers and colleagues while managing operations making plastic for Barbie dolls.

Much to his surprise, Greg eventually discovered that many of the Cantonese words he regularly used, which he assumed were the basic foundations of the language, were not fit for normal polite conversation. They were actually foul words used only appropriately for "factory talk" and swearing at taxi drivers (oops!).

Greg has spent many years in Asia working in a variety of industries including manufacturing, real estate development and reinsurance. He has also worked for the Li Xing Foundation, a non-profit organization developing bilingual English-Mandarin education in China.

Greg is now at Pacific Advantage (International) Ltd., a firm that focuses on bringing American and European hi-tech companies to Asia. Some of the areas Greg is currently covering are telecommunications infrastructure, optical networking and 2.5G - 3G mobile wireless software applications and platforms.

Greg enjoys adventure travel and hopes to scale K-2 one day in his lifetime. Traveling allows Greg to explore new cultures and to develop his interest in antiques, particularly Buddhist and other religious art. When in a new city, Greg likes to spend hours wandering street markets observing the daily lives of the local people. Normal street life in exotic countries provides many interesting still-life subjects for Greg's photos.

Recently, Greg has discovered the wonders of practicing yoga. More accurately, Greg wonders why he practices yoga when he is struggling through half-locust poses and other contortions. Despite feeling like (and looking like) a pretzel, yoga helps Greg refresh his mind and body and he tries to practice daily.

As his friends can attest to, food is a vital part of life to Greg. He certainly loves to eat, eat and eat! He considers himself a very amateur chef and aspires to be a better cook, as one of his favorite past times is making dinner for friends, both old and new.

Much of his "colorful" Cantonese and Mandarin vocabulary comes from bantering with the vegetable and produce vendors in the wet markets on the streets of Hong Kong and China, where he even sometimes gets away with his Cantonese "factory talk", that which he secretly still loves to use.

Greg has a Bachelor's degree in Asian Studies from Cornell University and an MBA from The Wharton School.