Carol Hahn is the Community Educator at OPICA Adult Day Program & Counseling Center in Los Angeles.  She is a Registered Nurse with over 35 years of varied health care experience: in hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, home care, and adult day programs.  In addition, she has taught in several university nursing programs and worked at the Alzheimer’s Association. 

Carol conducts education programs on dementia and other geriatric topics in a variety of settings, both locally and nationally.  She earned a certificate in Alzheimer’s Disease Management from Southern Indiana University, is a Certified Dementia Practitioner through the National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners, and is a member of the American Holistic Nurses Association.

Heather Harada is the director of strategy at Keiro. She oversees strategic partnerships, future initiatives, governance, and board relations. She holds a Master of Science degree in gerontology from the University of Southern California. Heather has over 15 years of experience caring for her grandmother, parents, and other older relatives throughout her life.

Michelle Hirano is the director of development at Keiro. Prior to this role, Michelle served as the director of operations at Hirano Homes as well as the interim executive director and program director at Kizuna. She has previous experience in public education and nonprofit work and is active in the Japanese American community, serving on the board of directors at Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Institute and SELANOCO JACL. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Irvine and a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Southern California. Michelle has been a part-time caregiver for her grandparents for seven years.

In 2003, Shannon Ingram left her job as a tech industry corporate marketing executive in Denver, CO to move “home” to Orange County, CA to become a full-time family caregiver for her mother and father. Her book, The Heart Way – A Journey from Corporate to Care, is about her humbling yet rewarding and often very humorous five years’ experience in caregiving.

When it came time to return to the business world, Shannon chose marketing and communications for senior housing companies, specifically memory care. Her mother had suffered from vascular dementia during the last few years of her life and Shannon had grown close to the memory care community. She served as vice president of marketing and communications for Silverado and for Anthem Memory Care and created an award-winning educational webinar program for the website, Caring.com.

For the past six years, Shannon has served as Director of Marketing and Communications for the School of Biological Sciences at UC Irvine, where she works for the school’s dean, one of the world’s premier Alzheimer’s researchers, Frank M. LaFerla, PhD. She is an active volunteer for UCI MIND, the university’s Institute for Memory Impairment and Neurological Disorders and Orange County’s only NIH-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

An accomplished speaker, trainer and presenter, Shannon has conducted workshops and given keynotes nationally on topics related to aging, career transition, caregiving, memory care, and communications. She currently resides in Mission Viejo with her husband, Gary. They enjoy spending time with their six grandchildren as well as at her family’s cattle ranch near Idyllwild, CA. Her favorite quote is from Rumi: “Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.”

Born in Okinawa Prefecture. In 1995, Tomomi Takahashi graduated from Katata Nursing College. She has worked in Shiga, Okinawa, and Tokyo, where she mainly works as an acute care nurse and teaches students as a geriatric nursing teacher. In 2017 she moved to the United States. She works as a caregiver in Los Angeles. She currently works as an office staff member at The Key/Millennia, primarily involved in recruiting and training.

Naomi Yoshida currently works as a Staffing Director at The Key/Millenia, where she is involved in the education and development of care staff. She has 27 years of experience in Home Care and Home Healthcare companies. She started working as a Home Healthcare Aid/Bathing Nurse in the Home Healthcare agencies assisting patients in bathing, then moved to the Personal Care division working on operations and staff training. In the consulting department, Naomi lectured on the American healthcare system to medical professionals, medical personnel, medical students, and leaders in senior care industries from Japan. She is always mindful of how to safely care for her clients, and provides training and support to caregivers. Naomi has many years of experience in Home Care, is fluent in both Japanese and English, and understands both Japanese and American cultures. She tries to provide every single one of her clients with individually designed culturally sensitive care.