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EK: I'd like to move on to some of your personal recollections of your time working with ORA. The redress program spanned ten years. So over that period of time, who did you work most closely with from the office?

BK: Actually, in its original inceptions I worked very, very closely with Bob Bratt. He was the first Administrator of redress, and it was really Bob's fast-paced leadership style. It was extremely decisive and really sought to implement the spirit of the law in really providing appropriate compensation and an apology. And I think, because Bob recognized that he was under a timeline, that he had to work fast. And that for the government to be able to compensate people, he had to implement the law quickly but thoroughly and accurately. And so all of that stuff he had to, with his leadership style, really mobilize a very, very cohesive working team at ORA. They worked well together, they understood what the mission was, and sought to get out into communities, identify, verify, and compensate them. And did, I thought, an incredible job in kind of the first phase under Bratt's leadership. I also had the opportunity to work with the second Administrator, Paul Suddes, who was Bratt's deputy at the time. And then a little later with DeDe Greene, who was the third Administrator of redress, all had very different leadership styles. But everybody loved Bob because Bob had a very charismatic personality. He worked fast. But having said that, Bob's cases dealt with, like, the easy ones. It was not easy per se, he had to put the program together, that was very tedious and time consuming, did a great job. But as the program had evolved, it was really Paul Suddes and DeDe Greene that had to deal with all these unique cases, cases that had twists and turns, folks who were not in camps, whether they were in Hawaii. I know there were issues of whether Latin Americans would be eligible and Peruvians and all these cases towards the tail end that Suddes and Greene had to deal with. So in many respects, they had to finish up the program, which was very, very tedious as well as complex. And I thought all three of the Administrators did an incredible job, and I think was one of the most successful government programs that I've seen in my professional career.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2019 Emi Kuboyama. All Rights Reserved.