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EK: What would you say, in hindsight, was your biggest challenge?

BB: The early months and first year, year and a half, were extremely difficult because there was nothing to follow. And as I said, it was the most rewarding, it was that. I'd been married at the time for about five or six years, never was home, that was not helpful, probably I could have been a better husband, but that wasn't helpful, and we were under a lot of stress at that time.

There were times in the first weeks and months that I didn't know if we were going to be able to put it all together. Because as quickly as I can tell you how we put it together, I can also tell you it did not flow at the beginning. There was one problem after another that we ran into. I can't tell you how many times the lawyers in DOJ would say we couldn't do something, and on a particular issue... and again, I'm not faulting the lawyers, because there are some brilliant ones there, but I needed people that were going to help me come up with a business solution, not tell me what the law is on what I was trying to do, and I not all the time got that, so that was a frustration. And the other thing, I was in a race against time, especially in the very beginning, was if I did not get, and we did not get this program moved along, then I would start to get "help." And that's just what I feared the most, is what kind of help we can get. Because I see it happen too many times in Justice or big organizations where you get help where you really don't need it. So it was the beginning parts of this that were extremely sensitive and extremely difficult and extremely stressful. Once we got everything kind of up and flowing, then it was a year and half or two years, between one and two year part, then all of a sudden you could exhale again. But it was the early days that were awful.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2019 Emi Kuboyama. All Rights Reserved.