BIOGRAPHY
CALVIN NAITO
Calvin Naito’s most valuable quality is his ability to work with a management team in identifying and solving an enterprise’s most pressing problems. This quality is the outcome of life experiences -- divided between business and the public sector -- that have been diverse and unusual. Mr. Naito started as a technical person, transitioned into communications, and developed into a general problem-solving manager. As a result of this evolution, which occurred not always with ease, Mr. Naito possesses a rich set of transferable skills, maturity, and perspective. He is creative, trustworthy, entrepreneurial, and a team player that has a passion for “adding value” and contributing to an organization’s success.
Mr. Naito was born and raised in Los Angeles and educated in local public schools. He graduated from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government with a master in public policy degree and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, with a BS degree, cum laude, in environmental engineering and a minor in English.
Mr. Naito is the principal of Calvin Naito Enterprises, a multiple awarding-winning independent communications consulting firm. Previously, Mr. Naito served for nearly five years as a media representative for Kaiser Permanente Southern California. His communication projects included planned events and program announcements, proactive feature stories, large special projects, and special innovative ventures. Before that, Mr. Naito worked for over five years as the public information officer for the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission (now named the Los Angeles County Development Authority), which is the region’s economic and community development and affordable housing agency. Prior to the commission, Mr. Naito served as vice president of public relations and communications for an Internet start-up called IntraCom in Southern California. He was responsible for creating this pre-initial public offering (pre-IPO) company’s communications department from ground zero during his year with the start-up, which was acquired. Mr. Naito also supervised the investor relations and market research units of IntraCom.
Before venturing into the Internet world, Mr. Naito served for two years as the manager of communications for the Federal Reserve's Los Angeles branch, which served roughly ten percent of the nation’s population (it was the largest Fed branch in the nation). He was responsible for the Fed branch's media relations, executive speechwriting, and other strategic communications. Prior to that, Mr. Naito served for three years as the press secretary to a Los Angeles city councilperson and was that decision-maker's chief spokesperson and speechwriter.
Another career experience of note included being one of two associates and a principal that started-up Anthrosphere, Inc., a Santa Barbara-based environmental consulting firm, which was later acquired by a Fortune 500 company. Mr. Naito also served as a part-time university lecturer in environmental management at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
Mr. Naito’s work has been honored 41 times in award competitions held by the Public Relations Society of America, the Los Angeles Press Club, the Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing Association, and the California Association of Public Information Officials. In the course of his career, Mr. Naito has successfully handled dozens of major controversies and crisis management situations. He has conducted media training sessions for executives and has also guest lectured on communications at nine Southern California universities, receiving consistently positive evaluations from graduate and undergraduate students.
A significant part of Mr. Naito’s career and life are documented (e.g., profiles, writings, quotes as spokesperson on subjects) in the Los Angeles Times archives (the documents are accessible at www.latimes.com).