Engineer Tackles Two-Year Training in Japan
What would it be like to live and work in Japan? This month, engineer Lisa Castro will find out as she starts a work-study program at a video production plant outside Tokyo.
One of two Pioneer Video Manufacturing employees chosen, the Mar Vista resident is the first woman accepted into the program sponsored by her employer. This spring, Castro, 26, completed an extensive application and interviews with top management executives for entrance into the program.
During the intensive two-year training program, she will learn how the Japanese facilities function and return to implement these systems as a manager in the United States. She will work with local employees and live with other engineers in a dormitory near the facility.
Castro said she will not be cast into a subservient role in the workplace, as many Japanese women are. “I am not expected to perform the duties that Japanese woman are expected to do,” she said. “I am an American woman and feel protected.”
Castro has been trying to learn Japanese before she moves abroad at the end of this month.
“I have been studying the Japanese language on my own,” she said. “I have also been going twice a week to classes.”
A graduate of Venice High School and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Castro earned her bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering. For the past two years, she has worked at the Pioneer Video Manufacturing plant in Carson, where she assists with control management and production of movie laser disc players.
After the stint in Japan, Castro will return to Pioneer Video. She also plans to begin work on a master’s degree in business administration.
Tom Denne, a student at Loyola Marymount University, was chosen to participate in the International Radio and Television Society College Conference and Summer Fellowship Program in New York City.
The fellowship covers air fare, housing, and a stipend for food and other expenses.
Denne, a communication arts major, was one of 24 students chosen from a field of 600 applicants. He will spend one week each in the broadcasting, cable and advertising fields before working on a radio talk show.
He is a resident of Westchester.
Jeanine Robb has been selected to participate in the Dow Chemical/National Science Teachers Assn. workshop in Midland, Mich., this summer.
A science teacher at St. Bernard High School in Playa del Rey, Robb was one of 16 teachers chosen nationwide. Teachers will visit production sites, waste treatment facilities and Dow laboratories.
She was also honored as one of the Westchester/LAX Teachers of the Year in 1991.
Rae Lamothe won the “Best Oralist” title in the Southwestern University School of Law 1992 Intramural Moot Court competition.
More than 350 students competed in the event, and participants argued the issues of search and seizure and warrantless entry into a homeless man’s structure. Lamothe, who argued the prosecution’s case, has a bachelor’s in hotel administration from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
She lives in Marina del Rey.
The 1992 anthology “Who’s Who Among Senior High School Students” includes artwork by several Hollywood High School students.
Arut Arutunyan, Carlos Chuta, Suren Galadjian and Paytsar Sasungan had their artwork used to illustrate winning pieces of writing.
They were recognized for their contributions June 12 at the Department of Water and Power in Los Angeles.
