Karla Zarate-Ramirez, the College’s Executive Director of Development, visited with Dr. Fujio Matsuda to gather some reflections from him about his lifelong career in service to the State of Hawaiʻi. His training as a civil engineer at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa was interrupted by World War II so he volunteered for the US Army. After the war, he completed his baccalaureate degree at Rose Polytechnic Institute (now Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology) in Terra-Haute, Indiana and then earned his doctorate In Civil Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1952. After returning to Hawaiʻi, he served as an engineering faculty member at UH Mānoa, director of the Engineering Experiment Station, and chair of the Department of Civil Engineering. Dr. Matsuda served as director of the Hawaiʻi State Department of Transportation from 1963 to 1973 and vice president of business affairs at UH Mānoa before being named the University of Hawaiʻi’s ninth president.
Can you tell us how your education at the University of Hawaiʻi prepared you for your future?
Do you have any advice for high school students thinking about going to UH?
Tell us about your time at the College of Engineering.
What does engineering mean to you?
