ABOUT KYLE
Born, raised and educated in western Canada, I am the youngest of six in our family. My parents are both engineers and I am fortunate to have been raised in a highly disciplined and nurturing environment.
My brothers and sisters all achieved high honors in their studies, excelled in their activities and pursued many unusual adventures. This was a tough act to follow and I don't think I ever attempted to do so. I just continued at my own pace.
I pursued a career in tourism, consumer sales and marketing and consumer loyalty marketing that took me across Canada, several years in southern California and finally to Tokyo.
I arrived in Japan for a work-related project to open a hotel in Tokyo, the Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Chinzan-so. It was not only my first trip to Japan but also the first to Asia. I intended to stay for only a couple of months but the assignment eventually extended to a full two years. Thereafter I returned to the US where I worked in Dallas for the rest of that year.
I took a leap of faith to leave my job in order to return to Tokyo and attended a college where I studied Japanese. Several years later I married my wife Yoshiko, an ophthalmologist, proposing to her five years to the day after our first date.
After more than twenty-two years in Japan I moved to Vancouver with my wife. This wonderful city is now our primary residence.
We embrace and support the wines of the Okanagan Valley and throughout British Columbia since making our home in Vancouver.
Love the Fitz sparking wines, Mission Hills' Reserve wines, Church & State and Noble Ridge.
I took a Winter Survival Course over a weekend in the Canadian Rockies. Full backpack on telemark skies under sunny but brutally cold weather. Built snow caves into the glacier where we slept overnight.
Over the weekend just about everything that could go wrong did so. A white-out blizzard, broken equipment and an injured instructor at our highest point on the mountain.
With only a few hours of daylight left, we opted to get down the mountain as quickly as possible. This involved negotiating an ice field that would funnel us toward the base where we had started.
I learned a lot about crisis management and survival on that trip. Sometime you have few choices but to carry on.
One of my first serious art purchases. A signed lithograph by Patrick Nagel and the cover of Duran Duran's album, Rio.
Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand
Just like that river twisting through a dusty land
Duran Duran
Not sure if my wife Yoshiko is the most beautiful woman in the world. But I know without question she is the most beautiful person in MY world.
Well I never kept a dollar past sunset
It always burned a hole in my pants
Never made a school mama happy
Never blew a second chance...
"Happy" by Mick Jagger/Keith Richards