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School of Public Policy Hosts Graduation 2011

The School of Public Policy will hold its 2011 commencement ceremony at Alumni Park on Friday, Apr. 15, at 10:30 a.m. on the Malibu campus. Honorary Degree recipient Michael J. Boskin, the T.M. Friedman Professor of Economics and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, will deliver the commencement address. Seiji Masuda, a retired real estate industrialist, will be honored with an Honorary Degree. Jason Pates ('95, MPP '99), manager of customer business transformation at Cisco Systems, and his wife Olena Kozlova-Pates (MPP '99), most recently international governance and compliance manager at the Futures Group, will be honored as Distinguished Alumni.

For more information, contact the School of Public Policy at (310) 506-7490, or visit their Web site.

Michael J. Boskin

Michael J. Boskin is the Tully Friedman Professor of Economics and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit research organization in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His previous academic appointments include being visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, the Lester Crown Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Yale University, and the Wohlford Professor of Economics and director for economic policy research at Stanford University. He has authored several books and scholarly articles including Too Many Promises: The Uncertain Future of Social Security (1986) and Reagan and the Economy (1987).

Boskin’s distinguished public service has included chairing the President’s Council of Economic Advisors from 1989 to 1993. His career achievements include originating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), introducing emissions trading for SOx (sulfur oxide) into the Clean Air Act, helping to resolve the Third World debt and saving and loan crises of the 1980s, and placing effective controls on government spending. He chaired the highly influential blue-ribbon commission on the Consumer Price Index (the Boskin Commission), whose report has transformed how inflation, GDP, and productivity are currently measured.

Boskin has received numerous professional awards including the Abramson Award for Outstanding Research from the National Association of Business Economists, the Stanford University Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, and the W. S. Johnson Award for Contributions to Free Enterprise, from the National Federation of Independent Business.

Boskin received his bachelor’s degree with highest honors from the University of California, Berkeley, where he received the Chancellor’s Award. He went on to earn both his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics at University of California, Berkeley.

Boskin resides in Stanford, California, with his wife Chris.

Seiji Masuda

Seiji Masuda, whose first name means “politics” in the language of ancient China, is past president and chair of a global, family-owned real estate investment enterprise headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. Born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1934, Masuda earned a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1954 from Keio University and has since demonstrated a lifelong appreciation of higher education as advocate, ambassador, and scholarship benefactor.

In 1980 he received the Medal with Dark-Blue Ribbon from the Japanese government in honor of the Emperor of Japan for his exemplary contributions to Japanese society. He began providing educational scholarships to Asian students in 1988 through the Masuda Educational Foundation, which was commended in 2001 by the government of Japan for its continuous support to young people studying abroad.

Masuda’s two sons completed junior and senior high school at St. Michael’s University School in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The elder son Koji graduated from Purdue University in Indiana in 1994 while the younger son Takuji earned his bachelor’s degree in international studies from Pepperdine University in 1993. For nearly two decades, Pepperdine University has enjoyed a close relationship with the Masuda family. On the occasion of Takuji's graduation and at the invitation of then-Chancellor Charles Runnels, Masuda joined the Pepperdine University Board. He continues his board affiliation today and in 2010 joined the Board of Visitors of the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy.

Masuda recognizes that a comprehensive, quality education provides the intellectual fuel, human capital, and creative spirit for a productive world. He continues to invest in students at Pepperdine, providing Masuda scholarships to deserving undergraduates and, since 2004, to international students pursuing graduate degrees at the School of Public Policy.

Jason H. Pates

Jason H. Pates is a manager of customer business transformation in the voice technology group at Cisco Systems, Inc. Cisco Systems is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, whose networking hardware, software, and services provide increased productivity and communications for individuals, education, business, and government. In his current role, Pates serves on a global team that identifies, quantifies, and demonstrates the business value of Cisco’s unified communications solutions. He is responsible for a clientele of large manufacturing, energy, and high-technology enterprises, such as General Motors, Pacific Gas and Electric, MGM Resorts, and Symantec Corporation.

Prior to his current position, Pates worked as an account manager for ChannelAdvisor Corporation, an electronic commerce startup in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, where he managed online shopping strategies for large retailers and manufacturers like Nike, Dell, and AT&T Mobility. He was previously a management consultant at both Booz Allen & Hamilton and Accenture, analyzing business processes for public and private sector clientele. Pates was selected as the School of Public Policy’s first U.S. Presidential Management Fellow, and was appointed in 1999 to his role as a financial economist in the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Institutions Policy.

Pates serves as president of the finance board and deacon at the North Raleigh Church of Christ in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is a founding member and former president of the Pepperdine Alumni Association’s Carolina Waves chapter, in addition to prior service as the president of the Washington, D.C. Waves alumni chapter.

Pates is a double graduate of Pepperdine University, earning his bachelor of arts in economics from Seaver College in 1995, and his master of public policy from the School of Public Policy in 1999.

He resides in Wake Forest, North Carolina, with his wife Olena, who is also a graduate of the School of Public Policy, Class of 1999.

Olena O. Kozlova-Pates

Olena O. Kozlova-Pates was recently the international governance and compliance manager of the Futures Group. Founded in 1971, the Futures Group, located in Durham, North Carolina, is an international development firm known for its evidence-based, integrated approach to improving the health and wellbeing of people worldwide. Kozlova-Pates had first come to the Futures Group in 2008. In that role, she was responsible for proposal discussions of new projects with business development partners and the establishment of processes and controls to establish legal and tax compliance within the countries in which Futures Group works. Futures Group projects include policy development and advocacy in such program areas as population and family planning, infectious diseases, and gender.

Prior to Futures Group, Kozlova-Pates served for nearly a decade at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), where she was senior program officer for the Eurasia Division managing NDI’s work in her native country, the Ukraine. During the Orange Revolution of 2004, she led U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright and others in political assessment and election observation visits throughout Eurasia, and managing democratic development programs in Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus, and other Eurasian countries.

Kozlova-Pates received her bachelor’s degree in English, magna cum laude, from York College and her master of public policy, with a dual specialization in international relations and economics, from the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy in 1999. She has been an active supporter with husband and fellow 1999 School of Public Policy graduate, Jason H. Pates, in the Carolina Waves and Washington, D.C. Waves alumni chapters, particularly mentoring others in their career searches.

Pates resides in Wake Forest, North Carolina, with husband Jason. She currently works full-time in the home caring for daughter Jennifer and son Christian.