Nonprofit Organizations Seminar

Trever K. Asam
Partner
Cades Shutte

Trever K. Asam advises nonprofit and tax-exempt organizations on issues including obtaining tax exemption, addressing unrelated business income, and using joint ventures and subsidiary organizations.  He also represents taxpayers in tax controversies and disputes with IRS and the Hawaii State Department of Taxation including audits, appeals, and litigation. He is a regular speaker on Hawaii State taxation and the taxation of nonprofit organizations. Prior to joining Cades Schutte, Mr. Asam was in private practice at Miller & Chevalier in Washington, D.C. While at Duke University School of Law, Mr. Asam was the recipient of the Douglas A. Poe Mordecai Scholarship and an editor for the Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems. Before beginning his legal career, Mr. Asam was a teacher in the District of Columbia Public Schools.

Linda Axtell-Thompson
Principal
Axtell Consulting LLC

Linda Axtell-Thompson, DBE, MBA, has 30+ years professional experience in nonprofit management, including 25+ years in healthcare.  Her particular areas of interest include ethical issues of aging, dementia, and end-of-life care, as well as the intersect of professional ethics and personal values.  She is an adjunct faculty in business administration and healthcare management at Chaminade University of Honolulu, in health care administration at University of Hawaii West Oahu, and in ethics in aging at University of Hawaii at Manoa. She is also Principal of Axtell Consulting LLC, which offers consulting and training services in ethics and strategy.   She has a Doctor of Bioethics degree (organizational ethics emphasis) from Loyola University Chicago, MBA (nonprofit management emphasis) from Yale School of Management, and BA in Philosophy from University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Rylan Chong
Co-Director, Data Science Program
Chaminade University of Honolulu

Dr. Rylan Chong is the Co-Director of the Data Science Program in the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at Chaminade University of Honolulu. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a Hogan Entrepreneur Certificate from Chaminade University of Honolulu. Dr. Chong has a master’s degree from Purdue University in Information Security. He specialized in biometric systems and human factors during his master’s degree. His thesis examined the motivations of the community pharmacies to use password, ID-card, and biometric authentication systems. Dr. Chong completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Information Security and a Graduate Certificate in Information Security Policy at Purdue University. His dissertation work investigated the relationships of social cognitive career theory factors and cybersecurity research self-efficacy of former and current college students. He was an Alfred Sloan Foundation indigenous graduate scholar and a fellow of the Bilsland Strategic Initiative Fellowship. The Bilsland Fellowship is for outstanding Ph.D. students that demonstrated superior academic abilities and scholarly achievements. Dr. Chong currently serves on committees in cybersecurity and data science. His research areas at Chaminade University of Honolulu are in data science, cybersecurity and human factors, and career development of cybersecurity and data science students.

Spencer Lau, Jr.
Associate Professor, Accounting
Chamiande University of Honolulu

Spencer Lau, Jr. is the Interim Director of Finance of the Honolulu Community Action Program, Inc., a nonprofit human services organization providing opportunities and inspiration to enable low-income individuals and families located on Oahu achieve self-reliance. Spencer is a graduate of Chaminade University’s undergraduate class of 2012 with a Bachelor’s degree in International Studies, and a 2018 graduate of Chaminade’s MBA Program. His professional experience includes four years with the Hawaii State Legislature and three years at First Hawaiian Bank. Spencer has spent the last two 1/2 years at the Honolulu Community Action Program (HCAP), and since March 2019 is serving as the Agency’s Interim Director of Finance.

Aaron Willamson
Associate Professor, Accounting
Chamiande University of Honolulu

Tom Yamachika
President
Tax Foundation of Hawaii

Tom Yamachika is the President of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii, a private, nonprofit educational organization dedicated to informing the taxpaying public about the finances of our state and local governments in Hawaii. This means the Foundation looks at how government raises the money it spends, be it taxes, user fees, or borrowing money through the use of debt. While most of the Foundation’s attention is focused on state government, it also keeps a watchful eye on county governments as they annually set real property tax rates in order to fund their respective budgets. Tom received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a Note and Comment Editor of the California Law Review. He received his bachelor’s degree in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale College, where he was elected to Tau Beta Pi and Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated magna cum laude. Tom is a tax attorney in solo practice since early 2013.