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Volume 28 · Number 2 · Winter 2011

Alumni: A Pattern of Generosity

Alum Floyd Shimomura puts Aggie Pride into action by giving back.

By Stephanie Towne ’11

Floyd Shimomura may have tallied as much time on campus as an alum as he did during his student and teaching years. He was an undergraduate and law student in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and worked as a law school lecturer in the 1980s.

Today he serves as a former president of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association and a volunteer usher at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, among other roles. Shimomura ’70, J.D. ’73, embodies CAAA’s “Aggie for Life” motto. “Sometimes I was on campus at least three or four times a week,” said Shimomura, an ardent Aggie football fan as well.

Deeply proud of his UC Davis connection, Shimomura became active in the alumni association in 1997 after receiving CAAA’s Distinguished Achievement Award, given to alumni who have distinguished themselves over the span of their careers in their community or in public service. A few months after the awards ceremony, he joined the CAAA Board of Directors. “I decided to become a member of the board because CAAA had been so generous to me,” he said. “I was on the board for 10 years.”

Shimomura has been a significant contributor to CAAA in recent years. In addition to his 2006–08 stint as president of the Board of Directors, he has served on almost every committee at one time or another. His passion is the CAAA Scholarship Committee, which awarded about $65,000 in scholarships to 51 students in 2010.

Wishing to help even more students, he and his wife, Ruth, endowed The Floyd and Ruth Shimomura Scholarship Fund in 2007. “It was always so difficult determining how to distribute scholarships, all of the students are so deserving,” he said. “I soon realized that we needed to increase the scholarship fund in order to meet the rising financial demands that students face.”

Shimomura began his career in the California attorney general’s office, handling cases before the California Supreme Court. For five years, he taught contracts and administrative law at the UC Davis School of Law. Returning to state service, he has held a series of high-level legal and administrative positions, including senior assistant attorney general, chief counsel of the Department of Finance, and executive officer and chief counsel of the State Personnel Board. Shimomura now works part time as an administrative law judge, traveling the state to resolve disputes involving government agencies.

Shimomura, who served 1982–84 as president of the nationwide Japanese American Citizens League, has been an advocate for Japanese American alumni whose UC educations were interrupted by government relocations during World War II. After the UC regents voted in 2009 to award them honorary degrees, Shimomura persuaded the CAAA board to give life memberships to the Japanese Americans who had attended UC Davis.

“It was an amazing gesture by the regents and CAAA, and it was deeply appreciated by so many,” he said. “This recognition made me realize how far we have come.”

Shimomura continues to stay active in CAAA, hoping to encourage other alumni to realize the importance of giving back.

For more information about the CAAA Scholarship Program, contact Richard Engel at (530) 754-9113 or rrengel@ucdavis.edu.

| Last updated: Dec. 20, 2010

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