KIT MIYAMOTO, S.E., Ph.D.

Dr. H. Kit Miyamoto, CEO of Miyamoto International, president of nonprofit Miyamoto Global Disaster Relief, a director of the World Trade Center, Northern California, and a California Seismic Safety Commissioner, built a global earthquake engineering firm with one simple mission: make the world a better place.

To Kit, this is much more than a catchy tagline. While assessing earthquake damaged houses in Haiti after the 2010 killer quake there, he saw children attending dangerous schools he knew could collapse in the next earthquake – and formed a nonprofit, Miyamoto Global Disaster Relief -- to help the government and communities there repair these public schools.

From signature high-performance engineering projects such as the iconic Theme Building at LAX to helping developing countries mitigate disaster risk, more than 15,000 projects have been successfully completed under his leadership worldwide.  This includes consulting work for the World Bank on seismic risk mitigation of 1,500 schools in Istanbul and working with the government of Haiti, the United Nations and USAID to conduct seismic assessments of more than 430,000 earthquake-damaged structures in Haiti.  A Miyamoto-led project that repaired 10,000+ earthquake damaged homes in Haiti for struggling families won a prestigious “Global Best Projects Award” from ENR in 2014. Miyamoto International also is involved with post-disaster reconstruction in New Zealand and natural disaster risk reduction in Bangkok and Manila.

Industry recognition includes the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations’ “Excellence in Structural Engineering Award,” the California State University “Distinguished Alumni Award” and ZweigWhite’s “Jerry Allen Courage in Leadership Award.”

Dr. Miyamoto has published more than 100 technical papers and is a frequent international speaker. He has been featured by many media organizations, including CNN, NBC, the Discovery Channel, The New York Times and Rolling Stone and is featured in a current exhibit at the National Building Museum.