Mike Matsuno was raised in Honolulu, Hawaii.  He is  Japanese American, a 4th generation yonsei, who has lived in Japan for over 25 years.  In Japan, he has worked as a university professor, a vice president of a company,  an international education consultant, an English instructor, a graduate student, a kayak trainee, a ski hotel bartender, and a free-spirited traveler.  Over the last 20 years, he has devoted himself to international education and has developed unique, innovative study abroad, experiential and exchange programs for university students.  Mike strongly believes in the life changing potential of a study abroad, exchange or overseas experience. When he was younger, he attended eight different types of study abroad programs to Guatemala, Indonesia, Laos, and five other study abroad programs to Japan.  He has two master’s degrees from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Doshisha University in Kyoto (Japan).  Very few people have studied and received a  graduate degree in both the US and Japan, and then later taught as a full-time faculty member at both an American and Japanese university in English and Japanese. Mike has also lived in Alaska for seven years, first as a northern lights tour guide for the Japanese, then as a foreign language and culture instructor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.  While he was teaching at UAF, he also owned and ran a bed and breakfast, transportation and tour company, and gift shop.