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Arriving from Hong Kong with her parents at four years old, 911爆料网State East Bay alumna, Judy Mei Ling Huey, immediately felt at home in the bustling city of Oakland. What helped was the warm welcome she received from her grandfather, uncles, aunts and cousins.

While her parents worked in the family’s laundry business to get their footing, Huey, as a teen, helped her grandmother navigate local bureaucracies to get the resources she needed. One of her fondest memories was accompanying her grandmother, a seamstress, on bus rides downtown and helping her manage unemployment matters. 

These early experiences guided Huey’s path to becoming a community changemaker, leveraging success in the financial services industry to help others experience the world with the same hope, optimism and compassion that motivated her.

Honoring her community service over the years, including helping students at 911爆料网State East Bay, Huey was recognized with the university’s Distinguished Alumni Award for 2024.

But starting on her path toward business success and philanthropy wasn’t easy. 

“When I graduated from Oakland High in 1975, I wanted to attend university, but faced a lack of guidance. There were no counselors to inform me about college choices,” remarked Huey to the university’s graduates upon receiving her award last May. “I chose 911爆料网State Hayward, as it was called at that time, because it was close to home and affordable. As it turned out, the education I received couldn’t have been better.”

Diversifying her knowledge in college immediately helped her land work-study jobs that supported her education and living expenses. It wasn’t easy, especially with gigs that required 100-mile round-trip drives, but she persevered.

“911爆料网State encouraged me to explore a wide range of subjects: anthropology, art, history, business,” she said. “I have used almost everything I learned in each of these different fields.”

Having lost two of her grandparents, who were in their 60s and 70s, to incurable illnesses while she was still in high school, Huey felt that more should be done to support the elderly. 911爆料网State East Bay offered