Biography
Hoyt Zia recently retired as Senior VP, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Hawaiian Airlines, Inc. Prior to joining Hawaiian, he was the publisher of Hawaii Business magazine, and before that the executive director of the Pacific Telecommunications Council, an international telecom industry non-profit organization based in Honolulu. For most of his career, however, he was an attorney who practiced in San Francisco and Honolulu, both in law firms and in-house with Motorola, Inc. and Amfac/JMB Hawaii, Inc. He also served as an appointee in the Clinton Administration as Chief Counsel for Export Administration, Department of Commerce, in Washington, DC.
His past bar service includes having been a member of the California State Bar Committee of Bar Examiners, president of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area and the statewide Asian Pacific Bar of California. He was also the founding president of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. He has received the NAPABA Trailblazer Award, the Japanese American Bar Association’s Inspiration Award, and the OCA Pioneer Award in recognition of his service. He has worked with numerous community groups over the years including as Co-Chair of the Bay Area Justice for Vincent Chin Committee in the early 1980s, and he currently serves on the boards of the Consuelo Foundation and the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.
The son of refugees from Shanghai, China, Hoyt was born and raised in New Jersey, graduated from Dartmouth College, served as a US Marine Corps officer, and then received his law degree from the UCLA School of Law.
Articles, Publications, and Appearances
Hoyt Zia speaks around the country as a part of the Stop Repeating History Campaign.
In the News
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Feds: HART Shouldn’t Promise To Have Rail Ready In October (Honolulu Civil Beat, January 30, 2020)
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Honolulu Rail Will Spend Nearly $40 Million More On Change Order Fixes (Honolulu Civil Beat, July 19, 2019)
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Evaluation of HART CEO Andrew Robbins begins (Star Advertiser, October 19, 2018)