Honorary Consuls

We have two Honorary Consuls in our jurisdictional areas.

Mr. Kelly Moeur has served as Honorary Consul of Japan in Phoenix since December, 2004.
Three months after graduating from Occidental College, Mr. Moeur arrived in Tokyo on his 22nd birthday in 1973. The goal was adventure, but the result was a lifetime association with Japan. The original plan was to stay in Japan for a year and then return to Arizona. That did not happen for 10 years, in 1983.

Mr. Moeur arrived in Japan, other than Sayonara he did not know a single word of Japanese, and he had never tried sushi, and had never heard of tofu, natto or tonkatsu. Chopsticks were a challenge.

Mr. Moeur has been in education even before graduating. During his college days he did volunteer work at a local elementary school, and in Tokyo worked at a variety of institutions. He taught at Seisen Women’s College in Gotanda, the Training Institute of the Foreign Ministry of the Government of Japan in Myogadani, and was an instructor at the Japan International Cooperation Agency training institute in Akebonobashi.
Since his return to Arizona, Mr. Moeur has been a faculty associate teaching Japanese in the Department of Languages and Literatures at Arizona State University, and is currently a member of the Department of World Languages at Mesa Community College. He was also the Principal of the Arizona Gakuen from 1991 to 2019. AG serves children K through 9, teaching language arts, math, social studies, and science. All classes are taught in Japanese. www.arizonagakuen.org .

Mr. Moeur is active in the Arizona Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ), and has served as its president. He also works with the Arizona Japanese Speech Contest, which is sponsored by the AATJ. He is also on the Board of Directors of the Arizona Matsuri, an annual 2-day festival that celebrates the arts and culture of Japan. Last year 70,000 people joined the celebration. www.azmatsuri.org

Mr. Moeur enjoys gardening, hiking and travel. He has traveled extensively in Asia. Well-remembered locales include Nagasaki in Japan, the Annapurna Basin in Nepal, Angkor in Cambodia, and closer to home, the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Kate Leonard was appointed as Honorary Consul of Japan in San Diego in July 2012, in recognition of her decades of involvement with Japan.  The position includes the safeguarding of Japanese nationals in the San Diego area and the enhancement of business, cultural, academic and defense exchanges between the region and Japan.

Shortly after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Kate began corresponding with a pen pal in Yokohama.  Later her experience as a sister city exchange student in Okayama deepened her existing passion for Japan and culminated in a degree in Japanese Studies. In 1981, upon obtaining her California CPA license and an MBA, Kate moved to Kobe, Japan, where she was the only American CPA in Japan’s largest audit corporation. 

Moving back to the California in 1985, Kate built an international tax practice, and served as chair of the Japan Society of San Diego and Tijuana.  She currently serves as Treasurer of the Kyoto Prize Organization (San Diego) and maintains her membership in the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. 

In her free time, Kate enjoys spending time with her family, continuing her study of Japanese, and playing flute in a community band.  This band has had the honor of performing four times with the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Forces Training Squadron Band.

LinkedIn Profile:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateleonardcpa/