WASHINGTON — William “Mo” Marumoto, 73, who grew up in a World War II internment camp for Japanese-Americans and became a White House aide to President Richard Nixon and owner of an executive-recruitment business, died Nov. 25 at suburban Inova Fairfax Hospital in Virginia after a heart attack. He was 73.
Marumoto, a quiet, self-effacing man, became known as the dean of Washington headhunters. Since 2005, he had been president and chief executive of the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies.
Marumoto, a resident of suburban McLean, Va., was born in Long Beach, Calif. As a child, he and his brothers arose every morning at sunrise to stack the shelves, sweep the sidewalks and get his parents’ grocery store in Santa Ana ready to open.
“We were called the ‘rising sons’ by folks in town,” he joked to friends later.
After the U.S. entry into World War II, his family was herded with other Nisei, second-generation Japanese- Americans, into stables at the Santa Anita racetrack. He was later relocated by train, under the eye of an armed FBI agent, to an internment camp in Gila Bend, Ariz., where the family remained until the war ended.
“That was my first and most unforgettable experience with the federal government,” he recalled.
After the war ended and the families were released, Marumoto graduated from Whittier College in California and worked for 10 years as director of alumni relations at Whittier. After that, he worked in planning and development positions with UCLA and the California Institute of the Arts.
He moved to Washington in 1969 as assistant to the secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, responsible for recruiting senior executives for the Office of Education.
