On paper, Yang’s career began at UW-Stout — shortly after graduating from UW-Eau Claire — where he spent seven years as a multicultural recruitment and retention coordinator. He found swift footing in the professional sphere of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI); Yang went on to expand his EDI and leadership experience at the Chippewa Valley Technical College and Marshfield Clinic Health System before returning to his alma mater in 2018 as the director of multicultural affairs.

In real life, however, Yang’s lived experience began long before entering higher education as a student or professional.

Yang was born and raised in Wausau — the soundtrack of his adolescence featuring AC/DC, Cinderella and other ‘90s rockers (he was in a band and still plays guitar today). As a Hmong American, his youth was also laced with instances of what he can now identify as discrimination and racism.

One such experience stands out starkly against the rest — the impetus of his career in EDI.

“It was the day before Thanksgiving,” Yang recalled. “I was wrongfully arrested because I looked like someone who was attempting to burglarize a home. … Because I was arrested on that particular day, my court hearing for bail didn’t happen until after Thanksgiving. So, I spent three days in a jail cell.”

The behavior of one law enforcement individual, and the resulting days spent in jail, forced Yang to face the different structures and systems that got him there. He thought about why — and how — he was there.

Then, Yang wasn’t equipped to effectively put language to what he had experienced and felt. In turn, his innate childhood curiosity was transformed into a persistent desire to learn more in order to understand himself and to understand others.

Today, through his lived experience and education, Yang is able to put language — something he calls an “understated superpower” — to particular experiences and feelings. Using that toolkit, his professional work can be succinctly described as “capacity building,” he said.

“In order to do equity, diversity (and) inclusion really well, we have to help prepare other people to do it well too,” Yang said.

As the Eau Claire Area School District’s Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Yang’s overarching responsibility is to provide leadership in regard to the public school district’s equitable practices.

In action, that has included creating ECASD’s annual equity report and student climate survey, and providing EDI-related trainings and support for teachers and staff. By studying key performance indicators, Yang identifies the trends and correlation between academic performance and EDI.

“That ongoing training, ongoing learning we provide for our administrators (and) teachers — that’s one of my favorite things,” he said. “It expands the work beyond just me and makes it much more integrated into the schools and this district.”

Higher education was, perhaps, the best place to prepare him for the unique work of the K-12 levels. While partnerships throughout the community were crucial in his previous work, through the ECASD, “the needs (of students) are so much more visible, acute, and localized,” Yang said.

Yang recognizes the weight of responsibility in directly impacting the next generations of the Chippewa Valley — perhaps even more so now as a husband and father to two children, who make up the axis which he revolves — something correlated specifically with EDI.

“We may be asked, ‘why are you so focused on equity, diversity and inclusion? (You) should be focused on reading, writing and arithmetic, and that’s all,’ ” Yang said. “But we have to teach (the) whole student.

“Not only do we teach them reading, writing and arithmetic, but we also teach them respect, teach them values, teach them life skills; how to regulate emotions, a lot of those different things,” he continued. “Creating problem solvers in our community is one of the most important things that we can do.”

That ethos is one which Yang carries into the wider Chippewa Valley. He is a “big” through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwestern Wisconsin, is active in the local Hmong community — including his recent role as stage manager for the 2025 Eau Claire Hmong New Year — and serves as the committee co-chair to both the City of Eau Claire BIPOC Coalition steering committee and DEI commission.

As a bridge builder between individuals and communities, Yang acknowledged the ever-evolving perception of EDI. “This particular type of subject matter and this profession has always been questioned, it’s always been under attack to some extent, and to different degrees,” he said.

The lesson he learned years ago while sat in a cell for something he did not do, is still relevant today. “There’s so much power in empathy and so much power in being vulnerable.”

“What I’d like to see (from our community in the future) … is individuals who are going to continue to ask lots of questions. Individuals who are going to be really good listeners. People who are interested in upholding the humanity of their friends, their family, their neighbors — even the people that they don’t know.”