The city of Torrance was founded in 1912 and was started as an industrial center.

The landscape was designed by the same architect who worked on the Jefferson Memorial and White House grounds. It is now the largest city in the South Bay.  

On this week’s “In Focus SoCal,” host Tanya McRae has an in-depth conversation with George Chen, who made history in 2022 when he became the first non-white Mayor of Torrance.

Chen’s family emigrated from Taiwan to the U.S. and moved to the South Bay just as he was starting in first grade. He graduated from Carson High School and got a degree in electrical engineering from UCLA.  

Chen worked at Raytheon, and after a 33-year career in engineering, he retired at 55. With no political background, Chen ran for the Torrance City Council.

“Shortly after I retired in July 2017, I told my wife I just felt a deep sense of calling. And you’ll get together at the dinner table and talk about different issues around the city or the country, and sometimes, you’ll say, ‘Why did he or she say this or this? I think I could do better than that,’” he said.

Chen added that as a senior program manager for a major aerospace company, he had to oversee a broad range of issues, and he learned how to solve many different types of problems.  

“Sometimes there’s a lot of noise and distraction. But I think I’m able to put the emotions aside, and try to see what the issues are, what solutions are best for the city, what’s the best value decision. And I believe the residents of the city saw that I have the ability to make decisions,” he said.

In 2018, Chen ran for a seat on the city council and won. He won again in 2020. And in 2022, he was elected mayor. Last year, the city of Torrance issued more than 500 new business licenses. McRae asked Chen why the city is attracting so many business owners and entrepreneurs to set up shop and even move to the city.

“I think go back to why I moved to the city of Torrance — safety and public schools. And then you talk about geography. We are so strategically located near Long Beach, LA ports and LAX,” he said.

Chen says the city’s ethnic diversity is also very appealing.

“I don’t think a lot of people know how diverse we are. We’re roughly 37-38% AAPIs. You’ve got ramen, you got soccer, you got craft brewery, you got shopping, good schools and public safety. It’s like, ‘Yeah, that might be a good place to live. Might be a good place to start a business,’” he said.

In 2023, the city of Torrance became part of a Friendship Cities Program.

“Friendship Cities Program, this program, was something I wanted to start even back when I was a city councilman. For me, a friendship city was another idea to promote the city of Torrance internationally, and to generate revenue for our city,” explained Chen.

The three friendship cities are Hwaseong in South Korea, and Changhua and Tainan in Taiwan.

“The focus is really economic development. I’m really targeting cities that have high technology, who might be interested in foreign direct investment,” added Chen. 

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