MEET THE SUGIYAMA FAMILY
Darren Sugiyama was born and raised in Long Beach, California where he spent his early years skateboarding, playing sports, and listening to rap music with his friends. From an early age Darren had set his sights on business and always had some sort of entrepreneurial project in the works. Whether it was his silk-screening business, building skateboard ramps or installing boom boxes and car stereos, he was all about a good opportunity. At the same time Darren was also a self-proclaimed “hot head“. At eighteen years old he was shot in a drive by shooting. Fortunately, he fully recovered and this life changing experience led him to becoming a dedicated Christian. He later became a Sunday school teacher for high schoolers at his church in Crenshaw (South Central L.A.), helped run a gang prevention program locally, and mentored inmates at the Halawa Prison in Honolulu, Hawaii. Darren was gifted in sports and after graduation, went on to play baseball for LMU and received his BA in Sociology there and then his Master’s in Multicultural Education from the University of Hawaii.
Darren is one of two sons of Raymond and Sharon Sugiyama. His father Raymond was a successful Orthodontist and his mother Sharon is a prominent Philanthropist. His mother started a nonprofit organization called A3M (A3MHope.org). A3M sought to improve the health and welfare of patients with blood cancers or blood related diseases by educating and recruiting potential marrow donors and providing patient support services. The organization is proud to have added more than 330,000 donors to the marrow registry, creating more than 9,000 marrow and stem cell matches.
After college Darren went on to work in the insurance industry where he met his beautiful wife Emilia at a business conference. The company Emilia worked for hosted a cocktail reception that Darren attended and the two were engaged a year later. They joined forces in business and in life.
While Darren and Emilia have made an incredible team, Emilia’s upbringing couldn’t be any more different than Darrens. Emilia was born in Jalisco, Mexico and moved to Yerington, Nevada at three years old with her parents and five siblings. The daughter of a ranch hand, Emilia recalls a very humble and simple childhood. Her entire family would work in the agricultural fields during the summers to help make ends meet. She attended school in a small agricultural town called Smith Valley. She graduated high school with a senior class of just six students, four of them went through all their school years together.
Emilia’s father taught the kids how to drive tractors, milk cows, siphon tubes to water the fields and grow a robust vegetable garden. She grew up playing softball, track, basketball, and volleyball. She recalled babysitting for several of the families in the community to earn money to buy her basketball and volleyball shoes. She even worked at the local gas station and a flower shop where she learned how to make floral arrangements.
Emilia felt limited growing up in such a small town and knew early on that she knew she wanted more. When she was twelve years old, her family visited Los Angeles and she was awestruck by the huge skyscrapers and the feelings of big city life. She knew right then and there she had to live in LA one day. After high school Emilia attended her first year of college at the University of Nevada, Reno and then moved to LA for the summer. She fell in love with the city and stayed.
Fast forward to 2006, Darren and Emilia are now newlyweds and happen to visit one of Darren’s clients who lived in Orange Park Acres and they took a tour of the neighborhood. They came across a listing for a Spanish-style home that was enclosed behind a private gate. At this point they had toured several homes together and never felt a connection to any of them, but when they walked through this one, they knew this was where they would raise their future family. Over the coming years this home would provide the perfect space to entertain and host large parties.
Upon the birth of their son, Esteban, the duo jointly decided to have Emilia scale back her business and concentrate on the household while Darren went on to start several other businesses. Over the past two decades they have been running an employee benefits agency, an estate planning firm, a life insurance agency, and a medical group. Darren is also an accomplished author and has published 9 books on business and self-help.
Today, the team has found a great balance in their roles within their home and businesses. Emilia is the
COO of the household and the COO of one of their employee benefits agency while Darren runs the other businesses. Emilia is an enthusiast in the kitchen and loves to cook for her family and friends and is always working on new recipes. She hopes to write a cookbook one day.
Outside of their busy lives, Darren and Emilia are raising their son and giving back to charitable causes. Their son, Esteban just entered the 7th grade at St. John’s in Orange. He is into skateboarding, rap music, football, styling his hair and is an Air Jordan sneaker enthusiast. He loves fishing so being able to go fish at Santiago Oaks Park is just heaven for him.
Darren sat on the board of a charitable foundation called “Corazon de Vida” for seven years. The organization supported ten orphanages in Baja, Mexico. Darren and Emilia started taking their son down to visit the orphanages when he was only four years old. Emilia shared “It has always been important to us to expose our son to lifestyles outside of our very fortunate OPA bubble.” On Esteban’s 8th birthday, he decided to support the orphanages and asked for donations in lieu of gifts for himself. We threw a poop emoji party, a popular theme at the time, for his friends and family. He raised over $4200 and received many basic staple items needed at the orphanage homes. This was a great experience for the family and a forever story to share.
Without a mentor, Emilia learned how to be successful through the school of hard knocks. Today, she has almost 20 years of experience in the insurance industry, and is considered to be one of the best in her field. Among many other accomplishments, Emilia has won several awards and is no stranger to hard work. She continues to inspire those that aspire to achieve “The American Dream” the way she has. Emilia has found charitable work within our community serving as the President of the Orange Park Acres Women’s League, a charitable foundation here in OPA. Emilia is now going on her 3rd term as President, filling the shoes of the legendary and former President of OPA Women’s League, Lois Widly. She has been an active member for almost sixteen years. She attributes the many friendships she has made and her great sense of belonging in the community to being a member of this league. She is an amazing wife, mom, friend and woman!
For the Sugiyama family, Orange Park Acres is more than just home. They fell in love with this community instantly and have created lasting friendships. OPA has been the perfect combination of close to the city living while reminding Emilia of her quiet country roots. The family loves the experience of this partly rural tight-knit community. Although not equestrians themselves, they do have chickens! They have enjoyed the peaceful life of OPA, and love running into friendly faces during their after-dinner walks.
At HORSE & HOME REAL ESTATE it is such an honor to get to know Darren, Emilia and Esteban, and all they have done to give back to this community. The OPA Women’s League is a non-profit organization founded by women encouraging friendship, philanthropy and community for a thriving Orange Park Acres and for the people who live here. Visit www.OPAwomen.org for more details.