Sherry Robinson

     One day, over lunch in 1996, I listened to Cecilia Chang brood about what she would do when she sold her computer company. As it turns out, she found a cause she would never have imagined.
     Cecilia had become a bootstraps success story here, having started Chang Corp. 13 years earlier. She'd chafed at having to get financing in her husband's name for the first five years because nobody would extend a business loan to a woman. She'd pulled her little company from the jaws of her franchiser's bankruptcy. She'd grabbed at the lifeline offered by the government's 8(a) program. Then, like shedding training wheels, she took off without 8(a), eventually reaching sales of $3 million to $4 million and a spot among the state's top 25 women-owned firms.
     During a class on entrepreneurism, she had a realization: "I learned I'm good as a starter but not a good maintainer," she said. She decided it was time to sell her company.
     With her new-found leisure, the first thing she did was join a health club. Then she took dance classes. She also wanted to serve the community. "When I was running the business and being an entrepreneur, wife and mother, I was dying to roll up my sleeves and be more involved in the community," but it wasn't possible.
     She was also contemplating a move to California, the result of her husband's job transfer. Cecilia loved New Mexico and didn't want to leave. What would she do in California? Thinking about her native Hong Kong, she considered helping to build trade ties.
     She decided to give herself a year off to think about what to do with her life. "I've got to do something that makes a difference," she says. "I was going to do that in New Mexico." She spent a year finding mentors for high school students.
     "In New Mexico, I wrote a check, sat on boards. That's all I could do. When I sold the business I wanted to not sit on boards but actually touch something."
     Cecilia got her next calling when Wen Ho Lee was fired from Los Alamos National Laboratory and jailed on federal charges related to the improper handling of classified information.
     "Wen Ho Lee is a friend of our family," she says. Because of distant relatives in Taiwan, they met him soon after he arrived in New Mexico, about 20 years ago. "Our kids grew up with their kids."
     The scientist who finds himself a target of accusations is a great cook and avid fisherman. "He feeds you and makes sure you're stuffed," Cecilia says. "You know how busy I was. (His home) was one of the few places where I felt I could relax."
     Some of Wen Ho Lee's supporters, in fact, are his children's friends, who remember him insisting that they eat at his home instead of wasting their money on junk food.
     When Lee was accused and jailed, Cecilia contacted his daughter Alberta. "We started talking," Cecilia says. "It was very scary." Cecilia thought she might know people in the Bay area who would help and became a go-between. Soon she emerged as the architect of his legal defense fund, along with other support activities.
     "I've never been an activist. I'm not political," she says. But she knew his mounting legal bills could exceed the willingness of his pro bono attorneys. And she felt Lee's children shouldn't have to shoulder such responsibilities alone.
     "I can't just sit around and say, 'There's nothing we can do,'" she says. "When you see someone you know with all this burden, do you have any choice? You don't have a choice."
     Once committed, Cecilia found her perfect work. "This is helping New Mexico. It's a great combination. This is fate. I'm very happy to have the chance to be involved. This is a real injustice that's happening."
     Cecilia would like to hear from her old friends and acquaintances in New Mexico. Contact her at mailwenholee.org.