By Randall Yip, Executive Editor

(This story is made possible with the support of AARP)

Life can be lonely at the top, even if you’re Santa Clause.

Tom Wagenlander is one of handful of Asian American and Pacific Islanders in a senior position at AARP.

The Vice President and executive director of AARP’s Wish of a Lifetime gets to grant wishes to deserving seniors. The son of Chinese American and German American parents oversees a program that has dished out some 3,000 “hopes, dreams and desires” since its founding in 2008.

Wagenlander has been in the program all but two of those 16 plus years.

“I think there is the reality, right, that I am the half Chinese guy with the funny German last name and so a lot of people don’t always appreciate my background and experience I bring with my family history,” he told AsAmNews in a virtual interview from Denver.

Wagenlander oversees a year-round program with 27 elves across the country who not only coordinate the wishes but seek out those deserving of the reward as well.

He says the Wish of a Lifetime looks for recipients who are:

• Reconnecting or connecting loved ones
• Fulfilling a dream of a lifetime
• Renewing and celebrating passions
• Commemorating service

David Patacsil,77, and his wife Joan,65, know how rewarding the program can be.

The Filipino American couple live on the Hawaiian island of Oahu in the town of Mililani.

David recently loss his daughter Charmaine to cancer. She had lived with a developmental disability on top of being deaf since the age of 3.

David himself has endured two forms of dementia diagnosed ten years ago. His vascular dementia not only has caused memory decline but also has impeded his mobility and hampers his speech.

He had not seen his two sons for ten years because both moved off the island due to the high cost of living there. Nor has he seen his grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren for that time.

Wish of the Lifetime granted the couple a trip to both Colorada and Washington to reunite with his sons and their families.

“I miss them every day,” David told AsAmNews. “I think I met some of them. I don’t remember if I met them all.”

His wife Joan says he did meet all generations of grandchildren while on a Wish of a Lifetime trip that lasted almost six weeks.

“He was very happy. I can just see it in his face how he started glowing,” Joan recalled.

It’s stories like that that make Wagenlander’s job so rewarding. He would like to see more Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders take advantage of the program.

“A lot of people don’t think of the needs of older adults in our society,” he said noting that America is a much more youth-oriented country compared to other nations.

The program which began as an independent non-profit joined AARP in 2020. Recipients must be 60 or older. To apply, go to wishofalifetime.org to nominate yourself or someone you know.

He doesn’t take for granted what he has. Wagendander ran the program prior to the merger with AARP and he knew when the merger happened, AARP executives could have chosen to put in their own person to run the program.

He advices other minorities looking to rise into management to be aware of falling for “imposter syndrome.”

“Something you see in a lot of minority populations is that you sometimes find yourself in a constant prove it mentality,” he said, explaining that minority managers need to “appreciate that you’re in a room or in a position because you’ve earned it.”

Daphne Kwok is one of Wagenlander’s biggest boosters.

“Tom brings his broad network to his position. Having a national pool of leaders, organizations, communities to outreach to is critical to the program’s success,” said Kwok, Vice President of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at AARP’s AAPI Audience Strategy. “It is important to be able to have a staff that reflects the diversity of America so that we can outreach and engage all Americans.”

Wagenlander says joining AARP and seeing his program grow since then has forced him to be a transformational leader rather than just a doer.

“Oftentime you’re kind of a hamster on a wheel trying to keep up. Lead with vision and take much of a more strategic approach,” he said.

“We’ve made a really intentional strategic decision to go into communities that were not really represented in our wish pipeline and one of those was the AAPI community.”

AsAmNews is published by the non-profit, Asian American Media Inc.

We are supported through donations and such charitable organizations as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This holiday season, double your impact by making a tax-deductible donation to Asian American Media Inc and AsAmNews. Thanks to additional benefactors, all donations will now be matched up to a total of $17,000.

Please also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and X.

Related