Adopted Child Returns to Korea to Help Others

＂I want to succeed in my job and help adopted children. ＂

It was Joel M. Labelle (29), a technology director in American Edgetrade company, that said this. He was adopted in the United States when he was three years old, and he attended the Korean-Japanese Fellow Technician Contest, held in Seoul Educational & Cultural Center from June 4 to 9, at the Korean-Japanese organization＇s invitation.

He overcame the problems of his childhood and succeeded as a software expert in the information and technology industry in the United States.

In the information and technology world, he is known as an expert in programing technology, especially in e-commerce. He become a prominent expert due to his own ability in technology and his work in Edgetrade company due to his strong will and his work ethic towards his job.

He says that he trained himself to use a computer when he was a university student, often staying up all night working. Later after he started to work at his company developing programs, he continued this habit, spenting many nights working rather than going home.

People around him thought that as an adopted child he would have trouble fitting into American society, and it was this that made him want to succeed.

He graduated from the Computer Science Department of Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI) in 1994 and developed various financial programs.

He said he wanted to do the same as Masayoshi Son, who works for Softbank conecting Korea and Japan in business, but he wanted to help Korean companies to advance into the United States.

Joel regrets that he could not find his birth parents because there is no records of his adoption left.

by Park Bang-joo