He has a history of serving the community in many capacities. He is the president of Citizens for Better Community and a trustee of the Ohlone Community College District. He is an adult leader with a local Boy Scout troop and volunteers at his children’s elementary school and high school. He has also served on the Fremont Library Advisory Commission, and was an assistant coach for his son’s youth football team.
Garrett has proudly served his country in the Army Reserve for over 16 years. In April 2003, Major Yee was activated with the 91st Division at Camp Parks as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Currently, he works as a Plans Officer in the Division Headquarters helping to plan future operations. He is scheduled to remain on active duty for up to 9 months.

Garrett met his wife, Maria Vera-Yee, while attending Kennedy High School in Fremont and they have three children--Gilbert, Michael and Alissa. Even as a youth, Garrett was active in the community. He served both as a volunteer and as paid staff with the City of Fremont Youth Service Corps; served as founding president of the Leo’s Club; selected as the Optimist Youth of the Year; served as the captain of the high school varsity wresting team; and earned the Eagle Scout rank.

The power of role models runs strong in Garrett’s family. Just as he is a role model for his children, his dad Gilbert Yee, who grew up in San Francisco’s Chinatown, has been a role model for Garrett. “My dad was a high school drop-out,” says Garrett. “While in his mid-thirties, my father got a second chance in life to start over again by attending San Jose City College.” He would go on to complete his bachelor’s degree from San Jose State, teach in Fremont and eventually complete his Master’s degree. Gilbert received the honor of being named the California State Teacher of the Year in 1978.

Garrett learned as well from his mother, Michiko Ino Yee, whose determination to get an education impressed him. “My mom’s family was Japanese, and they were migrant workers in Southern California,” says Garrett. “During WWII, when my mother was about 6 or 7, the family was sent to an internment camp. After they were released from the camps, they were migrant workers again. My mother graduated from high school, but she had to wait to complete her undergraduate degree. Over the years, she took some classes at Ohlone College. The year she received her BA, she was in her fifties, and I was graduating from high school.”

Education has always been a major part of Garrett’s life. After graduation from Kennedy High, he attended Santa Clara University and eventually earned an MBA from Golden Gate University while working full-time and raising a family. Today, in his capacity as a manager at the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau, he also teaches continuing education courses to insurance industry professionals.

Being of Chinese and Japanese descent, Garrett brings a mix of cultures together with his wife, Maria Vera-Yee, who is Hispanic. Garrett states, “We are fortunate to live in a wonderful community that not only accepts, but welcomes cultural diversity. We live in a great community.” “Above all, we are Americans,” states Garrett, “in fact, in 1981, the Argus newspaper wrote a feature story on our family (my parents and us kids) and referred to us as a ‘Model American Family’ in the headline, and later, the local Kiwanis organization awarded us the ‘American Family of the Year,’ for 1983.”