Ex-judoist works for public health

Chang Jung-soo

By Park Jin-hai

Chang Jung-soo, 64, has faced many challenges in life.

As an aspiring young judo student, he left his hometown Daegu and came up to Seoul to find the bigger world. While studying at Hanyang University on full scholarship, he didn’t miss the opportunity to go overseas and become a national judo wrestling team coach in Bolivia, before becoming chairman of NuriVision, an anti-spam company.

“I have always been chasing my dreams. I kept on saying to myself that I should venture out and look for the bigger world. If I had stayed in the country, I could be teaching students at school, but my dream was larger than that,” said Chang, during an interview with The Korea Times.

In 1977, he led the national wrestling team in Bolivia, where judo was not a popular sport, and under his leadership the team clinched a total of 18 medals at international judo competitions.

The achievement led the sport to be included in the regular curriculum and landed him more teaching jobs at the Military College of Bolivia and the National Police Academy. “As an overseas Korean, wherever I teach, I placed the national flag of Korea on the wall side by side with the host country’s flag,” he said proudly.

But his journey didn’t stop there. The former judo wrestler went to New York in 1980.

“The urge to go to the bigger world, learn more and return home has always pushed me to chart a new path in life,” he said. “That brought me to New York.”

Since joining AXA Equitable Financial Services, LLC in 1990, he spent the following 22 years working as a successful financial advisor on Wall Street. His achievement in consulting fellow Koreans in financial planning and retirement paid off as Chang was introduced into the AXA’s prestigious Hall of Fame in 2002, after spending a decade as a member of the industry’s Million Dollar Round Table.

After retiring in 2011, he served as the sports ambassador of the Bolivia Olympic Committee (BOC), by the request of his protege Edgar Claure, then president of the BOC, boosting sports diplomacy between Bolivia and Korea until 2015.

Since 2006, Chang has traveled between Korea and the U.S. and preaches the importance of public health.

“I have visited about 70 cities and offered free lectures and training classes more than 400 times so far,” he said. “I regard it as my small devotion to my home country.”

As a person who has expertise in health and finance, Chang says Korea still has a relatively low understanding of the importance of public health.

“Public health is not purely a personal matter, but it is rather an economic, political and societal matter as well,” he said. “Obamacare was created because the health costs spiked beyond control. Currently, an average U.S. citizen pays about $2,000 for monthly health insurance premiums, ten times that of a Korean citizen. But, if we do not pay attention to public health, we could also face a future where there are people who cannot afford health insurance.”