Dr. Byron Athan, the founding mayor of the city of San Ramon, who was Chairman of the U.S.-China Exchange Council for many years, was born in San Francisco in 1918. As a young man, Byron witnessed the building of our beautiful & beloved Golden Gate Bridge. He recalled his fascination while watching the process of spinning the two main suspension cables one wire at a time. Over 80,000 miles of wire were spun together to form one strong cable to suspend the entire bridge. One day, while thinking about his old childhood memories, it occurred to him that the many friendships formed between our visiting Chinese and Americans - one friendship at a time - is similar to the building of a strong bridge one wire at a time. Over the years, US.-China Exchange Council has built a strong bridge of friendship between our two countries - because of the many friendships formed over time, one by one!