Carol Ou was born in Banqiao, a small town near Taipei City, Taiwan. Carol arrived in the U.S. as a graduate student at Penn State University, majoring in Statistics. After obtaining her master’s degree, she moved to New York City and worked for Equitable Life Insurance Company as an actuary student until she married her husband and moved to Kansas a year later. Since then, Carol has worked as a System Analyst at the Boeing Company and in various roles at Phillips Petroleum Company (now Conoco Phillips) in Oklahoma. In 2001, she left Phillips Petroleum to settle in sunny San Diego and has resided there since.
Carol has maintained a lifelong love of school and learning. In addition to her master’s from PSU, she earned a MBA from Oklahoma State University and completed a master's degree courses from the Texas A&M Industrial Engineering department. She also obtained a CPA and a CFP certificate during her career as a financial analyst at Phillips Petroleum. Carol has always found fulfillment through public service in her local communities, serving in various non-profit organizations while in Oklahoma, promoting educational excellence and arts enrichment. In San Diego, she has been deeply involved with the Taiwanese American (TA) community and devoted her time and energy into promoting the wellness of the local TA people, along with enriching the cultural diversity of San Diego community through the culture of her motherland, Taiwan. Over the past 15 years, while serving as the volunteer managing director of the San Diego Taiwan Center, she also served as the President of the Taiwanese American Foundation of San Diego, the President of the San Diego Taiwanese Cultural Association, and the President of the North America Taiwanese Women’s Association, at both the local chapter and headquarter levels.