Catalog and Store

In many ways, a company is really just a collection of people. Here are some of the faces behind the Abax mask.

Hugh Graham-Marr

Hugh Graham-Marr has been teaching English for over 20 years and continues to teach in addition to his work with Abax, where he is a co-owner and co-founder. He has written books for Berlitz, URBest Publishing and Abax, holds a Masters in T.E.S.P and is a former TOECI test items writer. Books he has editied include Teaching in Pursuit of Wow!, The Coursebook and Beyond, and the award-winning, Fiction in Action: Whodunit

Alastair Graham-Marr

Alastair Graham-Marr has been teaching English for 32 years. In addition to his work with Abax, he very recently retired as a Professor at the Tokyo University of Science. Amongst other things, Alastair wrote Abax's Communication Spotlight. More recent books by him are Academic Listening & Speaking and TOEFL Skills.

Azusa Sato-Homer

Azusa Sato-Homer was Abax's first hire and joined the company soon after graduation. Since then she has worked at Macmilan Publishing and earned a CELTA and a Masters degreee in TESOL. Now in addition to teaching at university, Azusa does production and office work for Abax. 

Mao Kumagai

Mao Kumagai has been with Abax for 7 years. Before joining Abax, Mao lived in Canada for 2 years studying English. And before that she was taking care of children for 5 years at a daycare in Kanagawa. Mao works as a Sales Rep. for Abax travelling around the country, visiting schools and meeting teachers.

Junko Saito

Junko Saito is Abax's office manager and has been with the company from the very beginning. She is also involved in production work. In the past, Junko has both taught English to children and taught Japanese to foreigners in Japan.

Chris Cleary

Chris Cleary (RSA Diploma, MA in Linguistics) brings more than thirty year's EFL experience (he's taught in the UK, Portugal, Switzerland, Singapore and Japan and been an RSA Diploma instructor and examiner) to his work as an editorial consultant for Abax. As well as being editor of the best-selling Communication Spotlight series, he is is author of Listening Skills for the Center Exam and a co-author of Top-Up Listening. Formerly Director of the International Language Centre in Tokyo, since 2000 Chris has worked as an investment advisor at Banner Japan. Chris lives in Saitama with his wife and just-about grown-up children. His other interests include wine, long-distance running and poetry.