Brady Meixell is the young ambassador in Unearthing Ogawa who held court with opening comments during the Ogawa-Meixell meeting in Tokyo, and who exemplified the friendly dignity of his grandfather, John Meixell, throughout the travels on this film project.

In the years since the Japanese portions of the documentary, Brady attended the College of William & Mary and the Danish Institute for Study Abroad in Copenhagen. He served on Capitol Hill as an intern with Congresswoman Louise Slaughter and conducted tours of the Capitol Building there. After additional internships at the Economic Policy Institute and the Brookings Institute, he joined the Urban Institute as a community and economic development researcher. Since getting his master's degree in urban planning at Columbia University, he has been preserving Brooklyn's working waterfront and its good-paying accessible jobs at the Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation.

His passions include travel, community development, anti-poverty efforts, racial equity, traversing DC and NYC, and history. He resides across the East River in the heart of Astoria, Queens.

This is how he remembers John Meixell today:

The most profound thing about my grandfather was his uncommon empathy. This was true on the grand scale as evidenced in his efforts to return the diary, but it was also an aspect of his character that shone through the everyday moments. If his young grandson bumped his head, he’d give me a knowing look, some words of comfort, and everything would be okay again. That empathy in moments big and small, his kindness towards all, service to others above himself, and good-spirited humor will always serve as the gold standard to me of how to carry oneself through life.