Hawaii Business Magazine March 2022

P U B L I C S C H O O L S T R Y T O B O U N C E B A C K P.56

KYLE AND EMI SUZUKI OF SUMIDA FARMS IN ‘AIEA

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L O C A L LY O W N E D , L O C A L LY C O M M I T T E D SINCE 1955

SMALL BUSINESS 2O22

12 Award-Winning Companies, Plus 4 Others Enter Hall of Fame P.27

Service with a caring heart.

That’s UHA. UHA was founded by physicians, and the caring that physicians have for people, really powers our company. Here’s to 25 years of better health.

May is Nurses’ Month We send our appreciation and aloha to all the amazing nurses on our staff and throughout Hawaii.

Running a business can be hectic.

One Plan is simple.

Arriving this summer! New from UHA!

uhahealth.com

We’re proud of our clients:

DEJA VU SURF HAWAII S. TOKUNAGA STORE DIAMOND BAKERY MAUI SODA & ICE WORKS, LTD. SPORTS TRAVEL HAWAII ISLAND MAID HONOLULU FISH COMPANY

Congratulations to all of this year’s honorees.

At Bank of Hawai‘i, we salute every entrepreneur who has the vision, grit and determination to start and run a small business. We’re especially proud that 7 of this year’s 15 honorees are Bank of Hawai‘i clients!

Visit boh.com/smallbusiness to learn more.

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05.22

FEATURES

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The Best of Small Local Business 2022 12 winners of our SmallBiz Editor’s Choice Awards, plus four 100-year-old-plus companies inducted into the Hawai‘i Small Business Hall of Fame.

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Smart Advice for Your Company, Big or Small Five local experts provide concise roadmaps for solving common problems and making your business more successful.

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Schools’ Post-Pandemic Recovery Will Be Tough How teachers, principals and advocates armed with $690 million in federal pandemic funding are trying to turn things around.

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Why It’s So Hard to Stop Flow of Illegal Fireworks The equivalent of about 1.6 million containers move through Hawai‘i’s harbors every year. Can we find the needles in the haystack?

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Ethnic Groups that Make the Most Money Some new data on income, education, employment and homeownership is surprising and some confirms what we know about Hawai‘i’s hierarchy.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF MICHAEL TOKUNAGA

Sumie Tokunaga, founder of S. Tokunaga Store in Hilo, with his prized ulua catch.

Seann Hartnell Market Manager, Kauai American Savings Bank Nathan Wood Nathan Wood General Contractor, Kauai Small Biz Editor’s Choice Award Winner

Congratulations to the small businesses that think big.

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• Business credit cards to manage spending and earn points or cash back.

• Business lines of credit to access the funds you need to stay competitive.

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© 2022 American Savings Bank, F.S.B.

REAL LIFE ANSWERS

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CONTENTS

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PHOTO: AARON YOSHINO

Parting Shot Brandi Lelepali, left, and Tamara Rigney, owner of Mei Day, create artful arrangements of Hawai‘i’s tropical flowers at Kaka‘ako’s Lana Lane Studios.

The Hawaii Business Podcast Re-Launches this Month Interviews with influential and interesting local people, with discussions on business, education, housing, environment and much more.

10 My Job: Finding the Causes of Vertigo and Dizziness Audiologist Shannon McCormick tests patients to determine if their symptoms are an ear problem, a brain issue or something else.

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Center for Tomorrow’s Leaders on How They Mentor Their programs seek to empower young leaders in high school and college.

14 What’s Next for ProService: “Refounding” the Company CEO Ben Godsey says “we are … transforming our services for the future.”

16 2021 Was a Bounce Back Year for Commercial Real Estate Resort/golf course sales and vacant land sales each totaled almost a billion dollars.

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Nonprofit with a Mission: Hawai‘i Parkinson Association The all-volunteer organization supports Parkinson’s patients and caregivers.

55 Celebrating 75th Anniversary of Catholic Charities Hawai‘i The social service agency serves kūpuna who live at home, immigrants, troubled youth and homeless people of all faiths and cultures.

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SPECI A L A DV ERTI SI NG SECTI ON S

Shipping, Air and Transportation Your 2022 guide to one of Hawai‘i’s most vital industries.

49 Hawai‘i Island Organizations share their challenges and vision for moving toward a brighter, more sustainable future.

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O N T H E C OV E R

Photo by Aaron Yoshino

HAWAII BUSINESS (ISSN 0440-5056) IS PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY PACIFICBASIN COMMUNICATIONS. ©2022 PACIFICBASIN COMMUNICATIONS, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ANY UNAUTHORIZED COPYING, DISTRIBUTION, OR ADAPTATION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED AND WILL RESULT IN LIABILITY OF UP TO $100,000. EDITORIAL, ADVERTISING AND BUSINESS OFFICES AT 1088 BISHOP STREET, SUITE LL2, HONOLULU, HI 96813. TELEPHONE (808) 534-7520. POSTMASTER: SEND ALL ADDRESS CHANGES TO HAWAII BUSINESS, P.O. BOX 913, HONOLULU, HI 96808. SUBSCRIBERS NOTIFY THE SAME OFFICE. PLEASE INCLUDE NEW ADDRESS AND OLD ADDRESS (MAILING LABEL PREFERRED) PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT HONOLULU, HAWAI‘I, AND AT ADDITIONAL MAILING OFFICES. SUBSCRIPTION: ONE YEAR $24.99 / TWO YEARS $34.99 / THREE YEARS $44.99. FOREIGN: ONE YEAR $53.99 (US FUNDS). FOR SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES, ADDITIONAL RATES, INFORMATION, NOTIFICATION OF CHANGE OF ADDRESS AND SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE, PLEASE CALL (800) 788-4230. MAY 2022 VOL. 68/NO.9

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Hawai‘i Real Estate News

Read news and insights about Hawai‘i real estate every Tuesday TO SUBSCRIBE, VISIT H AWAIIBU SIN ESS. CO M /H R EN

Locally Owned, Locally Committed

F R O M

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E D I T O R

M IN D

A New Podcast Worth Hearing

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LOVE PODCASTS AND SO DO A GAZILLION OTHER PEOPLE. Forbes says there

were 1.75 million podcasts to choose from in February 2021, so no shortage of options.

There are lots of Hawai‘i podcasts, including good ones focused on tourism and culture. What’s still needed is a well-done local podcast focused on business and other major issues in the Islands, like education, housing, the environment, and health and wellness.

That’s where we come in: We are resuming the Hawaii Business Podcast this month, with 20 episodes planned for this year.

My editorial team and I will be providing input on format, topics and guests, and we’ve invited Unyong Nakata to be our host. I can’t think of a better choice.

Unyong Nakata is the founder and principal of Nakata Advisory LLC, which focuses on catalyzing business development and operational alignment for its clients.

She has worked at UH Mānoa’s Shidler College of Business and at Y. Hata & Co., has a Shidler MBA and experience in sales, marketing, fundraising, business development, customer service and supply chain management. Plus she serves on the boards of the Salvation Army, Domestic Violence Action Center, Great Aloha Run, Aloha United Way’s Women United and the Patsy T. Mink Center for Business and Leadership.

Unyong knows a lot of local business leaders too.

And if you have attended our annual Leadership Conference or Wahine Forum, you know she does a great job of moderating engaging discussions on important topics.

Confirmed guests for her first few months of the podcast include Arnold Martines of Central Pacific Bank, Diane Paloma of HDS, UH’s Susan Yamada, John Fink of Aloha United Way and Colbert Matsumoto of Tradewind Capital Group.

You can find the Hawaii Business Podcast starting April 28 wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and at HawaiiBusiness.com.

My mother is of Ukrainian descent, and both of my parents were born in Poland soon after the end of World War I. World War II began when Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and soon both of my parents were forced into slave labor by the Nazi occupiers. They were sent to farms in southern Austria, then part of greater Germany, working in place of young German men who were off fighting the war.

When that war was over, they and my newborn sister were among the millions of refugees in Europe faced with a difficult choice: return to their homeland or find a life somewhere new.

For the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, going home often meant returning to where their fellow citizens and local leaders gave them up to the Nazis. Few, if any, of their Jewish neighbors were still alive to welcome them back.

My parents’ decision was almost as difficult. My father had lived for almost a year under Soviet rule at the start of the war – he had no desire to live under Communism again.

My mother came from a different part of Poland and did not share that awful experience; she had not seen her family for five years and was desperate to go home.

They argued for weeks about whether to return or adopt the unknown future of refugees. Thank God my father prevailed.

Meanwhile, Stalin reordered the people of Eastern Europe. Ethnic Germans were forcibly shipped on cattle cars to East Germany, ethnic Poles to the redrawn Poland, Ukrainians to the Ukraine part of the Soviet Union and so on. Thousands died in this forced migration and survivors had to make new lives far from where they and their ancestors may have lived for centuries.

My mother’s family was shipped to Ukraine, near the city of Lviv, where they are now victims of another war. I, because of Hitler and Stalin, live in America.

IF NOT FOR HITLER AND STALIN

An irony of my life is I exist thanks to the worst mass murderers of the 20th century, Hitler and Stalin.

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STEVE PETRANIK EDITOR

HB EVENTS CONNECT WITH HAWAII BUSINESS MAGAZINE L O C A L LY OW N E D , L O C A L LY C O M M I T T E D SINCE 1955.

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Chairman and Chief Executive Officer DUANE KURISU PHOTOS: AARON YOSHINO

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Chief Financial Officer KEN MIYASATO

9th Annual Leadership Conference THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2022 | 8:00 A.M. – 4:00 P.M. HILTON HAWAIIAN VILLAGE WAIKIKI AFTER TWO YEARS, the Leadership Conference returns to the Hilton Hawai-

ian Village! Join us in-person for a full-day conference featuring inspiring and empowering speakers from Hawai‘i and beyond. Develop valuable new relationships, build influence in your space, challenge yourself to think differently and push yourself to grow as a leader. Stay tuned for details!

For conference information and sponsorship opportunities, contact eventsteam@hawaiibusiness.com.

UPCOMING EVENTS: Need to Know Series: Part 3

15th Annual Wahine Forum

Need to Know Series: Part 4

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

OCTOBER 26 – 27, 2022

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2022

For more information on our signature events, visit hawaiibusiness. com/events or contact Loren Doctolero, Director of Events, at lorend@ hawaiibusiness.com.

H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

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PH OTO BY RYA N S I P H E R S

M Y

NAME: SHANNON MCCORMICK

AGE:

JOB:

34

DOCTOR OF AUDIOLOGY

J O B

Determining the Causes of Vertigo and Dizziness

BY N IK K I Z AM AN I

BEGINNINGS: “I did not originally plan on pursuing audiology. When I was an undergrad I got in an accident and I had to be in physical therapy for a year and a half. My physical therapist did vestibular rehab (inner ear) with me, and I thought it was cool and interesting.”

AUDIOLOGY: “We do hearing tests, and that is what people mostly associate us with. We also dispense hearing aids and conduct vestibular assessments, which evaluates the function of the balance system. I specialize in vestibular testing.”

VESTIBULAR TESTING: “Vestibular testing is a series of tests which are done when patients are experiencing vertigo, dizziness, imbalance, ringing of the ears or ear fullness. We try to determine the root cause. Is it an ear issue? Is it a brain issue? Is it something visually going on? Once we know what is causing the patient’s symptoms, we can treat it.”

One form of vestibular testing called VNG tests inner ear and central motor functions, including looking for involuntary eye movements known as nystagmus.

“Patients benefit from VNG

testing because their health care provider can develop a plan that tries to avoid dizziness medication. Many patients rely on a drug called Meclizine.

“Meclizine is often prescribed for dizziness and vertigo, but it is not designed to be a maintenance drug. It works by suppressing the vestibular system, so when patients come off it, they feel dizzy.

It is a great medication during an acute vestibulopathy when vertigo is at its worst. Patients who are on it for a long time never compensate for their vestibular weakness (the reason you do physical therapy), so when they stop taking it the vertigo returns.”

OTHER TESTING: “Another test we

do is called ECOG, short for electrocochleography. This looks at pressure levels inside the inner ear. When pressure is high, it can cause imbalance, vertigo, ear ringing or ear fullness. I am the only provider who does VNG testing on Maui, and I also test Big Island residents. I see patients from every island due to the high specialization of these vestibular tests.”

“Many think you have to be old to take a hearing test, but we actually test new-

borns’ hearing. When babies are born, they test their hearing with a screening before they leave the hospital. If the child is diagnosed and given properly fitted hearing aids before their first birthday, they will proceed to develop normal hearing and speech like their peers. That’s why it’s really important so they’ll still develop normal speech.”

WHAT IT TAKES: “Four years of a

graduate school program following a four-year undergraduate degree. A common undergrad major is communication and science disorders.”

TIPS FOR SUCCESS: “Don’t be afraid to try new things. Present yourself well and be willing to work hard. Audiology is a small community and people will remember you. Networking and continuing to improve through continuing education, humanitarian work or volunteering is very valuable. Science and technology are always changing – especially with hearing aids, they are constantly changing – so you must be very adaptable to be successful.”

MISCONCEPTIONS:

THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN EDITED FOR CL ARITY AND CONCISENESS.

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CTL staff member Lahela Manning mentors students.

How and Why I Mentor: Center for Tomorrow’s Leaders Its programs seek to engage, equip and empower young leaders for Hawai‘i’s future

W

HEN AI TANAKA RECEIVED AN EMAIL from her employer about

mentoring high school students through the Center for Tomorrow’s Leaders, she immediately signed up, but with one request: to be matched with someone from O‘ahu’s West Side.

Tanaka, a senior consultant with HMSA’s Organizational Development and Effectiveness Department, volunteers in the Wai‘anae community and serves on a board there. She sees mentoring as a way to pay it forward.

As part of CTL’s Unfold program, she was paired with Janelle Arca from Wai‘anae High School and Hollie Rader from Waipahu High. Both students are 14

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now attending UH Mānoa.

Tanaka met virtually with each student one-on-one for 30 minutes every week during the summer – an experience that she says made her a better professional, more authentic and more compassionate.

“You go into a mentorship program thinking that you’re giving something to someone but it’s really give and take.

It’s such a gift. It’s been so fulfilling,” Tanaka says.

“HERE FOR YOU”

Unfold is designed to provide a bridge of support for high school seniors during the transition from graduation to whatever’s next, whether that be col-

lege, a job or a trade. Unfold began in 2019 as an in-person program but was held virtually over the last two years because of the pandemic – a model that CTL’s staff hopes to continue.

“Right now, we’re keeping the program virtual with the hope that we can do some in-person meetups. I think it’s nice because then people can mentor on our different islands, from different communities,” says Katie Chang, executive director of the Center for Tomorrow’s Leaders.

Tanaka says she’s grateful for the virtual meetings as they allowed her to continue mentoring while she was on the mainland caring for her mother. “Even though I stopped working, I still talked with Hollie. It was amazing. It was one

PHOTO: COURTESY OF CENTER FOR TOMORROW’S LEADERS

BY T I A N N A M OR I M OTO

M E N T O R I N G

thing that kept me centered.”

Prospective mentors and mentees statewide can participate in Unfold; enroll at unfoldhawaii.org. Pairs are matched according to field or area of interest, shared experience and other factors, and mentors get a weekly guide to help facilitate meaningful conversations with their mentees.

“The theme of ‘Here for Hope, Here for Strength, Here for You’ was really focused on helping young people believe in their potential – to be able to see themselves in the future,” Chang says.

Sheena Choy, CTL’s fellows program and marketing coordinator, adds, “Our real hope was that the personal relationships would develop so much so that the mentors could be there for anything.”

MENTORING HAWAI‘I’S YOUTH

CTL offers a variety of mentorship and leadership development opportunities for Hawai‘i’s youth.

Over 500 students are enrolled in CTL programs on Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, Lāna‘i, Maui and Hawai‘i Island: • Ambassadors is a leadership development course for students in grades 10 to 12.

• Vanguard continues leadership development for CTL alumni ages 18-25 during college and early careers.

• Emerge is a one-day leadership conference for high schoolers.

• Raise Your Hand is a student-written column in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

Choy says mentorship is crucial to keeping local youths in Hawai‘i.

“It’s really important that our young people can stay here and imagine a future for themselves here,” she says.

Tanaka encourages others to volunteer. “I wish everyone could mentor because you don’t realize going into it what a privilege it is” to know young people and to have a direct impact on their development as leaders, she says.

To learn more about the Center for Tomorrow’s Leaders, visit ctlhawaii.org.

ARE YOU WILLING TO TALK TO A REPORTER ABOUT HOW AND WHY YOU MENTOR? LET US KNOW AT HAWAIIBUSINESS .COM/MENTORING

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What’s Next for ProService: “Refounding” the Company One of a series of interviews with CEOs of important local companies on their plans for the near future

BY ST EV E P E T R A N I K

T

HE END STAGES OF A PANDEMIC are not the only thing driving

change and uncertainty in the world. Add to that a bloody war in Europe, a new Cold War, climate change, AI, the Great Resignation and a seemingly endless series of disrupters.

Hawaii Business Magazine wants to know how important Hawai‘i organizations are responding to this change and uncertainty. Here is our interview with CEO Ben Godsey of ProService Hawaii. His answers have been lightly edited.

WHAT ARE YOUR MAJOR PLANS FOR THIS YEAR?

2022 will be a big year for ProService. We have a really exciting opportunity to rebuild our company for the new world of work. I call this “refounding” the company.

We are focusing on getting back to basics and transforming our services for the future. This means building up our “ownership culture” where employees feel a substantial, personal stake in the company’s performance.

It also means investing in more training and development of our staff, especially on the service standards we want to be known for. We are also doing a lot of work around simplifying and clarifying internal roles and responsibilities to drive fast decision-making and execution, as well as eliminating the clutter that built up as a byproduct of the pandemic.

TELL ME MORE ABOUT WHY YOU’RE DOING THIS “REFOUNDING” AND WHAT IT MEANS.

While the pandemic sped up the adop16

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tion of digital technologies and the shift to remote work, it also strained systems and processes as we quickly pivoted to meet the changing needs of customers and our organization.

In these last two years I’ve witnessed employees’ sense of belonging and social connections deteriorate, our training and management procedures become fatigued, and interactions across departments become increasingly difficult via remote.

Simultaneously, I’ve also seen our employees rally together and roll up their sleeves to overcome the unimaginable.

And I have countless thank-you emails from clients expressing their gratitude for our people to prove it.

I’m proud of the resilience demonstrated by our team. I also know that reversing other negative trends and the organizational fallout caused by Covid-19 is mission-critical.

It’s not just critical for keeping up with our health metrics. It’s critical to preserve the secret sauce that makes ProService a special place to work – where employees feel empowered to grow, make their mark and affect change in our values-driven environment.

RISING PROBLEMS AND RAPID CHANGES MEAN HAWAI‘I AND THE WORLD FACE A NEW ERA NOW AND OVER THE NEXT DECADE. WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST OPPORTUNITIES FACING YOUR ORGANIZATION AND INDUSTRY?

I believe the biggest opportunity is that we’re on the cusp of Covid-19 reaching endemic status, perhaps as soon as Q2. Now is the time for business leaders to aggressively take advantage of all of our pandemic learnings and transform our organiza-

Ben Godsey, CEO of ProService Hawaii

W H AT ’ S

N E X T

tions to deliver what our customers (and our employees) will need over the next decade. We’re seizing this opportunity.

WHAT ABOUT THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES?

We already know just how difficult it is to hire and retain talent. In November 2021, 4.5 million American workers quit their jobs. The U.S. reached record quit rates at 3% but Hawai‘i surpassed even this at 4.7%.

Big companies are driving up wages but what if small businesses can’t afford to pay top dollar? What are other ways they can compete for top talent? Asked another way: What do workers want more than money that will make them stay? This is the question every business has to ask and uncover if they want to win the war for talent.

For example, we know that money can get workers in the door but it might not make them stay. Research shows if your employees are engaged by a leader they trust, it can take a pay raise of more than 20% to poach them. Turns out a great boss, or a great leader, makes a world of difference.

Knowing this, what can businesses do to build up and train their leaders? These are the sort of challenges and opportunities all workplaces need to work through.

At some point, employers must shift from talking about the “Great Resignation” to the “Great Retention,” with companies going on the offensive to really figure out what it takes to keep top workers.

THERE IS WIDESPREAD PESSIMISM ABOUT THE FUTURE. WHAT GIVES YOU OPTIMISM?

I’m actually super optimistic right now.

We are coming out of the pandemic with the best leadership team we’ve ever had, and are actually 15% bigger than at the beginning of the pandemic. We have a great team and a very strong vision for the future. What we get to do is so exciting.

We definitely have our work cut out but we know where we’re going and it’s important, purposeful work that our clients and community will benefit from.

I’m already greatly encouraged by the energy, progress and teamwork of our people to rally behind these efforts.

PH OTO BY A A R O N YO S H I N O

H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

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EVENT SERIES

Mahalo to our virtual and in-person attendees, panelists and sponsors for making our March event at the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Ho‘okupu Center a success!

PRESENTED BY

SUPPORTING SPONSORS

STUDENT SPONSOR

The pandemic has escalated the conversation around Hawai‘i’s food security and its reliance on imports. The conversations explored what steps are being taken by farmers, suppliers and non-profits to help Hawai‘i reduce its reliance on non-local food sources. Important discussions ranged from lack of proper storage facilities to stockpile goods, to making farming a viable venture and updating regulations for agricultural lands.

“From a land use planning perspective, there’s been a lot of work to evaluate if we have enough agricultural land to sustain our population. Structures on agricultural land have been controversial and land use regulations need to be updated to reflect current practices,” said G70 Associate and Senior Environmental Planner Barrie Fox Morgan, AICP. “Today’s panel discussion only reaffirmed this.”

“The current ‘just in time’ delivery of food grown elsewhere leaves Hawai‘i vulnerable to shortages from supply disruptions. Aligning a vision for sustainable level of agriculture with strategies to improve food resiliency will take time and the support of residents and decision-makers. The time to start putting a plan in place is now.”

— G70 , P R E S E N T I N G S P O N S O R

“Kamehameha Schools (KS) believes a strong, local food system in partnership with community is critical to Hawaiian culture, a diversified economy with new jobs, environmental resilience, and overall well-being of Hawai‘i’s people. KS’ agricultural lands annually produce approximately 19 million pounds of food – vegetables, fruits, specialty crops and livestock; and its commercial portfolio includes processing, storage, distribution and sales of food products. KS campuses also aim to double local food consumption by 2025 while KS’ $10 million Food Systems Fund looks to invest in compelling businesses – and their leaders – to accelerate the revitalization and diversification of food systems.”

— KĀ‘EO DUA RT E, KA M E H A M E H A S C H O O L S

“Food is a basic need for survival and quality of life, and the pandemic exposed the perils of relying on justin-time delivery from the global supply chain,” said Murray Clay, president of Ulupono Initiative. “Researchers forecast that worldwide population growth will require food production to increase 60% by mid-century, even as climate change is expected to decrease harvest yields around the world. Producing more competitively priced local food improves sustainability and resilience, while benefiting hard-working producers and providing more fresh, nutritious products for our communities. Hawaii Business’ Need to Know series provides a valuable forum for discussing challenges around land, water, energy, labor, and other factors critical to Hawai‘i’s future.”

— ULUPONO INITIATIVE

“Island Pacific Academy is honored and grateful to Hawaii Business Magazine for being the Student Sponsor for the Need to Know Series and this event on Hawai‘i’s Food Security and Resilience. Hawai‘i’s food security and resilience aligns well to our curricular efforts at IPA, which are built around the issues of the overall sustainability of our island home, good health and well-being for our greater community.

The challenge of Hawai‘i’s food security and resilience aligns readily with our vision statement at IPA: “To inspire and enable our students to be navigators of change and go forward with confidence to become caring, contributing citizens who can succeed in an ever-changing world.”

— GERALD TERAMAE, ISLAND PACIFIC ACADEMY

“No government agency or non-profit entity has any idea on what it takes to feed the entire state plus a quarter million tourists at any given time – nor do they have the necessary equipment and distribution capacity to do so. Failing to incorporate the private industry in the state’s recovery plan will result in the needless suffering of our people. The federal and state governments relied on our doctors and hospitals to address the pandemic – the same logic applies for the need to join hands with food distribution industry to recover from a natural disaster.” — C H AD B U C K , H AWAI I FO O D S ERVI C E AL L I AN C E

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R E A L

Purchases of Hawai‘i Commercial Real Estate Rebounded in 2021

erties in 2019 that likely led to the downturn or the slowdown,” he says.

The pandemic depressed 2020 sales in Hawai‘i even further. That year, a little over 200 transactions made for $1.19 billion in sales.

Resort/golf course sales and vacant land sales each totaled almost a billion dollars, according to a year-end report from Colliers Hawaii. About half of the purchase volume was made

by Hawai‘i-based investors.

For the second consecutive year, Hawai‘i-based investors made up the most active buyer group, accounting for half of the 2021 sales volume. They invested a total $1.56 billion.

U.S. investors from outside Hawai‘i invested $1.55 billion, while international investors only spent $43.3 million. The low activity from foreigners was largely driven by the pandemic’s travel restrictions and quarantines.

But purchases by mainland and foreign investors had already been decreasing in the years before the pandemic. Hamasu says that’s because there’s a shortage of prime investment properties in the Islands.

“When one comes up, typically there’s a lot of interest, but in 2019, 2020, you didn’t see a whole lot of new megadeal, institutional investment type properties come on the market” and that’s probably one major reason that foreign buyers were largely absent, he says.

Domestic buyers tended to come from California, New York and Texas and foreign investors from Japan, Australia, Singapore, Germany and China.

Hamasu says foreign investment activity in Hawai‘i depends on the originating country’s ability to generate capital. For example, Japanese investors were encouraged to invest in foreign property when interest rates were low during Japan’s bubble in the late 1980s to early 1990s.

He adds that there’s an overlap between the places investors are from and Hawai‘i’s largest visitor markets.

“There is a trend where once tour-

BY NO E L L E FUJII- OR ID E

I

NVESTMENT

PURCHASES

IN

Hawai‘i’s commercial real estate market during 2021 exceeded pre-pandemic levels with $3.15 billion in sales volume, according to Colliers Hawaii’s year-end investment report.

2021 saw a 17.36% increase in sales activity compared with 2019 and a 164% increase from 2020, which was a slow year due to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, travel restrictions and mandatory quarantines.

In 2021, 353 transactions were made – the most in 16 years. Nearly 68% of the purchases were made by Hawai‘i-based investors.

With local tourism slowly recovering and Covid-19 cases subsiding, Colliers is optimistic about commercial real estate investment in 2022.

“Colliers anticipates a surge in investment activity during the first half of 2022, as the combination of current low-interest rate environment and rising inflation motivates fixed-income investors to seek real estate to diversify their portfolios,” the report’s authors wrote.

ILLUSTRATIONS: GETTY IMAGES; PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

E S TAT E

H AWA I ‘ I I N V E ST M E N T S AL E S

BY

P R OP E RT Y T Y PE

INVESTMENT CYCLES

Hawai‘i’s commercial real estate market enjoyed booming sales from 2015 to 2018, says Mike Hamasu, director of research and consulting at Colliers Hawaii. In 2018 the market set a record of $5.2 billion in sales.

Spikes like that, he says, are typically led by sales of prime resorts, large pieces of vacant land or major shopping centers. In 2018, 12 megadeals were priced over $100 million, totaling $3.9 billion.

Those deals included $1.1 billion for the Grand Wailea Resort, $288 million for the Andaz Maui Resort and $215 million for the Modern Honolulu.

Sales slowed in 2019 to $2.6 billion.

Hamasu says that can be attributed to fewer megadeals and the fact that investors typically hold their properties for two to five years before flipping or reselling them.

“You had a huge spike and when you sell a lot of mega-transactions, the number of available properties, and this is across all of Hawai‘i, tends to decrease significantly because you had all this flurry of activity and you ultimately had a shortage of available investment prop-

WHO’S INVESTING IN HAWAI‘I

$3.

1 5 $877.20M $239.74M $924.01M $344.57M $342.91M $422.30M BILLION RESORT /GOLF

INDUSTRIAL

LAND

MULTIFAMILY RESIDENTIAL

OFFICE

RETAIL

TOTAL

H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

21

R E A L

E S TAT E

H AWA I ‘ I S AL E S

C R E

INVESTM ENT

VO LU M ES

VS.

SALES

CO U NTS

$6.00B

400 350

$5.00B

300 $4.00B

250

$3.00B

200 150

$2.00B

100 $1.00B

50

$0.00B

0 2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

$ Volume (Billions)

H ISTO R I CA L BY

BU YE R

I NVESTM ENT

2018

2019

2020

2021

# of Transactions

SALES

VOLUME

LO CATIO N

$4.00B $3.50B $3.00B $2.50B $2.00B $1.50B $1.00B $0.50B

MULTIFAMILY AND OFFICE SALES

$0.00B 2012

2013

2014

2015

Local

2016

2017

U.S. Domestic

2018

2019

2020

2021

International

Source: Colliers Hawaii Research and Consulting

ism picks up and we’re seeing people fly into Hawai‘i, those people that become familiar with Hawai‘i will start to think, ‘Well maybe we should have a business here or invest in real estate,’ ” Hamasu says. “And that’s typically how it flows.”

VACANT LAND SALES POPULAR

Sixty-eight vacant land parcels were sold for $924 million in 2021, accounting for 29% of the year’s sales volume.

Industrial-zoned land was the most 22

Kunia from HRT Realty, a division of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.

Jupiter Holdings is a private investment firm based in Newport Beach, California.

Amazon also spent nearly $79 million for land in Kapolei’s Harborside industrial park, where the online retail company plans to build a distribution center. Amazon already owns 14.5 acres on Sand Island.

“You have this domino effect where you have e-commerce going, you have the requirement for distribution facilities for Costco and Amazon and some others that are fueling the demand for raw land because, one, we don’t have huge distribution facilities here in Hawai‘i so they have to go out and buy land and build it themselves,” Hamasu says.

“The trend is likely to continue because if Amazon’s presence is here, in all likelihood some of the other large retailers, and this is speculation, like Walmart and Target and some of the other ones are going to consider, ‘Maybe that’s something we need to do as well.’ ” He adds that the state’s land use regulations and entitlement process can be cumbersome for developers, but if they’re patient, they can make money off their investments. For example, the Ho‘opili and Koa Ridge developments spent 10 to 20 years working to get entitlements and approvals.

“That’s probably why you don’t see a lot of development, in particular like apartment buildings or retail shopping centers, or we haven’t seen an office building built here in a long time as well,” Hamasu says.

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sought-after vacant land, bringing in nearly $318 million. Hamasu says that stems from the accelerating shift to e-commerce brought on by the pandemic. Investors are also purchasing industrial-zoned land to help mitigate supply chain shortages, says Brandon Bera, VP at Colliers Hawaii.

Some notable 2021 transactions included Costco Wholesale Corp.’s $130 million purchase of the entire Ho‘opili Business Park from Jupiter Holdings and Jupiter Holdings’ $63.5 million purchase of 123 acres of vacant industrial land in Royal

Investors spent nearly $345 million on multifamily properties last year.

Most of those investors were local, continuing a decadeslong trend. Hamasu says small multifamily apartment buildings tend to be the introduction into commercial real estate for many local investors.

Bera adds that these types of buildings typically have lower initial sales prices, generally in the $2 million to $5 million range. “It’s a very stable and predictable, for the most part, investment in Hawai‘i where there’s obviously a shortage of affordable, even reasonably affordable product out there,” he says.

In 2019, Honolulu’s mayor approved Bill 7, which created a five-year program in which developers and landowners

R E A L

can receive exemptions and fee waivers from standard building regulations to build affordable rentals on small, underused lots already zoned for multifamily dwellings. Bera says the impact from this legislation on the state’s multifamily investment market has yet to be seen.

There were 28 transactions for office properties in 2021, totaling nearly $343 million. Most of that money was spent in BlackSand Capital’s acquisition of the Waikiki Galleria Tower for $270 million.

Bera says office building purchases have generally been rare in Hawai‘i. They don’t change hands often and over the last five years most transactions have been for small two-story office buildings. The occasional transaction for a larger building tends to occur when the new owner wants to occupy it or convert it into another use, such as a hotel or residences.

There’s still a lot of uncertainty in the market about the impact of hybrid and remote work, Hamasu adds. “Typically, if I’m a buyer I want to make sure

that I’m guaranteed a certain amount of income from the property,” he says.

“Over the next three to five years, if some tenants are not going to expand or even going to reduce their (office) floor plate, I’ve got some serious questions as to whether or not I want to invest in the office market at this point.”

2022 OUTLOOK

The largest transaction in 2021 was BlackSand Capital’s $430 million acquisition of the Royal Lahaina Resort. That was one of 13 resort/golf properties that contributed to $877.2 million in sales, a huge rebound from 2020’s $13 million in resort/golf sales.

Tourism’s recovery is slowly underway.

Hawai‘i hotels reported a year-end 2021 average daily room rate of $329, 16.1% higher than 2019 levels. The revenue per available room was $189, and hotels reported a 57.6% occupancy rate. Both measures were higher than in 2020 but lower than in 2019.

The state Department of Business,

E S TAT E

Economic Development & Tourism has forecast that visitor arrivals to Hawai‘i will meet the pre-pandemic 2019 level of nearly 10 million in 2024.

Interest rates are poised to increase, but Colliers is optimistic about the overall investment market’s future in 2022. The company forecasts that investment activity in Hawai‘i will remain elevated during 2022, with total sales near $3.5 billion.

“I feel very optimistic about commercial real estate, but there are naturally headwinds that we’re facing,” Bera says. Those include the Russia-Ukraine war and the resulting energy and humanitarian crises.

“The flip side of that is that it’s likely to make the stock market continue to be volatile and, in that situation, commercial real estate can be a little bit of a safe haven.”

Bera adds that a reason for optimism is the apparent winding down of the pandemic, with a commensurate rise in Asian and other international tourists.

“I think that will spur more activity for 2022 and beyond.”

Our ‘āina.

Our ‘ōpio.

Our future.

The land and sea were the classrooms of our kūpuna. It is here that keiki learn the kuleana we all share in preserving our honua. Together, we malāma ‘āina for generations to come.

Hānai i ke keiki, ola ka lāhui

ksbe.edu

23 H AWA I I B U @kamehamehaschools S I N ES S

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DEJA VU SURF

DIAMOND BAKERY

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GOLDWINGS SUPPLY SERVICE

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HO‘OKELE HEALTH SERVICES AND VIVIA

HONOLULU FISH COMPANY

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INDUSTRIAL BATTERY SOLUTIONS

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SPORTS TRAVEL HAWAII

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MAUI NUI VENISON

MAUI SODA AND ICE WORKS

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SUMIDA FARMS

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S. TOKUNAGA

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SURFACE SHIELD ROOFING CO.

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ISLAND MAID

MIRA IMAGE CONSTRUCTION

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NATHAN WOOD GENERAL CONTRACTOR

ROCKET COMMUNICATIONS

The

BEofST BUSINESS 2022 P H OTO G R A P H Y BY C H R I S T I A N K A H A H AWA I , RYA N S I P H E R S , N A N I W E LC H K E L I ‘ I H O ‘ O M A LU A N D A A R O N YO S H I N O

P R O F I L E S O F CO M PA N I E S I N 1 2 CAT E G O R I E S T H AT WO N H AWA I I B U S I N E S S M AGA Z I N E ’ S S M A L L B I Z E D I TO R ’ S C H O I C E AWA R D S , P LU S FO U R 1 0 0 - Y E A R - O L D - P LU S CO M PA N I E S I N D U C T E D I N TO T H E H AWA I ‘ I S M A L L B U S I N E S S H A L L O F FA M E

H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

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SPECIAL PROMOTION

The of

SMALL BUSINESS

2022

AT BANK OF HAWAI‘I, WE’VE BEEN BIG BELIEVERS IN SMALL BUSINESS SINCE 1897.

Ever since, we’ve been committed to helping generations of entrepreneurs realize their hopes and dreams of building a successful business here in the islands we love.

Today, we’re honored to continue that tradition as a sponsor of this year’s Hawaii Business Magazine’s “Best of Small Business Awards.”

We salute every small business owner who has the courage, grit and determination to start and run their own company.

You are the economic, employment and innovation engine that powers Hawaii and moves us all forward.

And we’re especially proud that out of this year’s 16 Small Business Award honorees, 7 are Bank of Hawai‘i clients.

To every small business owner all across Hawaii, mahalo to all of you for all you do.

MATTHEW EMERSON

Sr. EVP, Bank of Hawai‘i

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BEST OF SMALL BUSINESS

NATIVE HAWAIIAN OWNED

GOLDWINGS SUPPLY SERVICE

THE COMPANY, CELEBR ATING ITS 35TH ANNIVERSARY THIS YE AR, CONTINUES TO E XPAND AND DIVERSIF Y ITS PRODUCTS AND SERVICES BE YOND ITS ORIGIN AS AN AIRCR AF T PARTS SUPPLIER.

G

oldwings Supply Service was opened in 1987 by Frank Young as a “NAPA store with aircraft parts.” But aviation parts now make up no more than 10% of the company’s overall revenue even though demand for those parts remains the same.

Lia Young Hunt, president and

Lia Young Hunt

chief educational officer of Goldwings, says the company started diversifying its services in the ’90s by supplying airfield lighting. That now makes up about 60% of the company’s revenue.

Within the last decade, the company began adding contracts for traffic lighting and signs, asset monitoring software, and solar powered lighting

products representing the remaining 30% of the revenue pie.

“We’re still an aviation-focused company,” Hunt says. “It’s just been within the last five to ten years that we’ve diversified really into asset monitoring and management and critical power.”

One example of diversification is its partnership with the state Department of Transportation, the national manufacturer Econolite and UH’s College of Engineering on a pilot project to integrate “Cellular Vehicle to Everything” technology along Nimitz Highway and Ala Moana corridor in Honolulu.

Drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians can download an app, TravelSafely, that provides real-time alerts about traffic conditions at 30 intersections from Kalia Road in Waikīkī to Sand Island Access Road.

Goldwings employs 11 people, with five of them hired in the last four years. “One of my goals is to grow this company using people that are from here – whether they are here within our neighborhood or we need to bring them back home,” says Hunt, who became majority shareholder of Goldwings in 2015 and has served as president ever since.

She hopes to expand a newly formed work-study program that allows aviation-focused students the chance to work for Goldwings while they progress toward their pilot’s license or learn aviation mechanics.

The program’s first student, Abigail Dang, was born and raised in Hawai‘i and is now a flight instructor at Kalaeloa. She is also studying for her bachelor’s degree with plans to enlist afterward in the Hawai‘i Air National Guard. — NATHAN BEK

H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

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BEST OF SMALL BUSINESS

LONG-TERM SUCCESS

ISLAND MAID THE 41-YE AR-OLD COMPANY FLIES HIGH BY KEEPING ALIVE THE FL AVORS THAT HAWAI‘I’S PEOPLE GREW UP WITH.

M

ost locals recognize the passion orange guava drink in the plastic cups with foil lids served on airline flights. But they might not know that Island Maid Inc. also supplies many flavors of syrups and drinks to 7-Eleven stores, Zippy’s, Highway Inn and dozens of other restaurants plus shave ice businesses like Matsumoto’s, Island Snow and Waiola.

The company was founded in 1981 by Benjamin and Lilian Tsunoda and proudly remains a locally owned family business.

“My dad was very creative and my mom is very organized, which made them the perfect pair to create and run a business together,” says daughter and VP Tina Tsunoda.

They formed the company after recognizing the airlines’ need for inflight beverages. They first supplied Mid Pacific Air, Pan American and United before expanding to serve Aloha and Hawaiian airlines, plus hospitals and private schools. They distribute an average of 12,000 cups of fruit-flavored drinks a day.

Island Maid also sells direct to the public at its Waipahu headquarters, though currently only via curbside pickup.

Following Benjamin’s death in 1998, Lilian ran the business herself as a single mother of three: Tina, Kevin and Lance Tsunoda. She is now semiretired and her children run the company.

In 2008 – the same year Tina Tsunoda joined the company – Island Maid acquired the Harders brand of local syrups and flavorings.

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From left, Lance , Tina and Kevin Tsunoda, second generation owners of Island Maid

“We kept all their original recipes that they had since 1933,” Tina says.

“It’s all the local tastes people grew up with while drinking beverages and eating shave ice, so we knew the importance of their flavors.

“We all wanted to help out our mom, and we are so glad we did, because we are able to carry on the legacy of Island Maid and continue what our parents started.”

She credits the loyalty of her employees for the company’s success – about a dozen of Island Maid’s 17 employees have worked there for over 10 years. She says they helped the company through the pandemic, when Island Maid expe-

rienced a significant loss of airline sales because of so many canceled flights.

The Tsunodas value the company’s charitable work and donate to the Hawaii Foodbank and the Hawai‘i chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. They have also donated syrups to the MakeA-Wish Foundation so ailing children could create their own shave ice bowls.

“We’re a small family business; we’re not very flashy,” Kevin Tsunoda says. “Everyone in our team works extremely hard to keep this business alive, to keep the family recipes alive and keep the flavors of Hawai‘i alive.”

—VICTORIA BUDIONO

BEST OF SMALL BUSINESS

INDUSTRIAL

INDUSTRIAL BATTERY SOLUTIONS

THE COMPANY ’S NICHE IS SUPPLYING BAT TERIES FOR FORKLIF TS, WHICH “MOVE EVERY THING THAT YOU E AT, BUY, EVERY THING THAT YOU TOUCH AND EVERY THING THAT TOUCHES YOU.”

I

nterstate Powercare decided in 2018 to close its forklift battery division nationwide and lay off its employees – including those at its Hawai‘i branch in Waipahu.

Hank Benson had been an operations manager there and he and his wife,

Kathleen, bought the local branch and have operated it ever since as Industrial Battery Solutions. Hawaii Business Magazine liked how they saved local jobs while continuing to serve their customers, and picked the company for this award.

“It is not glamorous, but it is an essential business,” says Kathleen Ben-

Kathleen and Hank Benson

son, who serves as president. “It’s a very niche, little business.”

Industrial Battery Solutions sells, installs and services motive batteries for industrial forklifts and other material handling equipment.

Battery-operated forklifts “move everything that you eat, buy, everything that you touch and everything that touches you,” she says.

“The batteries are very large, expensive and need to be professionally installed, so you can maximize their life by having professional services.

That’s what we do.”

Kathleen Benson says that since May 2018, Industrial Battery Solutions has been the only company in Hawai‘i that sells and services forklift batteries. She says annual revenue has remained relatively consistent, despite Covid.

The company was labeled an essential business, so it remained open throughout the pandemic and only took a small hit financially. “In 2021, our annual revenue was $1.57 million, which went down by 4% from the year before,” she says.

And it did not lay off any of its three employees. “We owe all to our employees. They’re like family and we love them so much,” she adds.

Hank Benson leads the employees and provides technical expertise on the batteries, while Kathleen Benson performs all the other business functions: finance, human resources, legal and more.

“When you’re a tiny business, you wear a lot of hats,” Kathleen Benson says. “But it’s fun because you are exposed to different situations, and you learn to figure it out on your own.”

Industrial Battery Solutions was named in 2021 as one of eight Hawker Dealers of Excellence in Hawker’s nationwide network of forklift battery dealers.

“Working with my own husband turned out a lot better than I expected,” Kathleen Benson says. “He is an expert in his area, and I am good in my area, so we complement each other well.”

—VICTORIA BUDIONO

H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

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BEST OF SMALL BUSINESS

KAUA‘I

NATHAN WOOD GENERAL CONTRACTOR

THE FAMILY CONSTRUCTION BUSINESS HAS BEEN FOCUSED ON K AUA‘I’S RENEWABLE ENERGY NEEDS FOR THE PAST 15 YE ARS.

Nathan Wood

“I

t is very important for Hawai‘i to transition away from fossil fuels,” says Nathan Wood, owner of Nathan Wood General Contractor.

Born and raised on Kaua‘i, Wood has always been interested in renewable energy. He worked for the Department of Defense in energy management before establishing his own construction company, a field his father also worked in.

“I used the passion I had for renewables and turned it into a business where I could help people save money and create more sustainability for the Islands,” he says.

The company provides solar photovoltaic systems, Tesla products like batteries, electrical contracting and construction services. “We always focus on green building practices, incorporating energy management and energy efficiency,” he says.

The company has been voted best solar company and contractor for nine straight years by The Garden Island newspaper’s annual Best of Kaua‘i competition. Wood attributes that to the company’s enduring relationships with its clients.

“We’re here for the long run, not only for installation. People value our responsiveness and willingness for quality service, quality equipment and quality maintenance.”

Nathan Wood General Contractor also provides apprenticeships and internships to local high school and UH students. These are “young people who want to learn,” says Wood, who also studied at UH, “and we share the knowledge.”

The company was hurt by the pandemic and recent severe flooding but kept its team employed throughout.

“Support local business,” Wood says. “We are truly local; our team and staff are all Kaua‘i-based. Our core values are taking care of our employees and customers long-term. We are deeply rooted to making Hawai‘i a better place to live, work and play.”

—NIKKI ZAMANI

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HEALTH CARE

HO‘OKELE HEALTH SERVICES AND VIVIA THE FOUNDERS SAY A NEW WAY OF ORGANIZING HOME HE ALTH CARE IS BET TER FOR PATIENTS, THEIR FAMILIES AND THE CAREGIVERS WHO HELP THEM.

H

o‘okele means “to navigate” and for more than a decade, Ho‘okele Health Services has helped O‘ahu’s seniors and their families find their way to in-home health care services.

In 2019, Ho‘okele’s founding partners, Dew-Anne Langcaon and Bonnie Castonguay, leveraged more than 50 years of combined experience in the health care industry to launch Vivia. Langcaon says it’s a neighborhood-based model for in-home health services expanding across O‘ahu, Maui and Washington state, with more mainland locations expected to open within the next year.

Langcaon says the pandemic intensified Hawai‘i’s shortage of caregivers and rendered home care services “unaffordable for a lot of people, and it was starting to become only a service for the rich.”

After speaking at length with staff, clients and their families, Langcaon says, it became clear that technology could help make care more accessible and affordable by addressing logistical and staffing issues that contribute to rising costs.

Staffing shortages were resolved by guaranteeing qualified caregivers fulltime work in areas where they live and subsidizing their transportation with company cars. Langcaon says productivity and patient outcomes improve

From left to right: Bonnie Castonguay, Dew-Anne Langcaon and Tanya Fernandes

as caregivers build trust and rapport through personalized visits within their neighborhood service areas.

The technology also enabled better communication, planning, reporting and accounting. Clients and their families can design plans for the care they need instead of paying for full or half days of service they don’t, Langcaon says.

Full-time care in an assisted living facility can cost $8,000 to $10,000 a month, says Langcaon. In-home care services are significantly more affordable, but often are not covered by insurance. For example, one of Vivia’s clients, an 85-year-old man, was having difficulty managing his diabetes medication and diet.

“Vivia’s personalized plan, designed

for him, improved his overall health status and saved the family over $2,000 per month versus if they had chosen traditional care services with a four-hour daily minimum. This translated to savings of $25,000 per year. He also likely avoided countless hospitalizations and ER visits due to his improved health,” states the case study published online

by Vivia.

“These seniors’ needs are so personal,” says Langcaon, “depending on their health conditions, their cognitive abilities, their financial budget, where their family lives. Every person’s needs are so different that the challenge is creating an effective way of caring for them while still respecting all their individual needs.” — CARIN ENOVIJAS

H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

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BEST OF SMALL BUSINESS

SPECIALTY CONSTRUCTION

SURFACE SHIELD ROOFING CO.

SURFACE SHIELD ROOFING CO. HAS E XPANDED OVER THE L AST 15 YE ARS – GROWING FROM A TE AM OF T WO TO NOW EMPLOYING ABOUT 65 PEOPLE.

M

ahea Viernes, head of public contact for Surface Shield Roofing Co., says the idea to start the company came from its CEO, Shon Gregory, who wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps as a roofer.

“He took off with that,” Viernes says.

The company has picked up numerous contracts for commercial, residential and government jobs, most notably a recent deal with the Hawai‘i Depart-

ment of Education to repair school roofs across Hawai‘i.

“We’ve recently merged with our sister company, which was actually the general contracting half of the license of our company,” Viernes says. “So that was a big step for us as well to be able to do not just roofing but to do construction as well.”

She acknowledges that the pandemic presented many challenges. “Like any other business, we’re having our struggles in certain areas and other areas

that we’re just pushing right through it. So it’s definitely created an obstacle,” but nothing that the company can’t overcome, Viernes says.

“We are definitely evolving. We started off as a roof-coating company with just a handful of guys. And now we do basically every type of roof here in Hawai‘i.”

And, with the recent merger with its sister company, she says, “I know that we’re going to be stepping into a whole different level of work.” — JULIA FORREST

PHOTO: COURTESY OF SURFACE SHIELD ROOFING CO.

Shon Gregory, left, with a member of his team.

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From left to right: Kyle and Emi Suzuki

AGRICULTURE

SUMIDA FARMS

THE FOURTH-GENER ATION LE ADER OF THE FAMILY WATERCRESS FARM ADJACENT TO PE ARLRIDGE CENTER SAYS THE BUSINESS HAS FLOURISHED DESPITE THE PANDEMIC.

I

n 2018, Emi Suzuki and her husband set out a nine-year timeline to slowly take over Sumida Farms. But when the farm’s leader, Suzuki’s aunt Barbara Sumida, was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2020, Suzuki took charge immediately.

“There was a very real possibility that the farm might not continue in any form if someone didn’t step up to help manage it. So, we raised our hands,” says Suzuki, the fourth-generation leader of the watercress farm next to Pearlridge Center in ‘Aiea.

The farm was launched in 1928 by

Makiyo and Moriichi Sumida, who leased 5 acres of Kalauao Springs land from what was then Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate.

“I stand on the shoulders of three previous generations who worked so hard and sacrificed so much,” Suzuki says.

“It’s the history of the farm and the reputation that previous generations established and the integrity that they’ve run this business with … that’s a huge component of what’s allowed us to get through (the pandemic).”

The pandemic did not slow down production.

“We have the absolute best employ-

ees in the world,” Suzuki says. “Our field workers showed up: rain, heat, a pandemic, shutdowns. Whatever it was, they showed up.”

She says the farm has been able to increase wages and benefits for workers, invest in infrastructure and even hire more people. And she says she hopes to continue to grow the business, maybe even beyond agriculture.

“We have ideas for how to expand the vision … (and) still nourish the community” while continuing “to provide a living wage for our workers,” she says.

—JULIA FORREST

H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

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Michal-Anne Rogondino

WOMEN OWNED

ROCKET COMMUNICATIONS

THE INNOVATIVE COMPANY HELPS BUSINESSES DESIGN THEIR “USER E XPERIENCE,” TAILORING IT TO WHAT A PERSON THINKS, FEELS AND WANTS TO ACCOMPLISH WITH A DIGITAL PRODUCT. 34

M AY 2 0 2 2

R

ocket Communications was formed in 1992 by Michal-Anne Rogondino after she developed a passion for user experience design during a college internship at Apple. After consulting on UX design for various companies, she launched

Rocket Communications to help build UX designs for other businesses.

UX design accounts for what a person is thinking, feeling or accomplishing while using a digital product.

“It was sort of the dream job of creating designs that were really something that wasn’t 2D,” Rogondino says. “You had to be able to interact with and behave with the application and it still required creativity to do it. It captivated me.

“I was really fortunate in being at the right place at the right time getting into user experience design in the early ’90s. It sort of happened organically.”

The company currently works with leading defense contractors and the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command.

Previously, Rocket Communications helped SuccessFactors, a cloud-based software company, improve its UX design before it was bought by SAP, the German software producer.

Rogondino has led Rocket Communications from her home in Hawai‘i for almost 20 years. In fact, most of the company’s ranking officers live in Hawai‘i, including the COO, CFO and business operations manager.

“The foundation, the core, is us being in Hawai‘i,” she says.

While Rogondino’s permanent residence is here, the company also has offices in San Francisco, Boise and Denver. However, most employees work remotely and have done so even before the pandemic.

She says it’s a model that works because of her employees’ good communications skills and the company’s “culture of really kind and professional people.”

She also notes that applications like Zoom have made remote work easier.

Rogondino says the design field has become more valued by companies looking to prioritize the wants and needs of consumers, and that the field itself has grown, with “much stronger integration between design and development.”

“The future of UX design is evolving. Where we’re going, I think is more with artificial intelligence and machine learning, where the applications are going to be making a lot of decisions.

“Technology is making a lot of decisions for people,” she says, and it’s crucial that companies help people understand more about these decisions.

—JULIA FORREST

BEST OF SMALL BUSINESS

FOOD AND BEVERAGE

HONOLULU FISH COMPANY

THE BUSINESS WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1995 BY A TR AINED MARINE BIOLOGIST FROM CALIFORNIA. TODAY, IT’S A NATIONWIDE SE AFOOD DISTRIBUTOR WITH OVER 3,000 CUSTOMERS.

F

ish have always been a big part of Wayne Samiere’s life.

“Growing up, I have always loved fish. I went to college and studied fish. I worked as a marine biologist and that’s how my career started,” says Samiere, CEO and owner of Honolulu Fish Co. Samiere conducted research on fish and marine ecology, and he worked on a fishing boat, at seafood wholesale companies and at fishing supply stores.

He dreamed of applying his passion and knowledge to his own business and eventually took the leap.

“One day I left the world of biology and science research and just stepped into the world of business,” he says.

Samiere says his background as a marine biologist and fisherman led him to adopt sustainable practices: His company sells hook-caught wild fish, not those caught by nets. His goal is to leave the natural marine habitat as undisturbed as possible.

When Honolulu Fish Co. started, it depended on word of mouth and sold around 200 to 500 pounds of fish a week. Today it sells 50,000 to 60,000 pounds a week.

Customers include local and mainland households, restaurants, hotels and casinos.

“Our backbone is trust. I respect my customers and I want them to always believe in us and our standards,” he says.

Honolulu Fish Co. was devastated by the pandemic as 95% of its nationwide restaurant, casino and hotel customers closed. “We had nothing, no business.”

So Samiere launched Honolulu Fish Delivered, delivering fresh fish and other products designed for local customers direct to their homes. “We did not lay anybody off, did not cut anyone’s pay.

Doing the direct-to-consumer business was a huge contributor to get through this time and keep everyone employed.”

Samiere, who has six siblings and seven children of his own, says supporting families is a core company value.

“We are family oriented,” he says.

Many of the managers are family and his oldest daughter, with a master’s degree in international trade, plans to move into a leadership position.

“The No. 1 thing for us is to be a good employer and make a great workplace environment. To grow your business, you must grow your team and we have had people who have worked for us for 12-20 years, and that by itself is a testimonial to our company’s culture and value system.”

—NIKKI ZAMANI

Wayne Samiere H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

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BEST OF SMALL BUSINESS

TRAVEL

SPORTS TRAVEL HAWAII AF TER YE ARS OF GROW TH, THE PANDEMIC THREW IT FOR A LOSS. BUT NOW THE COMPANY, WHICH CATERS TO YOUTH, HIGH SCHOOL AND UNIVERSIT Y ATHLETIC TE AMS, IS R ALLYING BACK.

L

inelle Hanawahine jinxed herself.

The founder of Sports Travel Hawaii was tired of the constant requests for her services and wished out loud for them to momentarily stop. That was in March 2020, just before the pandemic reached the Islands.

“I would never say that again,” she says, adding that the company had to deal with cancellations and rerouted travel plans all the way through December 2020. “That would have been one of the best volume years yet.”

Hanawahine says she started the family-run travel agency in 2009 after noticing that Hawai‘i lacked an athletics-focused company to serve youth, high school and university sports teams. It expanded every year until the pandemic, fueled by referrals and repeat customers.

Sports Travel currently has four full-time and two part-time employees, including Hanawahine’s son and daughter. The dynamic has been a mix of struggle and reward, she says.

On one hand, family members get to make their own hours and are incentivized to see the business grow. On the other, they have their own personalities and visions for the business, which leads to contention, Hanawahine says.

Despite that, she calls it a fair tradeoff and says the company is “a good environment for them.”

The company makes its money through commission-based agreements

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From left to right: Kyra Hanawahine, Kalei Hanawahine and Linelle Hanawahine of Sports Travel Hawaii

with airlines, hotels, car rental companies and cruise lines. These contracts allow it to stay competitive with other travel agencies, even with the growth of the internet and self-service travel bookings, Hanawahine says.

She hopes to expand Sports Travel by developing a sister company that handles other forms of travel, such as for weddings and family reunions.

In 2021, the company earned just a

third of its normal revenue. The demand was mostly driven by families entering their children in sports-related tournaments and showcases on the mainland.

“The Hawai‘i people were just like: ‘We need to go,’ ” Hanawahine recalls her clients saying.

And this time, she was grateful for those calls and emails.

—NATHAN BEK

BEST OF SMALL BUSINESS

MAUI COUNTY

MAUI NUI VENISON

FOR A DECADE, THE COMPANY HAS BEEN MANAGING THE INVASIVE A XIS DEER POPUL ATION ON MOLOK A‘I AND MAUI, WHILE PROVIDING ME AT PRODUCTS TO LOCAL AND MAINL AND CUSTOMERS.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF MAUI NUI VENISON

M

aui Nui Venison is a company on a mission: Humanely reduce the axis deer population on Moloka‘i and Maui that is ravaging the environment.

“Axis deer are athletic and highly adaptable animals, and they have had significant negative impacts within our native ecosystems,” says Ku‘ulani Muise, co-founder and brand director of Maui Nui Venison.

“Hawai‘i is incredibly unique as it is incredibly vulnerable.”

The deer eat and damage ground plants, trees and crops, and trample bird nests. This destruction causes erosion, water runoff and coral reef damage, and threatens the islands’ fresh water supply.

Axis deer, native to India, were introduced to Hawai‘i in the 1860s and have been on Maui since the 1960s. Their population has grown into tens of thousands because they lack competitors.

Muise says the Maui Nui Venison team uses forward-looking infrared cameras at nighttime, which detect deer body heat, to pinpoint the herd’s location from afar.

“The deer are completely wild harvested. … No deer are pinned or corralled.

The process is stress-free for the animal.”

In July 2021, Maui Nui Venison opened an on-island butcher facility. It sells its products online at mauinuivenison.com to customers across Hawai‘i and the mainland.

“We really are grateful,” Muise says.

“We’ve come this far as we’ve been working on this for a decade now and we’re really excited for the year ahead. We’re moving forward and getting closer to our mission to help balance axis deer populations for the good of our environment, communities and food systems.”

The company says it also gives back to the community. During the peak of the pandemic, it launched the Holo ‘Ai Program. In line with its name – holo ‘ai means “to speed food where it is needed” – Maui Nui Venison says it moved over 130,000 meals into food-insecure areas and donated more than 10,000 pounds of fresh venison to local food banks.

“We are community members who are always conscious of our impact.

It’s at the heart of what we’re doing,” Muise says.

— NIKKI Z AMANI

Jake Muise with some of his team

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Michael Gangloff

GENERAL CONSTRUCTION

MIRA IMAGE CONSTRUCTION

THE FOUNDER’S NE AR-DE ATH E XPERIENCE ON A CONSTRUCTION SITE LED HIM TO CRE ATE A COMPANY WITH A FAMILY-FIRST MINDSET.

W

hen Michael Gangloff was 25, he was buried alive in a 30foot trench while working on a summer construction job.

He says this near-death experience not only left him with a long recovery but also a new outlook on how businesses should be run. That’s what led him to launch his own construction company, Mira Image, in 2001.

“While I was learning to walk again, because I had some very severe injuries to the bottom half of my body, I decided that I wouldn’t let someone else be the decision-maker over the safety of my men or myself,” Gangloff says.

“I’m a self-made man with a phe-

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nomenal team that got me to where we are today.”

Mira Image has prospered, fulfilling over 175 contracts worth over $100 million in the more than 20 years since Gangloff launched the company, which provides preconstruction, general contracting and design-build services on Maui and O‘ahu.

Gangloff, who says he started the company with $200 and a handful of workers, attributes the business’s successes to its “family first” mindset and workers who find “immense gratification in what they can do.”

The company did suffer financially in 2008, with the Great Recession forcing Mira to lay off all of its employees but one.

“I lost everything. … You go in and try to work five years straight and know every single day you’re going to lose money and there’s nothing you can do about it except keep grinding away,” Gangloff says.

Mira has bounced back and recently handed out $357,000 in bonuses to employees. Gangloff says he hopes to see the business grow into a top 10 contracting company in Hawai‘i; for that to happen, the company would need about $200 million to $300 million in sales each year.

He says the way to get there is by treating his employees as a top priority and making them feel like they’re a part of making the business thrive.

“We’re going to get the best workers, we’re going to get the best staff, we’re going to get the best team, because I treat them that way.”

—JULIA FORREST

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COMPANIES INDUCTED INTO THE

HALL of FAME O N E I S F R O M E AC H O F T H E FO U R M O ST P O P U L AT E D H AWA I I A N I S L A N D S , A N D A L L A R E M O R E T H A N A C E N T U RY O L D

nducted into the Hawai‘i Small Business Hall of Fame this year are Diamond Bakery based on O‘ahu, Kaua‘i’s Deja Vu Surf, Maui Soda and Ice Works, and Hawai‘i Island’s S. Tokunaga Store.

The Hall of Fame originated as a collaboration between the Hawai‘i region of the federal Small Business Administration and Hawaii Business Magazine. We founded it to honor successful long-term businesses in the Islands. The magazine now selects two to four honorees each year on its own.

The following pages contain profiles of Maui Soda and Ice Works and S. Tokunaga Store. We were unable to interview the owners of Diamond Bakery and Deja Vu Surf in time to publish full profiles for this issue, but we still wanted to tell you a bit about each company.

Diamond Bakery, named after Diamond Head, was founded in 1921 by three Japanese immigrants

who all enjoyed baking and wanted to create the perfect Hawaiian-made cracker.

The company says many of the products created in the following decades are still being made today and sold across Hawai‘i and as far away as Japan, the South Pacific and the U.S. East Coast. Children and grandchildren of the founders continue to help lead the company.

Deja Vu Surf Hawai‘i, now with three stores on Kaua‘i, began in 1909 as M. Miura Store in Kapa‘a. Founder Mankichi Miura, also a Japanese immigrant, started out selling senbei, yokan, kanten and okoshi.

Through the decades, Mankichi’s descendants have transitioned the business from a general store to a family clothing store to now a business that sells gear and clothing for surfing and other outdoor lifestyles.

May is Small Business Month but at Hawaii Business Magazine, we feel every day of the year is a good time to buy from local small businesses.

H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

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HALL OF FAME

S. TOKUNAGA THE SMALL GROCERY STORE IN HILO CARRIED SOME FISHING SUPPLIES WHEN THE TOKUNAGA FAMILY OPENED IT IN 1920. IT’S EVOLVED INTO A 6,500-SQUARE-FOOT FISHING, DIVING, HUNTING, OUTDOOR AND FIRE ARM SUPPLY STORE.

“M

y grandfather and mom always told me to have the items to sell, offer it at the best prices you can, and give the best and friendliest services possible,” says Michael Tokunaga, who now runs S. Tokunaga Store with his wife and staff.

“We work as a team to run this business. Our employees treat the business like it’s their own.”

Community involvement has been a significant element ever since Tokunaga’s grandfather, Sumie Tokunaga, founded the store in Hilo in 1920, during the plantation era. Today, the store’s biggest community event is the S. Tokunaga Ulua Challenge, a shore casting tournament that attracts participants from across the Islands and the mainland. Unfortunately, it has been canceled for the past two years due to the pandemic.

The store has survived three tsunamis that battered Hilo – in 1922, 1946 and 1960 – and remained open throughout the pandemic as an essential business. It has relocated twice, once in 1991 and again in 2014, and changed marketing strategies and inventory over the years. Its online store now draws customers from across Hawai‘i and the mainland, Tokunaga says.

His daughter will soon graduate with an MBA and eventually become the fourth-generation Tokunaga running the store, he says.

“We want to thank the public and our customers for all the support that they’ve given us over the years and we’re looking forward to serve them in all the years to come.”

—NIKKI ZAMANI

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Michael Tokunaga

H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

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From left to right: Brian Fevella, Buddy Nobriga and James Nobriga

HALL OF FAME

MAUI SODA & ICE WORKS

THE BUSINESS WAS FOUNDED IN 1884 AS AN ICE AND REFRIGER ATION COMPANY AND HAS BEEN OWNED AND LED BY THE NOBRIGA FAMILY SINCE 1946.

“W

hen we look back and compare our company throughout all these years, it is like two different worlds,” says Buddy Nobriga, sales and marketing manager for Maui Soda & Ice Works.

Nobriga’s great-grandfather was working at the company in the 1920s, using a horse and wagon to deliver ice to homes for refrigeration. The company’s evolved a lot since then, and today it wholesales over 300 beverages and more than 400 different frozen foods.

“We became a Coca-Cola bottling franchise in 1924,” Nobriga says, and Coca-Cola products remain a central part of the business.

Then in 1931, an ice cream company that leased space from Maui Soda went bankrupt and left its machinery behind. Buddy’s great-grandfather, Manuel Nobriga, taught himself ice cream production using three books.

“We use a lot of the same methods today” to produce the company’s Roselani Ice Cream, Buddy Nobriga says. “It’s what makes us unique.”

The Nobriga family bought Maui Soda & Ice Works in 1946 and is currently working on a succession plan for fourth-generation family members such as Buddy to eventually lead the company.

“It is our strong desire to maintain the family involvement within the business,” says Brian Fevella, president and GM.

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The company has just over 80 employees on Maui and Lāna‘i, most of them long-term.

“We are extremely blessed by the track record of over 50% of our employees having over 20 years with us,” Nobriga says.

The company is heavily dependent on tourism and lost about half of its revenue in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. It’s still struggling to return to normal. “Every week we have a new issue with supply chain and just sheer labor force, and everything else that a lot of other businesses have to struggle with,” says Fevella.

Despite these hardships, Nobriga and Fevella say the company used the pandemic as an opportunity to give back to the community.

It donated products to food banks and to first responders including the National Guard, hospital staff and firefighters.

Nobriga and his father, James Nobriga, were enthusiastic in their appreciation of the community’s support over the years, talking in tandem and finishing each other’s sentences: “We support the community as best we can.

And if the community supports us, we can stay in business. It’s true that the local support for local business is key to success. We wouldn’t be at 138 years if it wasn’t for the community.”

—NIKKI ZAMANI

SMART BUSINESS Resource

FIVE BRIEF REPORTS FROM LOCAL EXPERTS OFFERING USEFUL ADVICE FOR BUSINESSES OF ALL SIZES

Guide

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How to Foster an Ownership Mindset Within Your Team BUSIN ESS OW N ER S THIN K A N D ACT DIFFER ENTLY TH A N EM PLOY EES. At Guild Consult-

ing, we work with owners and top managers who are heavily invested in their organizations but would like more commitment from their employees.

When this “ownership mindset” is absent, we see: • Employees are busy “being busy” – too many meetings with too many people.

• Employees see something bad, but no one volunteers to fix it.

• Client feedback is either nonexistent or indicates poor service quality.

• If the owner or CEO is away for a week, the operation starts to unravel.

Chris Zook, author of the book “The Founder’s Mentality,”

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breaks down the ownership mindset as a bias for action, distaste for bureaucracy and respect for cash.

Having employees who act like owners is the shortest path to sustained business performance and high employee engagement. The benefits include faster decisions, an enhanced ability to recruit and retain top talent, and innovations that are directly felt by customers. In short, more mature organizations are infused with the energy of startups.

HOW CAN YO U DO I T ?

Owners should allow employees a greater say in decision-making and encourage flexibility in their work setups and schedules. Additionally, the financial upside created by employees should be shared with them. This fosters each employee’s sense of psychological ownership at work.

START WI T H M A N AG E R S : Managers have an outsized impact on your firm’s

performance. If your managers make the shift, their staff will follow in time.

T R A N S FO R M : You will need trust and transparency. Involve your managers in big decisions. They are closer to the problems and are likely to have better solutions.

DE F I N E WI N N I N G : Owners operate with more information and discretion than managers. To empower managers, define the goals, strategies, accountabilities and acceptable risks. Managers can then move faster without needing frequent approvals.

E X P E C T M O R E : Owners accustomed to micromanaging are surprised by how much more they achieve simply by raising expectations of their managers and getting out of the way.

S H A R E T H E WE A LT H : Give your managers a stake in the firm’s value. There are many creative ways of designing incentives, including stock options and profit-sharing plans. In our work with growth-focused companies, we structure quarterly incentives based on year-overyear growth in the firm’s net income.

I T ’ S WO RT H I T : Not everyone in your firm will accept these changes, and some may choose to leave. However, the longterm benefits of fostering an ownership mindset among employees far outweighs potential short-term challenges.

BY IQBA L A SHRA F, PARTNER, GUILD CONSULTING

PHOTOS: GETTY IMAGES

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5 Steps to Doing More with Less

LOTS OF COM PA N IES NATION W IDE have suffered from

the Great Resignation, and local businesses are among the hardest hit. Many are forced to do more with less and make the most of the workers they still have. Here is what an employer can do.

1 . P L A N CA R E F UL LY. P R I O R I T I ZE .

Create a clear vision of the most important work that is needed to reach the most important goals. Concentrate on the mission and the priorities.

Work smarter, not harder. Consider using technology to automate tasks.

2. PRIORITIZE COMMUNICATION. CO M MUN I CAT E P R I O R I T I E S .

When everyone is clear on the mission, the vision and the priorities, they are much less likely to spend time on tasks that do not add value to the organization.

3. L I ST E N TO WO R KE R S .

While communicating priorities, allow workers to communicate with you, with the knowledge that you are

all working together for the best outcomes. Give them the opportunity to negotiate workloads, acknowledge thresholds, and negotiate commitments and responsibilities that take time.

4 . C UT BAC K O N M E E T I N G S .

Meetings are a great way to develop new ideas, but with no clear agenda, they can take time away from accomplishing tasks that make your business successful.

5. CO N S I DE R O UT S O UR C I N G .

If finding the right employee is difficult, look at outsourcing some of your needs to freelancers or other service providers.

This may also be a good time to think about what you and your team are truly good at or want to do. For example, it may be more cost-effective to outsource tasks such as payroll, accounting or benefits administration, rather than hiring a full-time, in-house accountant or HR manager.

BY JO HN E. FERGUSO N, DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, ALTRES

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How to Protect Your Organization from Ransomware R A NSOM WA R E IS A DY NA M IC FOR M OF M A LWA R E designed to

encrypt files on a device, rendering its data and systems unusable. Until recently, these security threats primarily came as automatically generated emails and bots with suspicious links and typos.

However, ransomware and security threats have become much more sophisticated, directed by humans who research companies to customize their attacks and capitalize on human error. They

may go so far as to understand an individual’s role within an organization and mimic the communications that individual usually receives.

Once inside an organization, attackers quickly “spread out” and threaten systems at scale before demanding ransom. Most security breaches are executed in minutes, yet they can go undetected for months.

SonicWall’s 2022 Cyber Threat Report revealed that Hawai‘i is among the top 10 states most at risk for malware.

In light of everything happening in

the world, now is as good a time as ever for organizations to take stock of their cybersecurity preparedness. Proactively managing ransomware attacks is possible but requires adapting best practices as threats evolve. Here are a few of my recommendations that will help organizations stay vigilant.

1 . R I G O R O US LY FO L LOW S O F T WA R E MA I N T E N A N C E P R AC T I C E S FO R I N F R A ST R UC T UR E A N D A P P L I CAT I ON S .

A surprising number of cyberattacks succeed because an enterprise isn’t running the latest versions of missioncritical software.

2 . G I V E TO P P R I O R I T Y TO ACC E S S S E C UR I T Y.

In a world where many or all employees are remote, access points have become a common entry point for attackers.

3. AVO I D V UL N E R A B I L I T Y WI T H MULT I FAC TO R AUT H E N T I CAT I O N .

MFA – requiring multiple login steps in addition to a password – used to be considered too much friction for everyday users. Thanks to increased use of biometrics, it’s become less cumbersome. Be sure to implement it across your enterprise.

4 . P R OT E C T BAC KE D-UP DATA .

Nearly every enterprise has storage limitations, so this practice requires a comprehensive data maintenance program that complies with changing regulations and allows for proper storage, backup and deletion of data.

5. CO N T I N UA L LY P R OV I DE A N D UP DAT E S E C UR I T Y T R A I N I N G .

Educating IT staff is only the first step; users across the enterprise must also be enlisted in the fight against ransomware.

Employees interacting with customers, suppliers, partners and others are frequently targets of these attacks and must continually be educated about the latest threats so they can identify them and alert the enterprise security team before it’s too late.

BY KELLY J. UEO KA , PRESIDENT OF PACXA

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5 Steps to Handling a Water Damage Claim Claims are usually covered by your property insurance.

Here’s how to start the process, plus advice on what to do now so you are better prepared when a water damage accident happens.

AS COMMERCIAL AND RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS in Hawai‘i age, building

owners and managers increasingly see incidence of water damage. When multiple tenants are involved, confusion often clouds the process of determining who’s responsible, how to file an insurance claim and where to start the cleanup and remediation process.

If water damage happens to you, here are five simple steps to mitigate the situation, plus tips on how to prepare now before a water damage incident happens.

STEP 1: ACT FAST.

Take action to prevent further damage and call a water remediation company.

It is best to identify a reputable water remediation company before you have a loss so that you know who to call immediately when the need arises. Do not wait for the insurance company to determine whether there is coverage under the policy.

STEP 2: GATHER INFORMATION.

STEP 4: TAKE PHOTOS.

Document when, where and how the loss happened and take inventory of what was damaged. It’s a good idea to take an inventory and photos of your personal belongings now – before you suffer a loss.

Photos are extremely helpful to the claims adjuster, so take lots of them.

STEP 3: NOTIFY YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY.

Provide the information you have gathered in Step 2 to your insurance agent.

The cause of loss helps the insurance adjuster determine whether your claim is covered or not. It usually takes at least 24 hours for an adjuster to be assigned to handle your claim.

STEP 5: KEEP COPIES OF RECEIPTS.

You may need to pay for your claim expenses upfront. Provide receipts to your adjustor. If the loss is catastrophic, you may be entitled to additional living expenses if your home is determined to be unlivable by the insurance adjuster.

BY DELLA NA KA MOTO , ATLAS INSURANCE AGENCY

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4 Tips for Employee Performance Reviews that Actually Work PERFORMANCE REVIEWS ARE AN OPPORTUNITY TO CELEBRATE the achievements of your

employees and look forward to what they can accomplish in the next year. However, many companies do not use this important occasion to its full potential. So here are four tips to get better results for your company.

1. BEGIN WITH PERFORMANCE ALIGNMENT.

It is mission critical for your employees to know how their individual efforts align with your organization’s objectives. Start by creating a job scorecard for your employee or reviewing an existing one. A scorecard helps set job expectations, reinforces your employee’s impact on the organization, and aligns with their core responsibilities and key performance indicators so they feel more focused and empowered.

2. REVIEW THEIR ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

Looking back on the accomplishments and progress your employee has made over the last year can be encouraging and rewarding.

But if you have a 12-month review cycle, it’s easy to forget what happened at the beginning of the year and only focus on what’s fresh in your mind. To combat this, keep a running list of each employee’s notable accomplishments. When you see or hear something positive, quickly jot down the date, performance comments and

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an example. When review time rolls around, you’ll struggle less with details and phrasing your performance review.

3. BE DETAILED AND SPECIFIC, ESPECIALLY ABOUT IMPROVEMENT.

When reviewing employee performance, never talk about an area of improvement without offering an example.

General statements like, “Your attitude hasn’t been great,” are not effective. Say something concrete like, “I heard you make a passive-aggressive comment during our team huddle,” or “I noticed you showed up late to work five times this month,” or “You missed your target goal on our project by 20%.” Specifics allow you to discuss the exact outcome that is needed.

4. CHECK IN OFTEN.

The classic once-a-year evaluation is still valuable but it should not be the only occasion for employees to get feedback. Weekly or monthly check-ins allow you to fix potential issues before they escalate or to validate an employee’s work, which can help motivate the employee and improve productivity. Gallup reported in 2011 that a study of 65,672 employees showed continuous strength-based feedback reduced employee turnover by 14.9% compared with employees who did not receive strengths feedback.

A better performance review starts with you. When you improve your skills in delivering constructive feedback and better performance reviews, your employees have a better chance of improving too.

BY LINDA GOTO , CLIENT TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, PROSERVICE HAWAII

SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL SECTION

TH E 2022 GU I D E TO H AWA I ‘ I ’ S

Shipping, Air and Transportation Moving In the Right Direction

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SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL SECTION

A

ccording to The Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), “Between December 2020 and December 2021 the imports [to Hawaii] increased by $127M (68.7%) from $184M to $311M.” Top imports included petroleum products, cars, food, furniture, and building supplies. Though efforts are being made to increase the Islands’ sustainability, more than 80% of the state’s food is currently imported.

Through technological innovation, environmental responsibility, and dedicated customer support, the shipping industry has consistently delivered these essential items, keeping Hawaii’s store shelves stocked as the world continues to navigate the ongoing pandemic and other supply disruptors like the Ukraine war. Reliable and timely shipping are essential to the Islands.

Celebrating its 140th anniversary, Matson has been shipping to and from

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Hawaii since 1882. One of the company’s core values is environmental stewardship. The company has invested $1 billion in its Hawaii service with the recent introduction of four new ships with advanced environmental features and new electric cranes for its Sand Island terminal. Utilizing the latest in green technology, its new Kanaloa Class ships designed specifically for Hawaii service feature environmentally safe double hull fuel tanks, a fuel-efficient hull design, freshwater ballast systems, and the first Tier 3 dual-fuel engines to be deployed in containerships serving West Coast ports. Two of Matson’s ships will soon be retrofitted to run on LNG (liquefied natural gas). Len Isotoff, Senior Vice President, Pacific, says, “Matson is committed to reducing its fleet

PASHA Pasha Hawaii is a thirdgeneration family-owned company with roots to the Islands dating back to World War II. With more than 450 employees, Pasha Hawaii is one of the nation’s leading domestic ocean shipping companies, providing dedicated service to Hawaii from the continental United States.

In 2005, MV Jean Anne was Pasha Hawaii’s first vessel to serve the Hawaii trade lane. Today, Pasha Hawaii currently operates a fleet of six vessels out of multiple port terminals, providing reliable door-to-door containerized and roll-on/roll-off cargo services to the people of Hawaii.

PH OTO : COU RTES Y OF PA SHA

Hawaii’s Steadfast Shipping Industry

SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL SECTION

S H I P P I N G / A I R / T R A N S P O RTAT I O N

Introducing our ‘Ohana Class The new M/V George III and M/V Janet Marie will mark three generations of service to Hawaii, while representing the most technologically advanced and environmentally friendly vessels to serve the Hawaii/Mainland trade lane. Both vessels will operate fully on natural gas from day one in service, surpassing the International Maritime Organization (IMO) 2030 emission standards for ocean vessels.

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greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030, and achieving net zero emissions by 2050.”

Despite the severe congestion at U.S. ports that has contributed to widespread supply chain delays for much of the past year, Matson has been able to maintain its Hawaii schedules, due in large part to having dedicated terminals and equipment on the West Coast and in Hawaii. “Matson hasn’t canceled a single voyage during the pandemic,” Isotoff says. “Thanks to the great teamwork of our shoreside employees and vessel crews, the ships continue to arrive three times a week, like clockwork.”

Matson will expand into additional space at Sand Island when Pasha Hawaii moves to the new Kapalama Terminal expected to open in 2024.

Pasha Hawaii’s fleet is also growing, with new ships named after George Pasha, IV’s late parents, MV George III and Janet Marie. Entering the Hawaii/Mainland trade lane with Honolulu as their home port, George III will be the first natu-

ral gas-powered containership to service Hawaii, and Janet Marie follows. George Pasha, IV, President and CEO, of Pasha Hawaii says that both ships will “surpass the International Maritime Organization (IMO) 2030 standards for ocean vessels with close to zero sulfur emissions, a 99.9% reduction in particulate matter, a 90% reduction in nitrogen oxide and 25% reduced carbon dioxide as compared to liquid oil fuels.” These vessels are environmentally beneficial “by operating on natural gas, and energy conservation will be achieved with a state-of-the-art engine, an optimized hull form, and an underwater propulsion system with a high-efficiency rudder and propeller.”

“I am so proud of how well our team performed in Hawaii and on the mainland - what I call the unseen first responders – to ensure the Hawaii community had secure access to groceries, COVID-19 and relief supplies – all with on-time deliveries,” says George Pasha, IV. As pandemic restrictions continue to lift, Pasha is strategically navigating the changes. “We continue to develop our service offerings for Hawaii and related markets, despite the many challenges that exist in today’s global environment [like] rising fuel prices, war in Ukraine, COVID-19-related shutdowns

and production delays,” says George Pasha, IV. “We demonstrate our resilience in seamless deliveries and excellent on time results. Our customer survey scores are some of the highest we’ve ever recorded for which we are sincerely grateful, and we take as proof that we must be doing something right.”

Honolulu Freight Service (HFS) has made its customers a priority for 86 years.

As Hawaii’s largest freight forwarder, the company offers rapid cargo movement on all scheduled sailings from the West Coast ports (Tacoma, WA/Oakland, CA/Long Beach, CA) to Honolulu and all neighboring islands. HFS owns and operates its own Oahu trucking and warehousing service, ensuring the best possible intra and inter-island service available. Cargo is never left behind.

Raymond Rodriguez, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, says, “We make service to all islands with every sailing and our whole company is actively engaged each day communicating with our customers.”

The company’s trained transportation professionals are committed to delivering the personalized quality of service that comes from being an experienced business leader. HFS’ culture of ‘ohana has enabled it to grow with talented and dedicated personnel. This spirit of ‘ohana

local economy and we take a lot of pride in our customer relationships,” said Len Isotoff, Senior Vice President, Pacific. “With the fastest, most frequent and reliable service in the market, Matson also has the equipment and expertise to carry everything imaginable.”

Matson has invested $1 billion in recent years to upgrade its Hawaii fleet and terminal facilities.

The company donates more than $1.5 million annually in cash and services to support of the work of hundreds of nonprofit community organizations in Hawaii.

Celebrating 140 years of dedi-

cated Hawaii service, Matson remains deeply invested in providing the highest level of service to the Islands for many years to come.

Learn more at www.matson.com.

MATSON Matson provides industry-leading on-time delivery of essential goods to Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, Micronesia, and South Pacific islands. It also operates the #1 expedited service from China to the U.S. West Coast. As a key supply chain partner, its dependable U.S.-built, -owned and -operated ships and assets can be relied upon to continually replenish customer inventories.

“Matson has been doing this for 140 years in Hawaii. We understand the importance of our role in the

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PH OTO : COU RTES Y OF MATSO N

SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL SECTION

SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL SECTION

S H I P P I N G / A I R / T R A N S P O RTAT I O N

MATERIALS ON-TIME? HAWAIIAN CHECK.

AIR CARGO FP PG 53

In construction, time is money. Matson saves you both with our unparalleled transit time to the Pacific and on-time weekly schedules. Our world-class customer service and online cargo tracking take the guesswork out of job scheduling. Speak with one of our shipping experts at (800) 4-MATSON or visit Matson.com to learn more.

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SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL SECTION

S H I P P I N G / A I R / T R A N S P O RTAT I O N

manifests itself each day in employee pride and an evergrowing customer base. During the last few years, HFS has invested heavily in technology, trucks, properties, cold chain, various assets, and people.

Many staff members have been with HFS for over thirty years, a solid team that customers know and trust.

Rodriguez says, “We are always searching for ways to improve our four West Coast trucking companies and our large Oahu trucking divisions through analyzing our processes and testing the latest transportation tech. We are in a constant state of refi nement with all our operations constantly looking for even the smallest improvements to our already great service. There is always room to do better and

our teams go after it every day.”

Throughout the pandemic HFS has served customers by delivering worry free transportation. Some of its key services offered include dry & refrigerated LCL & FCL, flat rack, project cargo, Hawaii local trucking, eastbound service, a cargo consolidation program, and warehousing. Customer requirements shifted more than usual during the pandemic, and they needed assistance with storage, delivery scheduling, and shipping options. “There was no challenge our customers faced that we could not help them with. We are extremely proud of our employees and the spirit of ‘ohana, which was present all through Honolulu Freight as so much uncertainty was surrounding everyone. Difficult times are great opportunities to highlight the value we offer our customers,” Rodriguez says.

HONOLULU FREIGHT SERVICE Honolulu Freight is a multi-modal freight forwarder servicing the Hawaiian Islands for over 86 years. We provide partial and full container ocean transport and offer pickup and delivery of dry freight from anywhere in the United States to and from the Hawaiian Islands. In addition, we offer refrigerated pickup and delivery from the U.S. West Coast port areas to Hawaii. HFS owns and operates one of the largest Oahu trucking operations and a diverse warehousing service, ensuring the best possible intra and inter-island service available. We also have 4 West Coast terminal locations utilizing the ports of Tacoma, Oakland, and Long Beach. HFS is committed to providing our valued customers with excellent, efficient and comprehensive transportation solutions to and from the Hawaiian Islands.

Honolulu Freight Service Servicing the Hawaiian Islands since 1936

LCL & FCL Ocean Service • Dry & Refrigerated • Door to door service • Hawaii Trucking • Inter-island • Project Cargo • Four west coast terminals 54

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HonoluluFreightService.com | (808) 531-0258

N O N P R O F I T

The All-Volunteer Hawai‘i Parkinson Association Supports Patients and Caregivers

PHOTO: COURTESY OF JERRY BOSTER, HAWAI‘I PARKINSON ASSOCIATION

BY VI C TOR IA B U D ION O

C

OMMANDER JERRY BOSTER was

47 and in the process of retiring from the U.S. Navy in 2013 when he was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s disease. Not long after, he participated in the Hawai‘i Parkinson Association’s annual walk to raise awareness and donations and today is president of the board.

“Because of my background training as a Navy officer, they asked me to serve in a leadership position,” Boster says.

He is also a national Parkinson’s

advocate and serves with the Unified Parkinson’s Advocacy Council and the Movement Disorders Policy Coalition.

“I do what I do for two reasons: so I can help find the cure for Parkinson’s for myself, but along the way I want to help all my brothers and sisters who struggle as well,” he says.

The Hawai‘i Parkinson Association, established in 1996, is a nonprofit composed of people diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, caregivers, family members, health care professionals, ed-

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ucators and business leaders.

The group is run by volunteers and doesn’t have paid employees. Nonetheless, it interacts with about 2,500 people through phone calls, teleconferences, emails, support and exercise groups, and in-person events.

“We encompass the values of aloha in the way we deal with people: with warmth, compassion and empathy,” Boster says.

He says 10%-15% of the people the group deals with have young-onset Parkinson’s disease – occurring in people under age 50 – and the rest are kūpuna.

“All of the material in our resource center at St. Francis Healthcare System is available for free; it’s all paid for through donations and corporate funding,” Boster says.

“We don’t even take government money.”

Kai McDurmin, 57, was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s disease 11 years ago. She initially reached out to the Hawai‘i Parkinson Association for resources and to find someone else with the disease whom she could talk with and relate to.

“When you’re diagnosed with a chronic illness, many times you can feel like you’re the only one,” she says. “You’re constantly looking for information, and purely going on the internet may not always be the best resource, so calling, emailing or visiting a live body of someone who is local here and understands your situation can be very helpful.”

McDurmin ended up volunteering for the organization.

“HPA gave me everything from finding doctors who were experts on Parkinson’s to places where I could get specialized exercise classes, and support groups and events where I can meet more people,” she says.

She now runs the office at the association’s resource center in the St. Francis Healthcare System building on Liliha Street, helping people who call as well as walk-ins. She also helps work on projects like the annual walk and an annual symposium, a hybrid educational event that connects patients, caregivers, family members, friends, medical professionals and the public.

“HPA really is a central hub for everything Parkinson’s in Hawai‘i,” McDurmin says.

Learn more or donate at parkinsonshawaii.org.

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ST E A DY G A I NS BY ST U DEN T S H AV E E RODE D A F T E R T WO Y E A R S OF U PH E AVA L .

C A N T E ACH E R S , PR I NCI PA L S A N D A DVOC AT E S A R M E D W I T H $ 69 0 M I L L ION I N F E DE R A L PA N DEM IC F U N DI NG T U R N T H I NG S A ROU N D?

by C Y N T H I A W E S S E N D O R F PHO T O G R A PH Y B Y C H AVON N I E R A MO S A N D A A RON YO S H I NO

5

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Kaimukī High struggles compared to neighboring schools like Kalani High.

eryl Matsumura often starts her workday in the dark, at 6 a.m., and doesn’t head home until the hot Waipahu sun retreats after 5. In the long hours in between, the interim principal of Waipahu High School is responsible for keeping 2,800 teenagers safe and on task.

The past two years have been a wild ride. Most teachers and students are re-

lieved to be back in person this year, she says, but fallout from the mass experiment with online learning and a shaky reentry to the classroom still lingers.

“Coming back on campus in fall felt like we had two freshman classes. Half the campus was completely new,” says Matsumura. Normal start-of-school jitters were worse than usual: Social skills had frayed after 16 months mostly spent at home.

“The isolation impacted everyone,” says Maverick Yasuda, a junior who is on track to earn an associate degree through the school’s Early College program, which was launched more than a decade ago. “You lose motivation, you overthink things.”

While Yasuda is a serious student and does well even if school is on a screen, many of his peers have foundered. “There are a lot of struggling students – it’s not a small group anymore,” says Matsumura.

“Online is not the greatest way to teach.”

Classrooms have remained open since August, though a late summer Covid surge threw reopening plans into disarray. Once it subsided, students slowly settled into routines and “start-

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ed making gains reconditioning themselves to the grind,” says English and drama teacher Thelma Madriaga. That progress was disrupted when infections peaked again after Christmas break Through January, the phones kept ringing in the administrative office, with families reporting 40 to 60 positive cases a day. Matsumura and her team tracked down close contacts at school and kept unvaccinated students at home for five days. “We joked that we were the Department of Health,” she recalls.

“We had 30 to 40 teachers out at one point, and half the students. It was a revolving door,” with substitutes hard to find. She says many absences were caused by Hawai‘i Department of Education rules that suddenly required teachers, staff and students to have booster shots to stay on campus after an exposure. The booster rule was removed shortly afterward, and the quarantining of close contacts ended in March.

Matsumura says two strategies helped the school cope: One was re-issuing 1,700 Chromebooks in fall 2021 to students who didn’t have their own laptops, part of the DOE’s $31 million technology purchase made in 2020 with fed-

eral CARES Act funds. Like the previous year spent online, teachers continue to post assignments on Google Classroom so students can do them from home.

The other strategy was to impose seating charts in classrooms, an old-style arrangement that helps with contact tracing but limits the more interactive approach that many teachers and students prefer.

Waipahu High can be deceptive.

From the outside, the campus looks like a typical Hawai‘i school: utilitarian, with two-story blocks of classrooms separated by unshaded stretches of parched grass. It’s one of the state’s 193 Title I schools, out of 257 public and 37 charter schools. The federal designation is used when at least 47.2% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches; at Waipahu, that comprises slightly more than half of the student body.

But the school is famously plucky and innovative. Under longtime principal Keith Hayashi, who in August became interim superintendent of the state DOE, Waipahu partnered with UH West O‘ahu and Leeward Community College to offer free college courses to students.

The school also developed a suite

of National Career Academy Coalition “model academies” in health and sciences, natural resources, arts and communication and other areas, all soon to be housed in a modern facility now being built. The academies help make a large school seem smaller and funnel kids into appealing electives and potential career choices.

“We have students on all ends of the spectrum, but our teachers and counselors try to build everyone up and support all students,” says Matsumura.

That striving extends in unexpected directions. In the arts program, for example, Madriaga’s drama students created online performances from scratch in the spring and fall 2021 se-

Meryl Matsumura is interim principal of Waipahu High School

mesters – funny, offbeat original works that dealt with the intense experience of being a teenager in an unsettled world.

Mentors Mike Poblete and Katherine Rothman, current and former UH graduate students who run Corpus Productions, say more traditional theater programs turned down their offers to guide the students’ creative processes, but Waipahu jumped at the chance to do something experimental.

Poblete says it worked so well because “we went into an environment that was very positive. Clearly there’s a lot of trust, there’s admiration for the teacher. We couldn’t have asked for a better group of students who were enthusiastic and supportive of one another.”

It’s lunchtime in late February when I visit and Madriaga has opened her air-conditioned classroom to students, who sit quietly chatting. “A lot of us teachers, we want to control everything with the curriculum, but if you let the students go, with big bumpers, leadership just emerges organically,” she says.

The campus is packed and lively, and everyone is still masked. Reported cases nowadays are in the ones and twos, if there are any at all. And in a mark of normalcy, the first senior lū‘au in two years had just taken place.

But after so many interruptions through his sophomore and junior years, Yasuda was taking a prudent approach: “Hope for the best but expect the worst.”

The following week, all the juniors were scheduled to take the national ACT test, which made him a bit anxious. So were Matsumura and Madriaga, who steeled themselves for potentially disappointing news.

Despite free online summer school in 2021, extra summer counseling, months of in-school learning and teachers’ individual efforts to get kids up to speed, the juniors were behind compared to March 2020, says Madriaga, having lost much of their formative sophomore year.

“I don’t think it’s realistic to do catch-up. That’s like saying, ‘I’m taking away a year of your life and you have to jump this high,’ ” she says, raising her hand. “I assist them to grow as far as

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they can, with depth and critical thinking, but requiring every student to make up an entire year would set them up for failure. Instead, I’m looking for active progression.”

FALLING TEST SCORES AND FEWER COLLEGE-GOERS Standardized tests are imperfect measures, and they can be

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Waipahu High junior Maverick Yasuda

GOING TO COLLEGE College-going rates for public school graduates fell during the pandemic.

COLLEGE- GOING RATE (%)

the bane of teachers and administrators, who are in the spotlight when scores are weak. But they can also point to stubborn problems and worrisome trends.

It’s no surprise, but across the U.S. test scores have slipped dramatically during the pandemic, particularly in math and science. For context, the Brookings Institution reported in March that national math scores in grades 3-8 had fallen more by fall 2021, compared to 2019, than they did among evacuees who fled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

In Hawai‘i, the newest assessments happen in spring 2022, with results reported months later. But for the previous 2020-21 year spent mostly online, overall scores had dropped significantly, as measured by the state’s Strive HI Performance System: • Language arts proficiency fell 4 percentage points to 50%.

• Math proficiency fell 11 points to 32%.

• Science proficiency fell 9 points to 35%.

A few bright spots emerged, including rising literacy rates among third and eighth graders. But now some states are reporting that young children who missed kindergarten are severely behind in early reading skills, which could have long-term effects on literacy rates.

On-time graduation rates held steady at 86% in 2021, but that positive news also comes with caveats. For the class of 2019, 55% went on to two- and fouryear colleges. The rate dropped to 50% among 2020 graduates and was at 51% in 2021, according to data collected by Hawai‘i P-20, a partnership led by the Executive Office on Early Learning, the state

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 2016

Attended College 4-Year College 2-Year College

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

GRADUATING CL ASS Source: Hawai‘i P-20, College & Career Readiness Indicators Report (CCRI) for Class of 2021, March 2022.

pandemic, it’s affecting folks in our society differently. For Native Hawaiians, the college-going rate dropped pretty precipitously, more than 5 percentage points.”

Among the 11,333 public school graduates in 2021, only 5,733 went on to college – which includes everything from two-year training to be a welder to a four-year degree in biology. That leaves 5,600 young people heading straight into the workforce and missing out on higher education’s lifetime income boost.

RECOVERY EFFORTS UNDERWAY Hayashi, the DOE interim superintendent, stepped into his role

DOE and the UH system that works to ease the often bumpy transitions from kindergarten to college.

“We’re not sure what’s happening to those students either, because our data is showing that they’re not taking a gap year. We’re really worried,” says Stephen Schatz, Hawai‘i P-20’s executive director and a former teacher, principal and DOE deputy superintendent.

“And it’s not going down equally across groups. Just like the rest of the

on Aug. 1, 2021, just two days before students returned to classrooms. At the time, according to Schatz, “I think it’s fair to say that the department did not have a fully implemented statewide initiative to catch kids up.”

Hayashi has faced a steep learning curve, but he’s upbeat about students being back in classrooms this year and programs being rolled out across the school system. But he says a full recovery will take time.

“If the expectation is that students will come back and it’s only going to take a year for them to catch up, I think that’s a fallacy,” says Hayashi. “Our teachers and everyone are committed to help accelerating that learning for our students as much as possible, but it is going to be a process.”

Step one of that process has been keeping the vast majority of campuses open through two surges in the 2021-22 school year. He says the overwhelming majority of teachers and students he met during his fall listening tours said they wanted to be back in school. Most of the two dozen people I spoke with agreed.

“It’s been a night and day experience for me as a teacher,” says Liam Arnade-Colwill, a special education teacher at Wahiawā Middle School who is finishing his second year with Teach For America. “Last year, it was really

kind of heartbreaking because I was teaching to a screen and oftentimes students wouldn’t turn on their cameras.

No one would respond in the chat or on the microphone, and I wasn’t sure if I was reaching anybody.

“Now I’m able to form those relationships, and what I’ve heard from students overwhelmingly is that they’re glad to be back in school. … I think they really felt not only the loss of learning but also the loss of social connections.”

The verdict, then, was to open and to stay open “because we knew that if we were to close and transition again to distance learning, that our students would be the ones to suffer,” explains Hayashi.

Many parents, however, were critical of the approach. During the omicron surge in late January, a polling firm hired by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser found that only 40% of public school parents agreed with staying open, and 68% gave “fair” or “poor” ratings to the DOE’s efforts to keep kids safe.

FEDER AL FUNDING POURS IN Step two in the recovery efforts

has been figuring out what to do with the bounty of federal money flowing into U.S. school districts, the vast majority for elementary and secondary school emergency relief, or ESSER. Data from the DOE’s fiscal office shows that the state was allocated $690.6 million in total funding through the federal CARES Act, the CRRSA Act and the American Rescue Plan Act. The last batch of ESSER funds received in August was massive – more than $412 million – and the money must be spent or committed by Sept. 30, 2024.

Federal funds have been directed toward summer school, personal protective equipment, technology, mental health support, distance learning and free meals. For the newest ESSER III funds, nearly half has been budgeted to address “learning loss,” or “accelerated learning,” though only a small fraction has been allocated or spent.

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HOW FEDERAL PANDEMIC FUNDS ARE BEING USED $1.89 MILLION Miscellaneous

$15.4 MILLION Summer school/ learning loss

$8.08 MILLION Miscellaneous

$979,958 Mental health/ social-emotional learning

$56.57 MILLION Summer school/ learning loss

$6.62 MILLION Special ed $18.29 MILLION Health & safety

$12.72 MILLION Mental health/ social-emotional learning

OVER $265 MILLION HAS BEEN ALLOCATED BUT NOT YET SPENT

NEARLY $191 MILLION HAS BEEN SPENT

$3.38 MILLION Special ed $14.34 MILLION Health & safety

$89.74 MILLION Budget shortfalls, salary & food offsets, unemployment insurance

ADDING IT ALL UP:

• Total amount spent as of March 1: $190.81 million.

$48.89 MILLION Distance learning/ equipment & connectivity $8.99 MILLION Charter schools

• Total amount allocated but not spent as of March 1: $265.79 million.

And while federal aid came with few restrictions beyond pandemic recovery, a big chunk of ESSER funds – roughly $120.9 million, according to DOE spokesperson Derek Inoshita – is being used to fill budget holes that resulted from last year’s cuts by the state Legislature.

While the department has identified broad areas to receive funding, many details are still being worked out, and the interim superintendent is asking school and complex area leaders to decide what they need most.

“It doesn’t make sense to say at a state office level: ‘Everyone will do the same thing,’ ” says Hayashi.

“We do have metrics that we’re looking at statewide in terms of chronic absenteeism, academics, graduation rate and so forth across all of our K-12 schools, but it’s really important for our area superintendents to customize the supports for each school based on their needs.”

Specific academic programs funded so far, says Hayashi, include tutors in the A+ afterschool program at no added cost for families, extra in-school instruction for small groups of struggling students and salary increases for part-time teachers.

Kristen Brummel, a former elementary school teacher and now an educational specialist with the DOE’s Hawai‘i State Teacher Fellowship Program, says the summer school program rolled out last year helped her daughter catch up on reading skills be-

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$10.57 MILLION Distance learning/ equipment & connectivity $6.25 MILLION Teacher training & professional development

$153.86 MILLION Budget shortfalls, salary & food offsets, unemployment insurance

• Total encumbrance amount: $23.93 million.

• Total amount awarded: $690.61 million.

“IF THE EXPECTATION IS THAT STUDENTS WILL COME BACK AND IT’S ONLY GOING TO TAKE A YEAR FOR THEM TO CATCH UP, I THINK THAT’S A FALLACY.” KEITH HAYASHI,

Interim superintendent of the DOE

• Final installment of ESSER III funds must be spent by Sept. 30, 2024.

Source: DOE Office of Fiscal Services budget summary.

fore entering third grade.

“It was the same teacher that she had in the second-grade year, so she knew my daughter’s struggles and what worked well as far as motivating her,” says Brummel. A small group of students met for four weeks of intensive instruction. “I strongly believe in those extended kinds of programs with a qualified person who can really understand the needs of the students.”

Schatz says that with so much ESSER money heading into the academic realm, he’s optimistic, but he worries it’s not enough to close achievement gaps. A DOE study of the first quarter of the current school year found that among students who were economically disadvantaged, had disabilities or were learning English, 79% were behind two or more grade levels in English language arts, as opposed to 21% of the general population. Those percentages were nearly identical in math.

“What do parents of high socioeconomic status do when their kids are behind? They tutor them, or they pay somebody to tutor them,” says Schatz. “Systemically, we need to embrace that for our schools. And it cannot be laid at the classroom door of teachers.”

Reading and math levels in a single classroom can vary by five grades, he says, and “it’s not realistic to expect differentiation to be the solution. … Intervention needs to be something other than expecting the teacher to be magical.”

BUT PRIORITIES CAN STILL BE HAZY Schatz’s pitch for intensive, systematic tutoring points to a wider

criticism about the DOE’s decentralized approach, which some say is inadequate for dealing with deep-seated problems, now exacerbated by the pandemic.

Cheri Nakamura, director of HE‘E (Hui for Excellence in Education), says many U.S. school districts narrow their funding focus to areas like health/safety and academics. Some are even more laser-focused, such as in Houston, which she says is targeting literacy.

“That might have been a more strategic way of utilizing the federal funds to address learning loss, and ultimately it would be easier for everybody because they would be able to focus,” says Nakamura.

HE‘E was founded in the aftermath of “furlough Fridays,” when public schools closed for 17 Fridays in the 2009-10 school year to help balance the state budget. The move infuriated many parents and made international news. My mother-in-law in Germany, for example, learned about it on her local news and called to say that the last time their schools closed was when she was a child and Allied bombs were falling from the sky.

Nakamura’s organization has served as a DOE watchdog ever since, as well as a gathering place for 48 education-focused Hawai‘i nonprofits – themselves part of a larger network that operates like a level three triage unit trying to stabilize the system.

Coalition member Hawai‘i P-20, for instance, has initiated programs such as Summer Start, which helps incoming kindergartners get ready for formal schooling. The program now runs in about 85 public schools, says Schatz.

HawaiiKidsCAN launched a pilot program on Lāna‘i that gave families money via ClassWallet to buy supplies or tutoring, and has sponsored a bill (still alive in March) to expand the program statewide. Executive Director David Sun-Miyashiro says “there’s definitely

something in the air now to get funds into the hands of families because there are just so many needs.”

One big idea that Nakamura would like to see implemented is benchmarking. She points to schools such as Pauoa Elementary on O‘ahu, where 52% of students qualify for subsidized meals.

Despite the economic challenges, the school posted fairly strong results for 2020-21: 68% of students were proficient in language arts and 66% in math.

For comparison, at Noelani Elementary, where just 17% of the student body qualify for subsidized meals, 80% were proficient in language arts and 77% in math.

“What are the common elements of getting to excellence that can be applied to other schools?” she asks. “That’s really a state office function to be able to identify these exemplary schools to understand those elements – Is it consistency? Is it communication? Is it personalization? – so that they can help support schools that are having trouble with it.”

Marissa Baptista, the VP of leadership for the 6,000-member Hawai‘i State PTSA, sees the benefit of having a single statewide district, which she says makes it easier to voice concerns about such issues as hot classrooms with no A/C. But she’d like to see better communication from the DOE to parents, and guidelines on which interventions work best.

“There’s no standard set of tools used across the state,” says Baptista.

“The state says, ‘Here’s some money, here are some tools that you can choose from. We won’t really tell you whether they’re effective or not.’ They leave it up to the complex area and sometimes the individual schools to identify what their reading program should be, what their approach to remediation will be. … Shouldn’t we have lessons learned across the communities?”

Teachers are helping to fill the void and many have been regularly gathering online to share their practices with one another and with administrators.

Pauoa Elementary is a Title I school with strong academics

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Brummel, from the Teacher Fellowship Program, says that in the past, “people who were making decisions about education were not actually in the classroom every day. By creating spaces for teachers who are feeling the struggle and also feeling the success of what works, and having them inform decision-makers … that is so important.”

POCKETS OF EXCELLENCE EVERYWHERE There’s a funny phenomenon in Hawai‘i. If you ask people about

the public schools, they’ll often say they’re terrible. But if you ask a parent about their child’s specific school, the answer is far more likely to be positive.

That disconnect comes, in part, because great schools and dedicated teachers can be found in every neighborhood, on every island.

Baptista moved to Hawai‘i in 2019 from the high-achieving school districts of Loudoun County, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C. With Native Hawaiian ancestry and family in the Islands, she says she and her husband have always wanted to settle here.

Currently, her children attend different schools: Moanalua High School for the oldest; Hawaii Technology Academy, a hybrid remote/in-person public charter school, for the middle-schooler; and a fully online option offered by Nimitz Elementary for the youngest, who wasn’t old enough to get a Covid vaccine when the school year began. Both of the younger children plan to switch to in-person classrooms next school year.

Baptista has been pleasantly surprised with the experience and finds the rigor just right for her kids and the teachers extremely hardworking and invested.

“I came from a community where everybody knew their role and stayed in their lanes. You’re the teacher, you teach.

Probably by 4 o’clock you’re off the clock and I’ll see you again at 8 o’clock tomorrow,” she explains. “But here, they’re not only the teacher, but they’re the counsel-

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or, they’re trying to find activities for the kids to be involved in after school, they become like another arm of the family.”

Whitney Aragaki is one of those exceptional educators. She teaches science at Waiākea High School on Hawai‘i Island and online Advanced Placement classes through the DOE’s Virtual Learning Network, and was named the 2022 Hawai‘i State Teacher of the Year and one of four national finalists.

She says last year’s struggles opened a space to rethink education and to help students “truly love what they’re learning.”

For example, when her students wanted to talk about Covid and “why it is ruining our lives,” she launched into an ever-widening series of conversations and lessons.

“We’re not just going to learn about viruses in the immune system. What about other pandemics we’ve experienced as a human population? Why do some people have a higher propensity to get Covid based on socioeconomic status, health care access and educational opportunities? And what is the historical experience in Hawai‘i with pandemics?” Aragaki says.

“We looked at data, we brought in the math, the statistics and a lot of social studies. … It’s not just science anymore, but it’s about the idea of rigorous observation through many perspectives.”

She’s invested in the school system, both as a graduate of Waiākea High and as the parent of two children in public schools. Although she left for college at Swarthmore, “that experience, while it pushed me academically, also pushed me back home. It reminded me that this is where I need to be.”

Other teachers are doggedly helping students master basic skills after seeing how far they’d fallen behind. An English teacher at a Honolulu high school tells me that she’s never worked harder or longer hours.

“It took me the first quarter to realize how profound the learning loss really was,” she explains. “I have had to give much more feedback and direction to students, and I have had to start back at the beginning and reteach even the basics, like what a complete sentence is and isn’t.”

Many students report that they’re happy with their teachers and their education. Amika Matteson is finishing

TWO TUMULTUOUS YEARS IN A SPECIAL ED CLASSROOM

L

iam Arnade-Colwill started his Teach For America assignment in fall 2020, working with special education students at Wahiawā Middle School.

Teach For America is a selective national program that puts college graduates through summer training, then sends them into partner schools. About 200 teachers were placed in local public and charter schools this year, mostly on O‘ahu and Hawai‘i Island, and many in hard-to-fill STEM and special education positions, according to Isaiah Peacott-Ricardos, TFA’s communications director.

Wahiawā Middle relies on TFA for its special education department, with about 10 of 14 positions filled by new TFA recruits or former TFA teachers who stayed past their twoyear stints, says Arnade-Colwill.

Like many of the teachers, Arnade-Colwill is young, bright and eager to give back to kids who had far fewer advantages than he did. A graduate of Punahou and Yale, Arnade-Colwill traveled after college on a Fulbright award to teach in Taiwan. In spring 2020, as Covid ex-

her senior year at Kalani High and has a transcript rife with AP classes in biology, English, world history and psychology.

About 40 to 50 students have taken comparably challenging loads, she estimates.

“If you try, you can get a lot out of the school. I don’t know what a private school could do better,” she says.

The classes have been hard, she says, but she handles the pressure by not packing her calendar with sports and clubs and the frenzied pursuit of awards – a hallmark of private school culture.

Instead, she’s focused on academics and is deeply involved with just one club, HOSA, which is for future health care

ploded, he returned to Hawai‘i and began teaching English language arts at Wahiawā in August.

The entire school started the year online, then shifted in the spring 2021 to a hybrid model that brought struggling students to classrooms in shifts, while teachers tried to simultaneously teach students online. Classes have been in person since August 2021.

When we spoke, Arnade-Colwill was in his final semester of his teaching commitment and weighing plans for the future.

The passages have been lightly edited for clarity and conciseness.

Students never logged on “I can’t tell you the number of times that students have said to me this year, ‘I’m so glad we’re back because when we were online, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t go to class. I didn’t log in. Or if I logged in, I wasn’t paying attention. It was too loud at home and I couldn’t hear anything.’ … A lot of students are here again this year when they should have moved up to the high school because they simply didn’t log in last year.”

Reading skills have suffered “I could see right off the bat that a lot of my students were reading well below grade

level. From my own experience of being a student, I could conceptualize things like, how do I teach an argumentative essay? How do I formulate really interesting discussion questions about a reading? How do I get students excited about a story? But what I didn’t know was, how do you actually develop the skills of reading fluency in the first place? I had to navigate that on my own.”

Teachers feeling extreme fatigue “All the teachers and administrators, everyone who works in education, is aware that there’s been so many tremendous losses over the past two years. So I think we all feel a sense of urgency to do whatever we can to get our kids to where they need to be. That being said, I think there’s also extreme fatigue.”

Quarantine absences “One of the biggest challenges I’ve had is that since so few of my students are vaccinated, every time they had a close contact, they had to quarantine at home. … There was a point in the first or second quarter of the school year where I actually had an entire class not show up because everyone was quarantined.”

professionals. Her membership there led her to shadow a surgeon at Kapi‘olani Medical Center.

Like Yasuda at Waipahu, Matteson is hoping for enough financial aid to go to an East Coast college; she says she’s prepared for the challenge. At Kalani, 91% of students are on track to graduate, and 95% attend regularly, according to DOE metrics published in late February. For the class of 2021, 74% of graduates enrolled in two- or four-year colleges.

But Kalani didn’t always have such a good reputation. In 2001, a New York Times story opened with a portrait of the school’s termite-eaten cabinets and rustcaked faucets. The decrepit facilities were part of a larger story about a system buckling under the weight of low test scores, a teachers strike and threats of a federal takeover for failure to meet special education mandates.

More students act out “Having students back in person has been so wonderful for so many reasons, and it’s been good for their learning. … But it’s the first time I’ve had to deal with difficult behaviors in the classroom. After a year of being isolated and suffering lots of trauma, these students are frustrated and angry sometimes, and that comes across in the classroom. So we’re not only being teachers, we’re also trying to be counselors and psychologists and therapists.”

Support staff can’t keep up “The staff here is really committed, but they’re frankly overwhelmed. We have so many students that are dealing with mental health challenges and crises. So many students that are truant. So many students who are missing school for various reasons, whether it’s Covid, family issues or they just simply don’t want to come to school. It’s too much for the small staff.”

Committed but inexperienced “So many of the special ed teachers here, our TFA, we’re all committed. We all care about our students. We love what we do. But when you think about

it, we’re all like 20-somethingyear-old graduates who weren’t given extensive training in how to do this.”

Teachers band together “I’ve seen teachers really come together to support each other – veteran teachers helping the younger teachers, younger teachers helping the veteran teachers, and TFA teachers working together. If the DOE couldn’t provide us with special ed training, well, we’ll teach each other how to do it. …

All of the special ed department heads at our school for the past two or three years have been TFA people.”

The pandemic made everything harder “We struggle with poverty here and high rates of inequality, and that’s what motivated me to come do this work. I knew it was going to be hard, probably the hardest thing I’d ever done. I knew that there was deep-seated inequality in Hawai‘i. I knew that my students were going to be dealing with a lot of challenges in their lives.

But nothing would’ve ever prepared me for doing this in the context of the pandemic.”

HELP CAN FEEL A LONG WAY OFF Just a few miles away, Kaimukī High resem-

bles that picture from two decades ago, quite literally. Storage shelves have been chewed and stripped by bugs. Science labs are inoperable.

Many of its students aren’t faring well either.

Just 70% are on track to graduate and 87% attend regularly. And while about 5% of Kalani’s students failed core subjects in the first semester, according to DOE metrics, Kaimukī’s rates were significantly worse: 11% failed English, 13% failed math, 19% failed

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65

Lunchtime at Waipahu High School

HIGH NEEDS About 70% of students in Hawai‘i’s public schools are classified as “high needs” in one of these categories: 30.6% Not high needs

10.6% Special education

9.8% English learners

49% Economically disadvantaged

Source: DOE ESSER Educational Plan 2022, page 6.

Breakdowns represent 159,503 total students in public, non-charter schools for the 2021-22 school year.

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science and 22% failed social studies.

A stray progress report found on the floor clarifies the picture even more. One student, whose name is redacted, missed up to five weeks of some classes in the first semester of the 2021-22 school year. That student’s GPA was 0.75, which was better than 27 peers among a class of about 150.

These are harsh numbers, and painful to contemplate. What happened to the student? Were they depressed? Were they stuck at home caring for younger siblings? Or did they just lose interest, falling further and further behind before giving up altogether?

For every success story, there’s a corresponding story of disengagement and struggle and failure. Many of these stories are linked directly to poverty, which impacts students’ lives in profound ways.

No stable place to live, not enough to eat, difficulty seeing a doctor, spotty internet access, lack of quiet places to study, no one to help with homework – these common stress points make it harder for students living in poverty to succeed, according to a

2020 statement from the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Enrollment figures for this year show that 49% of public school students – 78,127 kids – are considered economically disadvantaged. That’s 1,300 more kids than the year before; meanwhile, total enrollment fell by nearly 3,000 students as more families opted for private schools and homeschooling.

As more and more residents struggle to scrape by, Hawai‘i’s public schools feel the effects.

“We often put the onus entirely on the Department of Education and the teachers, when really these are systemic, communitywide issues,” says Deborah Zysman, executive director of the Hawai‘i Children’s Action Network. The nonprofit has been advocating for more child care funding and child tax credits, among other initiatives.

“We’re now at a point where 60% of families are below or really below a survival budget. These are families who work full time and often have degrees, sometimes graduate degrees. Some are our teachers

ENGLISH L ANGUAGE ARTS

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10

Not high needs High needs

AT OR ABOVE GRADE LEVEL

STUDENTS (%)

and our social workers,” says Zysman.

Yet schools are responsible for trying to fix the chronic absenteeism, academic failures, and behavioral and mental health issues they face every day. And the problems, according to some people I spoke with, have snowballed.

“The prevalence of students dealing with mental health concerns has shot dramatically up. … They’ve experienced trauma over the past two years, and that’s coming out in the classroom,” says special education teacher Arnade-Colwill.

“Veteran teachers have told me that this is far and away one of the hardest years in terms of classroom management and behaviors that they’ve ever seen in their entire teaching career.”

While Arnade-Colwill says that only a small fraction of students at Wahiawā Middle are experiencing serious problems, there have been “more fights on campus, more incidences of bullying, more incidences of students expressing severe anxiety or even suicidal ideation.”

Sun-Miyashiro of HawaiiKidsCAN says the challenges won’t just vanish. “I think kids who’ve been in school the last couple of years will need more supports than other generations. Just the number who have experienced the loss of a parent or family member, I think it’s pretty staggering.”

Other problems are more subtle but still concerning. At Kalani High, Matteson says students are less engaged than in pre-pandemic years. “They’re still on mute and never say anything,” she says.

Last year’s Zoom experience has “extended into the classroom this year.”

Some teachers are burning out. A Honolulu high school teacher describes her new workplace conditions: 35 students in a small classroom, kids running around with their masks dangling, no guidance about how to help them catch up, and a general lack of respect.

“The past years have been some of the most difficult years of my life,” she explains. “I have gone through major depression a couple of times and have to keep reminding myself of those students who are kind and thoughtful and want to learn.

Those are the students who keep me going.

I think that most of the teachers I know feel the same way. … If we could all retire right now or afford to just quit, we would.”

STUDENTS (%)

BEHIND OR NOT More than three-quarters of high-needs students are at least a year behind

ONE GRADE LEVEL BELOW

TWO OR MORE GRADE LEVELS BELOW

MATH

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10

Not high needs High needs

AT OR ABOVE GRADE LEVEL

ONE GRADE LEVEL BELOW

TWO OR MORE GRADE LEVELS BELOW

Source: DOE ESSER Educational Plan 2022, page 8. Universal screener data from the first quarter of the 2021-22 school year.

In the 2020-21 academic year, many did just that, with 25% more teachers retiring or resigning compared with the previous year.

Superintendent Hayashi says he empathizes with the challenges teachers face. “Until people walk in the shoes of individual educators who are at schools dealing with the issues every day, it’s really difficult to truly understand what’s happening.”

EDUCATION DETERMINES THE FUTURE

“PUBLIC EDUCATION …

IS OUR FUTURE WORKFORCE. IT’S OUR FUTURE LEADERS. IT IS WHAT HAWAI‘I WILL BE.” STEPHEN SCHATZ,

Executive director, Hawai‘i P-20

Many people laboring on the front lines are exhausted.

Another Honolulu teacher told me how discouraging it’s been to see so many good people and so much effort leading to the same lackluster results. “Sometimes it feels like nothing ever changes and you lose hope that it ever will.”

But others have expressed optimism, as legislators, nonprofits, the private sector, and school administrators and educators try to pick up the pieces after two years of turmoil. Their efforts are supported with heaps of federal pandemic funding and a renewed sense of urgency.

As Hawai‘i P-20’s Stephen Schatz describes it, education is core to a functioning society, and a strong school system that lifts everyone up is essential.

“If we truly believe in equity and in closing achievement gaps, that requires some level of discipline and high expectations for all of our kids,” says Schatz. “We want the community at large to think of education, and in particular public education, as not only an entity in and of itself, but also it’s our future workforce.

It’s our future leaders. It is what Hawai‘i will be.”

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Hawai‘i Island BUSINESS REPORT

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Table of Contents 69 FROM THE HAWAI‘I ISLAND CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE 70 DIGGING DEEP CO M PA N Y P RO F I L E S :

HPM 74 W.H. Shipman 71

ALO HA AN D WE LCO M E F RO M TH E HAWAI ‘ I I S L AN D C HAM B E R O F CO M M E RC E .

Our island community continues to rebound from the challenges brought on by the pandemic. Buoyed by the easing of COVID-19 rules and restrictions, a lower number of positivity cases, and an increase in visitor counts and consumer traffic, our island slowly continues to bounce back.

Working with the knowledge gained over the past two years our local businesses, community leaders, social service organizations, educational institutions and government agencies are collaborating to find immediate and long-term solutions which will cultivate opportunities for growth and sustainability for this and the next generation.

Let’s continue to stay positive, treat each other with fairness, compassion, respect and acceptance, support our local businesses and remain vigilant as we continue this comeback. It’s these foundational values which others around the state and nation fi nd so endearing and memorable about our community.

We applaud Hawaii Business Magazine for once again showcasing our beautiful island. We hope you enjoy this Hawai‘i Island Business Report and discover how our community works together to make our island home special.

Mahalo,

PUBLISHER

Cheryl Oncea cherylo@hawaiibusiness.com (808) 534-7575

Miles Yoshioka M I LES YOS H I O K A , Executive Officer, Hawai‘i Island Chamber of Commerce

AS S O C I AT E P U B L I S H E R

Kent Coules kentc@hawaiibusiness.com (808) 364-5869 ACCO U N T E X EC U T I V E

Kellie Moe kelliem@hawaiibusiness.com (808) 364-5897 ACCO U N T E X EC U T I V E

Mea Aloha Spady meaalohas@hawaiibusiness.com (808) 364-6126

PHOTOS: AARON YOSHINO; COURTESY OF MILES YOSHINAGA AND WENDY LAROS

A DV E RT I S I N G P ROJ EC T M A N AG E R

Michelle Okada michelleo@hawaiibusiness.com (808) 534-7578 C R EAT I V E D I R ECTO R

Kelsey Ige WRITER

Kathryn Drury Wagner

Hawai‘i Island Business Report is published by Hawaii Business Magazine, May 2022 ©2022 Hawaii Business Magazine, 1088 Bishop St., Suite LL2 Honolulu, HI 96813

ALO HA AN D WE LCO M E!

As the voice of West Hawai‘i’s business community, the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce provides leadership and advocacy for a successful business environment on the west side of Hawai‘i Island. With 430 members, our organization brings together the business community as a strong, united voice to address key issues on our island and in our state.

For 2022, our priorities include housing, water development and astronomy. Based on the concerns of our members, we are pushing for more housing projects at all inventory levels in West Hawai‘i. This includes focusing on permitting processes as well as infrastructure development. We are also exploring new water resource development for housing and commercial endeavors. We continue our strong support for the astronomy industry on Maunakea noting significant scientific discovery, educational outreach and economic impact. We believe the University of Hawai‘i is the best option to manage Maunakea.

To serve our members this past year, we amplified our advocacy efforts by leveraging virtual connections and building island and state-wide relationships. Now with pandemic restrictions lifted, we are continuing this momentum by adding face-toface opportunities. For example, as a neighbor island chamber, we resumed in-person meetings with legislators and testified at the Hawai‘i State Capitol this legislative session.

Looking ahead, we are resuming in-person events with our Annual Golf Tournament, Gubernatorial Candidate Forum, Annual Membership & Installation Luncheon, and monthly Business AfterHours. As an organization that brings our community together, we are filled with joy as we plan these important gatherings in West Hawai‘i.

Mahalo to Hawaii Business Magazine for this special section on Hawai‘i Island!

Sincerely,

WE N DY J. L AROS , President and CEO, Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce

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Digging Deep

“W

e’re in some interesting times,” observes KTA Super Stores president and CEO Toby Taniguchi. “It’s not the status quo.” You can sure say that again. An unpredictable pandemic, epic clogs in global supply chains, fluctuating numbers of visitors, and a shrinking state population has businesses on Hawai‘i Island rejiggering, rethinking, and yet again, adapting to change.

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“Every business has shifted, and a lot of changes have now become standard in their business,” says Miles Yoshioka, executive officer of the Hawai‘i Island Chamber of Commerce. He says businesses have fully embraced digital marketing, for example, and are more flexible with employees. “Many companies are allowing employees to continue to work remotely, helping them address various needs, including childcare and elder care.”

PHOTO: AARON YOSHINO

Mining challenges for opportunities, the Hawai‘i Island business community continues to turn adversity into innovation.

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Core Strength: The Secret Weapon

T

H E PAST S EVE R AL YEARS HAVE B E E N C HALLE N G I N G for our island,

particularly for East Hawai‘i and the district of Puna,” says Peggy Farias, the president of W.H. Shipman, Ltd., and the great-great-granddaughter of company namesakes William and Mary Shipman. “Some of our farmers and other business partners were just recovering from Hurricane Iselle when they were impacted by the 2018 lava flows, and then the covid pandemic hit. During this time we’ve learned to focus on the core values of our company and family that promote resilience: diversification, flexibility, creativity, and relationships.” She says that the relationships built with employees, tenants, customers, and neighbors over the years “have really helped us get through the hardest times.”

Jason Fujimoto, president and CEO of HPM Building Supply, is the fi fth generation of his family to lead the company, and also says that having a strong foundation helps in trying times.

HPM was started 101 years ago and has what Fujimoto calls a strong corporate culture. Still, in 2019, the company fortuitously went through a refresh on its core values and mission, using tools such as a facilitator, leadership team meetings, and employee surveys. “It wasn’t about the new so much as it was to distill and deepen what already exists in the organization,” he says. “What do we do? We enhance homes, improve lives, and transform communities.” The company distilled it further into “Heart, Character, and Growth,” which now appears on posters in the company, on shirts, and even on nametags. Fujimoto credits this clarity for giving the company “wind at its back” during tough times. HPM also had the benefit of foresight: the company had moved away from phone lines for meetings and had implemented Zoom and created “Zoom rooms” with big screens, just prior to the pandemic era.

Savvy Staffing Ideas

F

I N D I N G AN D R ETAI N I N G E M P LOYE E S is a nationwide challenge, but especially true on Hawai‘i Island. “We talk about our kids going away for college and then not being able to come back for job opportunities,” says Yoshioka. “There has been a lot of push-back on creating some of the high-paying industries here, such as those related to astronomy, and it’s the same thing with farming.” Not everyone is going to be an astronomer or a farmer, but these high-tech industries create whole ecosystems of other jobs, such as positions in engineering and human resources, says Yoshika. To help foster the careers of post-college workers on

HPM Building Supply FOR MORE THAN 100 YEARS,

HPM Building Supply has served Hawai‘i’s building needs. A humble lumber mill on Hawai‘i Island persevered through World War II and two tsunamis to grow into a statewide building resource, with 14 locations across Hawai‘i Island, Maui, Kaua‘i and O‘ahu. HPM provides lumber, building materials, manufactured products, steel framing, kitchen and bath products and design services, pre-designed house plans and more. We continue to innovate and expand our product selection and services to help Hawai‘i build and live better.

As a local, fifth-generation, family-run business, we remain committed to our founding values and to taking care of our customers and each other.

HPM was one of Hawai‘i’s first businesses to establish an employee profit-sharing plan in 1959 and, in 1977, became one of the first companies in the state to be employee-owned.

Today, we are 100% employeeowned by the more than 450 owner-employees, who share in our company’s success.

Our team is passionate about their work and dedicated to HPM’s mission to enhance homes, improve lives and transform communities.

H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

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Hawai‘i Island, his organization created a young professionals group, which conducts social and networking events and creates leadership opportunities.

At KTA Super Stores, Taniguchi notes, “We try to take care of the mental and physical health of our team—PPE for the spirit, as it were.” KTA provides perks like trainings such with Glenn Furuya [president and CEO of LeadershipWorks, a business and professional growth company], competitive pay, and an inclusive philosophy. “Even in the language in our newsletters, we talk about inclusion, diversity and equity,” he says.

HPM Building Supply was one of the fi rst companies in the U.S. to do an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, starting in 1977, and became 100% employee owned in 2006. However, Fujimoto says that on its own, “an ESOP is a fi nancial mechanism. Just having it doesn’t translate into a benefit,” he says. “You need a culture of communication. It truly is a dynamic new model of capitalism, creating generational wealth across the whole organization, not just top leadership.” To ensure owner-employees feel engaged, HPM shares all fi nancials with employees, and regularly hosts update meetings.

W.H. Shipman offers tuition assistance and paid time

off for college courses and various training and seminar opportunities. “We have a small, tight-knit staff and were very lucky to keep everyone hired and have only minimal turnover since the start of the pandemic,” says Farias. She adds that an Employee Assistance Program, introduced several years ago, has proven to be a relatively low-cost investment that has really made a difference to the staff.

Innovative Concepts

D

URING THE PANDEMIC, KTA Super Stores began offering delivery and personal-shopping services, says Taniguchi. While being a smaller business and having less staff makes it challenging to scale up, he says, the company is exploring technology-based solutions.

Farias says that, “The innovations and advances in video conferencing and telecommuting technologies have been huge for us over the past two years and have especially created new ways for our far-flung family to keep in touch and engage with the business. Additionally, “We’re starting to see some innovations in agricultural land management practices, and more integration

www.ktasuperstores.com www.ktasuperstores.com

Devoted Devoted to to the the community community since since 1916.

1916.

KTA Super Stores is Hawai‘i’s locally owned & operated one stop shop, serving KTA Super Stores is Hawai‘i’s locally owned & operated one stop shop, serving Hawai‘i Island’s grocery, household and pharmacy needs for over 105 years!

Hawai‘i Island’s grocery, household and pharmacy needs for over 105 years!

Downtown, Hilo Downtown, Hilo 808-935-3751 808-935-3751

Puainako, Hilo Puainako, Hilo 808-959-9111 808-959-9111

Waimea Waimea 808-885-8866 808-885-8866

Waikoloa Village Waikoloa Village 808-883-1088 808-883-1088

Kailua-Kona Kailua-Kona 808-329-1677 808-329-1677 72 M AY 2 0 2 2

Keauhou, Kona Keauhou, Kona 808-322-2311 808-322-2311

Express, Kealakekua Express, Kealakekua 808-323-1916 808-323-1916

KTA Delivery in Hilo KTA Delivery in Hilo delivery.ktasuperstores.com delivery.ktasuperstores.com

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Success Story: DA BUX DA BUX (DOUBLE UP FOOD BUCKS)

launched as a pilot program in 2017 on Hawai‘i Island, with four farmers’ markets, two KTA Super Stores and one community supported agriculture program participating. Here’s how it works: SNAP customers get a 50% discount on Hawai‘i-grown produce, helping stretch food dollars, and the

retailer is reimbursed by nonprofit agency The Food Basket, using federal government grants and matching community funding.

Says Kristin Frost Albrecht, executive director of the Food Basket.

“SNAP households can buy more locally produced healthy, nutritious food, local farmers can earn more income, and more federal SNAP dol-

lars can stimulate growth in our food and agriculture industry—it’s a triple win for Hawai‘i.” In 2021, DA BUX reimbursed retailers $1.7 million, while these reimburse-

ments generated $7.1 million in local produce sales, and the program has now grown to 100 retail locations statewide. A new survey also found program partici-

pants had boosted their consumption of healthy fruits, vegetables and legumes, hopefully leading to better health outcomes in the future. –K.D.W.

Our history

G U I D E S O U R VA L U E S

Our roots

GROUND US IN OUR MISSION

Our community SHAPES OUR FUTURE

Helping Hawaii build and live better together for more than a century

100% Employee-Owned • hpmhawaii.com

H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

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W.H. Shipman

HPM Building Supply locally manufactures building components including wall panels, trusses and custom metal roofing.

of both conservation and ag in those practices, which is also very exciting for us.”

In another challenge—affordable housing—HPM hopes to create opportunity. The median sale price for a Hawai‘i Island home was $514,250, as of this writing. “We were thousands of units short in housing supply prior to covid, and it’s only gotten worse,” says Fujimoto. “We can’t solve the crisis,” he says, “but can help move toward a better outcome.” The company is making HalePlus, a line of locally made, factory-built modular homes, preassembled and then installed on a permanent foundation. They cost about 40% less than a traditional building process, according to HPM.

Working Together

T

H E B E ST PART O F LIV-

I N G and doing business on Hawai‘i Island is that we truly are a community,” says Farias, “with all of the values that are implied: work together, help your neighbors, take care of those less fortunate, support our keiki … To be able to go into a business discussion knowing that you share values and a common goal, and that community will be a central theme in that discussion, is both beautiful and empowering.”

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Located in Keaʻau, minutes from the Hilo Airport & Hilo’s deep water port Agricultural & Commercial properties available for Lease Additional fee simple lots in W.H. Shipman Business Park coming soon

PHOTO: COURTESY OF HPM BUILDING SUPPLY

HAWAI‘I ISLAND HAS OFTEN BEEN DESCRIBED AS

a big island but a small town. The interconnected nature of our community means that when our employees succeed, our community benefits, and that community benefit in turn strengthens our company. By creating opportunities for our employees to develop and become more successful in their work and personal lives, we add to the strength and resiliency of our Hawai‘i Island community. It’s a great source of joy for us to see an employee take skills learned on the job and apply those skills to their own personal business or volunteer work, because we know that our small investment is getting multiplied across the community through the actions of our staff and those they impact. When we invest in human capital we are also making an investment in our community, with returns that extend far beyond our company.

75 On its

th

ANNIVERSARY, C A T H O L I C C H A R I T I E S H A WA I ‘ I S T I L L H E L P S THE YOUNG, OLD AND IN-BET WEEN

By Noelle Fujii-Oride

The social service agency serves kūpuna who live at home, immigrants, troubled youth and homeless people of all faiths and cultures

C

CATHOLIC CHARITIES HAWAI‘I WAS ESTABLISHED 75 YEARS AGO TO HELP LOCALS IN NEED. Since then, the social

service agency has touched hundreds of thousands of lives across the state.

The agency serves all people regardless of their faith or culture, focusing on vulnerable populations such as kūpuna who want to continue living independently, immigrants, behaviorally challenged youths and homeless individuals and families.

During the pandemic, Catholic Charities Hawai‘i’s reach extended even further as unemployment skyrocketed and tens of thousands of households fell behind on rent. The agency served 40,000 people a year before the pandemic; during the pandemic, that number doubled. It boosted its staff from 250 to 400, and increased its gross revenue from $30 million a year to $110 million.

“So many lives have been touched and changed by the work of Catholic Charities Hawai‘i,” says Jerry Rauckhorst, who served as the agency’s president and CEO from 1995 to 2016 and now chairs the agency’s 75th anniversary celebration.

“And we’ve just been blessed to have the right people and the financial support that’s enabled us to be able to do that.”

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Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Honolulu was established by the Maryknoll Sisters, who arrived in Honolulu to provide social services in the midst of WWII. The organization was incorporated on July 29, 1947.

CCH was created through the generosity of women. Those women included members of the Catholic Women’s Guild, which in 1859 began providing food, clothing and medical aid to immigrant plantation workers, and the Maryknoll Sisters, who came from New York in 1944 at the request of Bishop James Sweeney to provide social services starting toward the end of World War II. The initial group of four sisters, led by Sister Victoria Francis, was followed by others and helped to establish the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Honolulu on July 29, 1947.

The sisters and their small staff helped provide family counseling, child care, immigrant services and more.

The organization later built its headquarters at 250 S. Vineyard Blvd.; it opened in 1965. In the 1970s and ’80s, CCH expanded to the Neighbor Islands and added services to help the elderly and refugees, families experiencing child abuse and neglect, foster youth, and women with unplanned pregnancies.

More specialized services were

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF CATHOLIC CHARITIES HAWAI‘I

BEGINNING OF A LEGACY

added in the 1990s and 2000s to help victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, plus homeless families and babies with complex medical issues.

And CCH formed the Catholic Charities Housing Development Corp. in the late ’90s to address the need for affordable housing.

The agency also started the first Men’s March Against Violence in 1995, shortly after Rauckhorst signed on. He says Joe Bloom, a clinical therapist in the agency’s counseling program, was part of a committee charged with planning events for domestic violence awareness month. He was the only man at the table with five to ten women. They looked at Bloom and asked him what the men were going to do, Rauckhorst says.

“The whole idea was to change the social thinking that this issue is not a women’s issue,” he says. “It’s a men’s issue. And until men take ownership of domestic violence there will probably always be an increase.

That’s just the way it is. So that was kind of like the underlying purpose of the men’s march.”

UNIFYING MISSION The agency’s mission is to serve the people of Hawai‘i while adhering to its core values of treating others with dignity and compassion, advocating for social justice and committing to excellence.

That means serving people whom other organizations might shy away from, such as “perpetrators of domestic violence and the troubled youth who have been sexually abused and who actually abuse themselves,” Rauckhorst says.

“This is where Catholic Charities saw itself being in the broad picture of what needed to be done in the community, and I think that’s really a tribute.”

That mission led CCH to create its current headquarters in Makiki, which opened in 2010. When Rauckhorst took over CCH, the agency’s services were spread across several O‘ahu locations, plus the Neighbor Islands. He recalls seeing clients show up to a family services location on Vineyard Boulevard when they were really looking for senior or housing services, which were located elsewhere.

“I’d walk to the reception area and see someone talking to the receptionist and they’d be pouring their heart out and the receptionist could not interrupt them. …

And at the end of them talking about their situation for maybe two to three minutes, the receptionist would say, ‘I’m sorry the good news is you’re at Catholic Charities, but the bad news is you have to go up the Pali Highway to senior services or you have to go to immigration over on School Street.’ That’s what would happen. It was just unreal to experience that. Now thank goodness we have that (one) campus.”

RENT RELIEF Before the pandemic arrived in Hawai‘i in March 2020, CCH received 10,000 calls a year for assistance. In 2020, it received 50,000 calls and 73,000 in 2021, and the numbers remain above pre-Covid levels through the first few months of 2022.

Jillian Okamoto, division administrator for the agency’s housing assistance and referral programs, says about 95% of callers include people who can’t pay rent or utilities, and those being evicted or looking for new apartments.

CCH has administered or helped administer four rent relief programs during the pandemic: two for the state and one each for Honolulu and Maui counties.

Nearly 39,000 households have applied

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Residents gather at Catholic Charities Hawai‘i’s Kaka‘ako Family Assessment Center, which connected previously houseless families to permanent housing and supportive services.

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ing. CCH and the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement administer the program and together distributed nearly $130 million in rent relief through March 7, 2022.

Kūhiō Lewis, president and CEO of CNHA, says the two organizations work closely together: “What has come through the pandemic is amazing relationships and opportunities that wouldn’t have otherwise evolved,” he says. “So we now collaborate on a number of fronts – housing fronts, policy fronts.”

CCH also works with the Mediation Center of the Pacific to help prevent evictions, says Tracey Wiltgen, the mediation center’s executive director. Their earlier partnership focused on the two state rent relief programs, and today their work focuses on Act 57, which since August 2021 has required landlords to let tenants mediate evictions for nonpayment of rent.

Since Aug. 7, 2021, 86% of the center’s 700 mediated cases have resulted in agreements.

“Our work with CCH and the devel-

opment of our partnership really laid a good foundation for the work we’ve done together during the pandemic and they’re just an honor and a pleasure to work with,” Wiltgen says.

She adds: “Everyone you meet and work with are compassionate, caring, dedicated. Clearly in addition to the work they do to help the vulnerable members of our community, they do a good job structuring their organization, picking the right people, making sure they all walk the walk and talk the talk. It isn’t just a job.”

EXPANDED REACH CCH’s involvement in the rent relief programs doubled the agency’s annual clientele to 80,000. It also expanded the agency’s reach into the ALICE population. ALICE is an acronym that stands for “asset limited, income-constrained, employed” and refers to households in which people work but barely make enough to

PHOTO: COURTESY OF CATHOLIC CHARITIES HAWAI‘I

for the relief, and CCH had distributed $126 million to 19,762 households as of early March.

“It’s the people, it’s the team we have here, and their dedication and willingness to do whatever it takes to get those funds out, within the program’s restrictions,” says Rob Van Tassell, who joined CCH as president and CEO in November 2019.

“We were just very fortunate to have a group of people who came together very quickly, wrote the software, had funds, saw it as a challenge, and really all worked together to say we can’t have anybody become homeless out of this pandemic.”

Rental assistance involves a lot of financial transactions, but if you don’t wrap that with compassion while preserving people’s dignity and social justice, “then it becomes just another customer service transaction, and that’s not what we wanted,” Van Tassell says.

In September 2021, the City and County of Honolulu’s Rental and Utility Relief Program was recognized as one of the nation’s highest perform-

make ends meet – and sometimes fall short of even that.

“Our focus is going to be the people who are the furthest out on the margins, the people who are probably hurting the most and in most need,” Van Tassell says. But sometimes that circle widens to encompass those working poor who might slip further into poverty.

“So the whole idea is prevention.”

Okamoto adds that the pandemic changed the face of who needs help in Hawai‘i. Prior to Covid, it was common to see people in areas like Wai‘anae, Kalihi and Waipahu needing more assistance. But the pandemic’s impacts on the hotel and restaurant industries meant help was needed across all ZIP codes, including in more affluent neighborhoods and from people who had never before asked for help.

“So our staff had to really make sure that folks understood what we were providing and for how long and helping people see past a year or maybe two years, like ‘What’s your plan?’ We are seeing currently some households are maxing out on assistance, and it’s slightly scary because they don’t have a plan.”

COMMUNITY IMPACT About seven years ago, CCH held an event in its community hall to recognize major donors. A handful of teenage boys dressed in chef uniforms stood at the food stations, telling attendees about the dishes they had prepared.

Rauckhorst says those boys came from the Nā ‘Ohana Pulāma Program, which provides specialized foster care for emotionally and behaviorally challenged youth.

They had been working with a chef to learn culinary skills in CCH’s commercial kitchen.

What stood out that day, he says, was how proud those boys were of their work and themselves.

“At first, these guys wouldn’t look at you if you asked them a question; when they answered they’d look at their feet, at their shoes or at their sandals,” he says. “So even for them to stand in our community

hall on the campus and interact with major donors and look them in the eyes, I mean, this is amazing.”

Today, CCH has more than 40 programs that focus on housing, homelessness, seniors, mental health, immigrant services, nurturing and empowering youth, and family strengthening.

“I’d say let those that we serve be the final judgment to our impact,” Van Tassell says. “Every family that we have an encounter with, every individual, every community is important to us.”

About 89% of the families that stayed at CCH’s Kaka‘ako Family Assessment Center, which closed in February 2022, went on to transitional shelter or permanent housing, Okamoto says. Sixty-eight percent of clients were placed in permanent housing. She attributes that to the center’s staff members, who helped clients with food stamps and Section 8 housing vouchers, school registrations, tutoring and literacy programs, and financial counseling. Family stays at the center averaged 90 days.

One of the center’s families was recognized by the governor during his 2020 State of the State address.

“Just having that impact, even if it was just one family recognized, there’s hundreds more that were in the same boat that are still housed now today and that’s our goal for everyone,” Okamoto says. “And it even goes beyond a roof over somebody’s head; it’s to ensure they thrive in their place of home. … I do believe the staff go above and beyond to help get them there.”

The agency’s Lanakila Multi-Purpose Senior Center serves 1,500 kūpuna age 60 and over through health screenings, educational activities, social gatherings, classes and clubs. The center was created in early 1969 by the state as a model senior center for Hawai‘i, says Diane Terada, who oversees CCH’s senior programs.

The center was closed for over a year during the pandemic, but volunteers and staff created virtual activities. Terada says many seniors had to be taught how to use computers and to navigate the internet, and some didn’t have the necessary devices. CCH received grants to start a lending library so kūpuna could rent those devices; once they became comfortable with them, they could decide whether to purchase their own.

CCH also provides monthly training to caregivers of kūpuna with dementia.

Catholic Charities Hawai‘i’s 2021 Impact CCH says over 34,000 people were helped by the social service agency’s regular programs in 2021, not including Covid rent relief.

4,658 Community and Senior Services

3,132

Family and Counseling Services

11,613

Housing and Referral Services

2,476

Family and Youth Enrichment Services

12,279 Neighbor Island Community Services

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“We have many seniors who participate in the senior center almost until the day they die.

To us, that’s a success because that means they were able to enjoy a qualitative life until the very end.”

DIANE TERADA Division administrator for community & senior services, Catholic Charities Hawai‘i

the day they die. To us, that’s a success because that means they were able to enjoy a qualitative life until the very end.”

LOOKING AHEAD

Catholic Charities Hawai‘i’s kūpuna programs keep their senior clients active through health screenings, educational activities, social gatherings, classes and clubs.

CCH’s Housing Development Corp. plans to finish the fourth and final phase of its low-income affordable rental development for seniors in Mililani, called Meheula Vista, in a year, Van Tassell says.

The corporation is also planning a family housing project on Maui, close to its existing Kahului Lani low-income senior project. The family housing project, to be called Hale Pilina, will have 178 affordable units across four three-story buildings.

Van Tassell says the Housing Development Corp. usually has six or seven projects in the pipeline and wants to work with neighbors to design projects that work for everyone.

He hopes CCH will continue to help shape conversations around affordable housing, mental health and other issues that plague Hawai‘i’s vulnerable populations.

“If you go back and look at the history of Catholic Charities, the Maryknoll Sisters were always there and were never quiet about what they did,” he says. “They were humble about what they did but they were never quiet about the need. And we should never confuse that, being humble and being representative, giving voice to those who are in need.”

PHOTO: COURTESY OF CATHOLIC CHARITIES HAWAI‘I

In Hawai‘i, about 29,000 kūpuna age 65 and older have Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association Hawai‘i. But Terada says that number doesn’t include people who haven’t been diagnosed.

The training covers topics like how to deal with dementia behaviors, how to identify dementia and how to take care of yourself as a caregiver. PreCovid, the training sessions were held at CCH’s community hall in Makiki and routinely drew 75 to 100 people. Once the training went virtual, 250 to 300 people took part.

“The success of it has been our training has gone online and is serving way more people, and I don’t think we’re going to give that up,” Terada says.

The agency also offers a Phone-AFriend program, plus case management, benefits enrollment, housing assistance and transportation services. Altogether, CCH’s senior programs reach about 4,000 kūpuna a year. Terada says the goal is to help seniors stay independent and in the community for as long as possible, rather than in care homes.

“So we have many seniors who participate in the senior center almost until

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IN THE PAST, LAWMAKERS HAVE PROPOSED RANDOM SEARCHES OF SHIPPING CONTAINERS AND USING TECHNOLOGY AND TRAINED DOGS THAT CAN DETECT FIREWORKS.

Illegal fireworks ring in the 2021 new year in Pauoa and Punchbowl, near downtown Honolulu.

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MAKING THAT HAPPEN WOULD NOT BE EASY OR PAINLESS, BUT SOME SAY THE SMUGGLING COULD BE SUBSTANTIALLY REDUCED. by Chavonnie Ramos P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y A A R O N Y O S H I N O

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A LTHOUGH H AWA I‘ I H A S IM POSED STR ICT L AWS such as banning most ae-

rial fireworks and increasing fines up to $2,000 for violations, people still smuggle tens of thousands of illegal fireworks into the state each year.

Creighton Goldsmith, a retired U.S. Customs and Border Protection chief inspector in Honolulu, suspects most illegal fireworks arrive from the mainland, disguised inside shipping containers.

A 2011 report to the state Legislature from the Illegal Fireworks Task Force and a follow-up 2019 report both find that fireworks generally enter Hawai‘i inside shipping containers. The reports listed a series of challenges to stemming the flow, including the sheer volume of containers.

In the 2020 fiscal year, the equivalent of 1.54 million containers moved through Hawai‘i’s commercial harbors, which was actually down from about 1.6 million in each of the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years. The annual figures are based on 20-foot equivalent units, even though the containers themselves vary in size.

The 2011 report recommended using data collected from shipping companies, freight companies, and various state, county, and federal entities to pinpoint the location of risky cargo loads so they can be screened. This is called “targeting,” Goldsmith says.

That report also proposed conducting inspections after recipients pick up their shipments from the harbor, to avoid congestion.

county officials have not cracked down: “They don’t have time. They don’t care.”

Over the years, lawmakers have introduced bills that would establish a shipping container inspection program and use explosive-sniffing dogs to detect fireworks.

Initially, shipping companies resisted the idea of an inspection program, according to Sen. Karl Rhoads, who introduced another fireworks bill this year that died at the state Legislature.

Matson says it is not opposed to inspections but wants them conducted away from the ports to avoid interference with its operations. Any additional inspections that takes place in its terminals “could cause significant delays in offloading and out-gating our cargo,” the company says.

Rhoads agrees that establishing an inspection program would be complicated and says “there are other avenues of attacking the problem that are probably necessary to really get a handle on it.”

He referred to bills his colleagues introduced that would have a lower-level fireworks penalty that could be adjudicated like a traffic ticket. He says this would make it easier to prosecute violators and increase fines.

Goldsmith says agents of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection possess the skills and equipment to detect dangerous objects in containers, but they are prohibited from examining containers being shipped from one U.S. port to another. It can only search shipments from foreign locations.

But the skills to find illegal fireworks in containers can be taught to county fire officials and others he says, adding that the “targeting” system is effective.

He describes one instance where his targeting team tracked a shipment sent to Maui from Singapore. It was classified as furniture but the team “saw something interesting,” Goldsmith says.

It turned out the shipment included documents destined for an engineer on Maui who had worked on the B-2 stealth bomber and was selling secrets to the Chinese government and others. Noshir Gowadia was convicted of 14 charges and sentenced in 2011 to 32 years in prison.

“THEY DON’T HAVE TIME. T H E Y D O N ’ T CA R E .”

LACK OF MANPOWER

Goldsmith worked with legislators and other officials on the 2011 task force to identify ways to find and seize illegal fireworks. He sums up why state and

The 2019 fireworks report said most domestic cargo can’t be searched without probable cause – the legal term describing the basis for a search warrant.

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The Hawai‘i Department of Agriculture is the only state agency that currently can search domestic cargo, but its inspections are usually limited to looking for pests, according to the 2019 report.

Inspection programs and technology to hunt for illegal fireworks would delay shipments and require costly storage facilities to hold any seized explosives, the 2011 report said. Any suspected explosives or illegal fireworks would have to be stored as evidence in a trial.

Without detection technology, searches are generally limited to visual inspections, accidental discoveries in broken containers and discrepancies in shipping information.

Using explosives-sniffing dogs to detect illegal fireworks would cost $70,000 to $80,000 per year, according to the Legislative Reference Bureau. That money would be used to train and maintain each dog and pay a full-time handler.

INJURIES INCREASING AGAIN

The fireworks bans that took effect in 2011 had been credited with reducing injuries in Hawai‘i for a while, but now injuries are back on the rise.

From Dec. 31, 2020, to Jan. 2, 2021, 64 people were treated at emergency rooms statewide for fireworks-related injuries, according to the EMS & Injury Prevention System Branch of the state’s Department of Health. That’s the most since 2010-11 when the state reported 91 injuries.

Cris Bartolome, a Honolulu Fire Department captain, warns that people should not take firecrackers apart or mix them; doing so, he says, can result in third-degree burns and other severe injuries. He says that 40% to 44% of fireworks-related injuries are to the hands.

This past New Year’s Eve, HFD re-

Fireworks Injuries After Hawai‘i imposed stricter fireworks laws in 2011, fireworks-related injuries dropped significantly during the state’s two biggest days for illegal fireworks: New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. But on Dec. 31, 2020, and Jan. 1, 2021, the state reported 64 injuries – the highest total since 2010-11. The worst two-day total was in 2009-10, before the stricter laws took effect.

Source: EMS and Injury Prevention System Branch, Hawai‘i Department of Health

sponded to a house fire that started when aerial fireworks ignited patio furniture.

A TRADITION THAT’S HARD TO BRE AK

Tips For Handling Fireworks 1

Be a responsible adult and use common sense.

he says. “And then the last two or three, it’s just unbelievable.”

Says Bartolome: “It’s hard because in Hawai‘i – the culture, mentality – it’s hard for people’s habits to break.”

The Honolulu Police DepartBROUGHT TO 2 ment says New Year’s has hisNEIGHBOR ISLANDS torically been busy, so it is diffiDo not use cult to catch everyone lighting fireworks if you have Hawaii Business Magazine illegal fireworks and to track used its social media platforms been drinking. down those with no permits. to ask residents how they got 3 There’s a permit that altheir illegal fireworks. No one lows people to set off aerial Do not hang fireworks was willing to talk on the reon utility poles or fireworks – it costs $110 – but cord for fear they might be lines. If you hang getting one is a long and comprosecuted or face retaliation. them on a stick, keep plicated process. Those who Hawaii Business rarely uses the stick at least want one must indicate where anonymous sources but felt 10 feet from utility and when the fireworks will be the stories of two people were poles and wires. set off, who will be setting off important additions to our on4 the fireworks and if that person the-record sources.

Always have is a “licensed pyrotechnic operOne person living on Hawater or a fire ator,” and have a written certifwai‘i Island admits to spending extinguisher handy. icate from an insurance carrier. about $2,500 a year on illegal From Nov. 28, 2021, to Jan. fireworks such as rockets and 5 8, 2022, there were 3,750 firemultishot fireworks called If you are burned or works-related calls to 911, 52 otherwise injured by cakes. The resident buys them citations issued, and four arfrom a friend who receives them fireworks, cool the rests made, according to HPD. in shipments that arrive by ship. burn down with cool If residents want to report water for 20 minutes A Maui resident says she someone lighting illegal firehas seen illegal fireworks arand cover with a dry, non-stick, works, HPD says they need rive on the island in shipping sterile bandage. to document it and provide a containers. She says one of her statement. Those caught could friends is a business owner Source: Honolulu face fines of up to $2,000. who frequently ships products Fire Department Rhoads, who lives in Chifrom the mainland. This businatown and represents a disness owner was approached by trict that also includes Downtown, Lila mutual friend “who asked if they could iha and Nu‘uanu, says the problem has load something into their next container become worse in recent years and enthat’s coming to Maui.” forcement has been weak.

She says the business owner did not “Back when we banned aerials, it nevknow initially that illegal fireworks had er went away completely but there were a been added to the shipment; despite couple of years where it wasn’t too bad,” that, the business owner has allowed

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further illegal shipments for someone else, our source says.

SELF-MADE PYROTECHNICS

The Makiki Neighborhood Board has strongly criticized the prevalence of illegal fireworks.

Samuel Mitchell, a board member who says he was involved in manufacturing explosives when he was younger, says that it is easy to order and receive materials through the mail to create your own illegal fireworks.

He says another board member who had worked for the U.S. Postal Service confirms that these “fireworks-making kits” can be shipped if packed separately.

“If it’s not mixed and it’s just a combination of materials, it’s not explosive,” he says, and can be shipped through the mail.

He referred to a 2020 case in which a Honolulu man was charged with possession of a chemical weapon and an unregistered destructive device. Ethan Sandomire allegedly ordered materials to make “a destructive device” from different online vendors, which were then delivered to his home, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The illegal making of fireworks is an issue that officials need to be aware about, says Mitchell, who spearheaded a Makiki board resolution that recommends officials make Hawai‘i a “safe and sane fireworks state.”

The number of fireworks going off between October and January has become a nuisance because it’s not just on one special day, he says.

Rhoads acknowledges that the bills he and some of his colleagues introduce may not get rid of all illegal fireworks, “but we could certainly curb it quite a lot from where it is.”

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Here’s Which Ethnic Groups Make the Most Money in Hawai‘i Some new data on income, education, employment and homeownership is surprising. Other data confirms what has long been known about Hawai‘i’s social and economic hierarchy – and the difficulty of upward mobility.

BY N OE L L E FUJII- OR ID E

PART-HAWAIIAN JAPANESE WHITE FILIPINO HC IHNESE ISPANIC-LATINO NATIVE HAWAIIAN 86

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EOPLE WHO ARE JAPANESE OR PART JAPANESE have the high-

est median family income in Hawai‘i at $114,825 a year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest data, which is from 2019.

People who are Filipino or part Filipino rank second with a median family income of $102,324. Among the state’s major ethnic groups, people who are part or full Filipino also have the largest average family size, a major factor in their high family income ranking, says Carlie Liddell, head statistician of the Hawai‘i State Data Center.

Almost 80% of people who are at least part Filipino live in family households, the average size of which is 4.4 people.

The number ranges between 3.25 to 3.93 for the state’s other major ethnic groups.

This story is based largely on the Census Bureau’s 2019 data that provides estimates for Hawai‘i’s White, Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, Native Hawaiian and Hispanic populations. That data also covers people whose mixed ethnicity includes one of those six groups.

We also look beyond just income to find how Hawai‘i’s largest ethnic groups compare in education, employment and homeownership to provide a fuller picture of their socioeconomic status.

Higher education, for instance, usually leads to higher income, and homeownership is an important indicator of accumulated wealth.

“We see, of course, that newer immigrants to Hawai‘i, their populations are younger, less established, and we do see that the more established immigrant groups do have higher homeownership, they’re older, they have higher incomes,” Liddell says. “So it does seem to track with periods of immigration.”

MULTIRACIAL POPULATION

Hawai‘i has had the largest multiracial population in the country since multiracial population Census data became available in 2000, says Eugene Tian, chief state economist. In 2019, nearly 22.3% of people living in the Aloha State were multiracial, compared with 3.4% of the U.S. The foundations of our multiracial society include Hawai‘i’s agricultural

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FILIPINO

371,528

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WHITE

582,436 NATIVE HAWAIIAN

284,996 JAPANESE

306,129

CHINESE

203,531

1,415,872

Note: All numbers in the charts are from the Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey and are for “race alone or in combination with one or more races.”

Numbers add up to more than the total because individuals can report more than one ethnicity.

HISPANIC OR LATINO

150,864

history. Male workers from China and Japan came to work on the Islands’ sugar plantations and often married local women. Later, men from the Philippines arrived to work on local plantations.

Locals who are at least part Japanese tend to be older and less likely to be unemployed than the overall population.

They’re also more likely to be managers, with higher rates of them working in business, science and arts occupations.

Locals who are at least partially Japanese have an older median age than that of the total population. Eugene Tian, chief state economist, says this is because 68.7% of this group is Japanese alone, and the median age for the Japanese-alone population is 59.4.

Hawai‘i’s multi-racial population is younger than the total population, he adds: “In Hawai‘i, people who identify as two or more races have an average age of 26.7, but the median age for the total population is 39.6,” he says.

Local Japanese also have the second highest life expectancy among the state’s major ethnic groups and there have been fewer new and young immigrants from Japan in the last 30 years. In addition, the Japanese-alone population has been declining in the last 20 years.

“In summary, the existing Japanese population are declining and aging, and very few new and young immigrants,” Tian says. “Japanese has the highest percentage of people 65 years and above, and the lowest percentage of families with children under 18.”

And they have the highest homeownership rate of Hawai‘i’s largest ethnic groups. Almost 76% of local Japanese live in owner-occupied units, compared with 69% of local Chinese and 64.1% of local Filipinos. About 60% of Hawai‘i’s total population lives in owner-occupied units, which Tian says is one indicator of homeownership.

People of Japanese descent are also more likely to have finished college: 43%

MEDIAN AGE

JAPANESE 44.0

OVERALL POPULATION 39.6

WHITE 35.7

FILIPINO 34.1

CHINESE 33.7

NATIVE HAWAIIAN 30.3

HISPANIC OR LATINO 25.9 0

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have bachelor’s degrees or higher education. Whites are second at 39.4%, followed by local Chinese at 37.6%.

NATIVE HAWAIIANS AND HISPANICS

The median family income for Hawai‘i’s overall population in 2019 was $96,462.

Of the state’s largest ethnic groups, Native Hawaiians and Hispanics earned the least. The median family income for locals who are at least part Native Hawaiian was $84,699; for locals who are at least part Hispanic, $76,054.

One reason Native Hawaiians and Hispanics have lower family incomes is that they tend to be younger, Tian says.

In 2019, Native Hawaiians had a median age of 30.3 years and Hispanics 25.9. The overall population’s median age was 39.6.

“When people are young, they tend to have a limitation, they may not have the adequate education level to go to the occupations like professional services and other business services,” Tian says.

Native Hawaiians tend to have higher unemployment rates and less education. Only 18.3% of Native Hawaiians age 25 and older have bachelor’s or graduate degrees, compared with 33.6% of the overall population.

Jonathan Okamura, professor emeritus of ethnic studies at UH Mānoa, says Hawai‘i’s reliance on tourism also plays a role in lower incomes. About 30% of local Filipinos worked in service occupations

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in 2019, compared with 23.3% of the total population. Hispanics also had greater representation at 26.2%; for Native Hawaiians, the rate was 23%.

Local Hispanics have the highest renter-occupied unit rate of all large ethnic groups. Nearly 63% of Hispanics rent their homes; across ethnic groups, the rate is nearly 40%. Tian attributes this at least partly to the younger median age of local Hispanics.

“They are relatively young and they are relatively low income people and, in Hawai‘i, we do see with the age increase more homeownership,” he says.

Native Hawaiians had a homeownership rate of 57.2% – lower than the state average but high among low-income groups in the Islands, Tian says.

He adds that’s probably attributable to the Hawaiian home lands program, which provides 99-year land leases at $1 a year for individuals with at least 50% Hawaiian ancestry.

SMALLER ETHNIC GROUPS

Census data for Hawai‘i’s smaller ethnic groups, like Samoans, Marshallese, Chamorro, Vietnamese, Koreans, Okinawans, Tongans, American Indians/Alaska Natives and African Americans, aren’t available for 2019. Those groups are so small in the Islands that special tabulations are done only every five years or so, Liddell says, adding that the next one may be released in 2023.

The latest available data on those groups comes from a 2018 report, titled “Demographic, Social, Economic, and Housing Characteristics for Selected Race Groups in Hawai‘i,” produced by the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism. That report used Census data from 2011 through 2015 and also focused on groups defined by multiple races and ethnicities.

The 2018 report showed that Blacks or African Americans had the highest rates of employment, while Marshallese had the lowest. Only 46.7% of the Marshallese population aged 16 and older was employed.

Tian says this may be because many Marshallese are still in school: The

88

M AY 2 0 2 2

INCOME

Japanese

Filipino

Chinese

Total Population

White

Native Hawaiian

Hispanic or Latino

MEDIAN FAMILY INCOME

$114,825

$102,324

$96,993

$96,462

$96,345

$84,699

$76,054

PER CAPITA INCOME

$40,940

$27,738

$33,454

$36,989

$39,499

$25,612

$25,138

Filipino

Native Hawaiian

E D U C AT I O N F O R P E O P L E 2 5 A N D O L D E R Total Hispanic Population or Latino

Japanese

White

Chinese

BACHELOR’S DEGREE OR HIGHER

43.0%

39.4%

37.6%

33.6%

23.0%

22.2%

18.3%

HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE OR HIGHER

96.3%

96.4%

91.6%

92.4%

91.2%

87.7%

93.8%

White

Hispanic or Latino

HOUSING Total Native Population Hawaiian

Japanese

Chinese

Filipino

OWNEROCCUPIED UNITS

75.9%

69.0%

64.1%

60.2%

57.2%

56.7%

37.4%

RENTEROCCUPIED UNITS

24.1%

31.0%

35.9%

39.8%

42.8%

43.3%

62.6%

E M P L O Y M E N T S TAT U S F O R C I V I L I A N S 16 A N D O L D E R

Filipino

Chinese

Native Hawaiian

Japanese

EMPLOYED

66.7%

63.1%

60.3%

UNEMPLOYED

2.8%

2.5%

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

4.1%

3.8%

Hispanic Total or Latino Population

White

59.4%

58.9%

58.5%

56.6%

3.5%

1.5%

2.8%

2.4%

2.4%

5.4%

2.5%

4.5%

3.9%

4.0%

W H O

M A K E S

T H E

M O S T

M O N E Y

O C C U PAT I O N S F O R C I V I L I A N E M P L O Y E D P O P U L AT I O N 16 A N D O L D E R Total Population

White

Filipino

Chinese

Japanese

Native Hawaiian

Hispanic or Latino

MANAGEMENT, BUSINESS, SCIENCE AND ARTS OCCUPATIONS

36.1%

40.8%

25.5%

39.2%

41.5%

28.7%

30.8%

SERVICE OCCUPATIONS

23.3%

20.3%

30.5%

19.0%

16.7%

23.0%

26.2%

SALES AND OFFICE OCCUPATIONS

22.4%

21.6%

23.0%

22.9%

26.2%

22.4%

23.4%

NATURAL RESOURCES, CONSTRUCTION, AND MAINTENANCE OCCUPATIONS

9.0%

9.3%

10.1%

7.7%

7.4%

11.6%

11.1%

PRODUCTION, TRANSPORTATION AND MATERIAL MOVING OPERATIONS

9.1%

8.0%

10.9%

11.2%

8.1%

14.2%

8.6%

group’s median age is only 18.5.

Okinawans were the only small ethnic group to have a homeownership rate higher than the state average, according to the report. “Although homeownership rates are low for all racial groups except the Japanese and Okinawans, it is particularly low among those with younger age structures,” the report’s authors noted. “Six of the seven populations with homeownership rates under 50% are populations with median ages under 28 years old.”

Okinawans and Guamanians/ Chamorros were the only small ethnic groups to have median family incomes higher than that of the total population.

In the 2018 report, the total population had a median family income of $80,778.

Okinawans earned $108,525 and Guamanians/Chamorros $86,607.

ETHNIC HIERARCHY

The hierarchy of the richest and poorest ethnic groups in Hawai‘i hasn’t changed much since the 1970s, Okamura says.

That ranking puts Japanese, Chinese and Whites at the top, with Filipinos and Native Hawaiians nearer the bottom.

Okamura is the author of the 2008 book

“What we haven’t seen since 1970 is … socioeconomic mobility among the subordinate groups.”

— Jonathan Okamura, professor emeritus, UH Mānoa

“Ethnicity and Inequality in Hawai‘i” and uses median family income, educational attainment and occupational status to gauge a group’s socioeconomic status.

He says the only major recent change was a gradual one that became evident in 1990, when Japanese Americans joined Chinese Americans and Whites as the socioeconomically dominant groups in the Islands. Prior to that, Japanese Americans had slowly been rising in socioeconomic status, and World War II gave Japanese veterans access to college.

By the 1980s, local Japanese had comparable incomes to Whites and Chinese Americans but did not yet have compa-

rable levels of higher education.

“What we haven’t seen since 1970 is any other indication of socioeconomic mobility among the subordinate groups like Filipinos, Samoans, Hawaiians,” he says, “like groups moving up in the same way that historically Chinese first and then Japanese moved up socioeconomically once they left the plantations and entered the middle class, got professional, other white-collar employment, sent their children to college, obtained much higher incomes.”

That lack of socioeconomic mobility is an issue, Okamura says, because it shows that ethnic inequality persists in the Islands.

“Ethnicity as a structural principle unfairly restricts access and opportunities for the subordinate minorities – including Native Hawaiians, Samoans, Filipino Americans, and other immigrant minorities – and thereby maintains them in their subjugated position in low-paying service and other blue-collar jobs that preclude their socioeconomic mobility,” he wrote in his 2008 book.

H AWA I I B U S I N ES S

89

PA R T I N G

S H O T

TIME: 10:45 A.M.

LOCATION: MEI DAY STUDIO, KAKA‘AKO, O‘AHU

PHOTOGRAPHER: AARON YOSHINO

Mei Day in Hawai‘i Brandi Lelepali, left, and Mei Day owner Tamara Rigney create artful arrangements of tropical flowers from a space at the Lana Lane Studios in Kaka‘ako.

Their work brightens the interiors of Tiffany & Co., The Ritz-Carlton, Louis Vuitton and other luxury brands. Rigney also handles weddings and corporate events, and prepares florals for professional photographers.

She gets most of her hardy ginger and heliconia from growers on O‘ahu’s Windward Side. Protea, which needs a cooler climate, comes from higher elevations on Maui and Hawai‘i Island, and a shipment of foliage and anthuriums arrives each week from Hilo farms.

A self-described “flower nerd” who grew up in ‘Āina Haina, Rigney says that as a child, “decorating my elementary school for May Day was a highlight of my year.”

After college, she worked as a landscape architect but left her Bishop Street job to launch a dream career. “I am so grateful it worked out,” says Rigney. “I get paid to play with flowers all day.” meidayflora.com

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M AY 2 0 2 2

SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL SECTION

Protecting the Mental Health of Hawai‘i’s Children H AWA I ‘ I C O M M U N I T Y F O U N D A T I O N ’ S P R O M I S I N G M I N D S I N I T I A T I V E I S S U P P O R T I N G T H E H E A LT H Y D E V E L O P M E N T O F V U L N E R A B L E YO U N G C H I L D R E N I N H AWA I ‘ I .

A

ly-related trauma and stress in Hawai‘i N O ‘A H U T E A C H E R S I T S W I T H a have been on the rise in recent years: 4-year-old and her parents and Nearly half of all Hawai‘i children (46 asks, “If you were 100% successpercent) experience Adverse Childhood ful in making the changes that you want, Experiences (ACEs) at some point. what would be different in your family?”

These could include things such as exThe parents look at each other, considperiencing violence, neglect, or growing ering the question. What this preschool up in a household with teacher is doing is called “By investing in our substance abuse or menmotivational interviewing, a method to find out children today ... tal health problems.

These experiences more about each stuyou can really set don’t have to define one’s dent’s life to address their them up for success life, but in Hawai‘i, early needs. It’s just one of the in school, and even care providers have found techniques used to supfurther down the that too many children port children who may road as an adult.” do not get the screenings, have experienced adverse support, or treatment childhood experiences.  JUS TINA AC E VE DO  C ROSS, needed to help protect HCF PROGR AM DIRECTOR Research indicates them against challenges that the first few years down the road. of a child’s life are key to Untreated trauma can lead to healthy brain development and emoincreased risks for poor physical and tional connection. Infants and young mental health and alcoholism and children can be negatively affected— drug abuse, early death, as well as sometimes for a lifetime—when signifiincreased state spending across multiple cant stressors threaten their family and programs, linked to societal costs of caregiving environments. approximately $200,000 per child.

Unfortunately, childhood and fami-

To help turn things around, in March 2019, the Hawai‘i Community Foundation launched Promising Minds, an initiative dedicated to improving early childhood behavioral health in Hawai‘i.

HCF program director Justina Acevedo-Cross explains, “By investing in our children today—especially those at risk of trauma, abuse, and neglect, or dealing with their aftereffects—you can really set them up for success in school, and even further down the road as an adult.”

She says the Promising Minds initiative uses a three-pronged approach: expanding children’s mental health services, improving coordination between pediatricians and community mental health specialists, and making sure we have the workforce we need so that timely access to care is available in all parts of the state.

Since the launch of the initiative, Promising Minds has achieved significant progress toward its goals. Notable milestones include: • The passage of a state bill creating a Department of Health (DOH) Trauma-Informed Care Taskforce • 90 people trained as front-line workers equipped to respond in real time to children’s mental health needs, using trauma-informed practices • 39 child-serving mental health professionals trained with new expertise through the Promising Minds Fellows Program Acevedo-Cross says there’s still a lot of work to be done, but there’s also a huge potential benefit in store for Hawai‘i’s children: “We believe if organizations, agencies, and practitioners adopt a trauma-informed stance, the whole system will shift so that early adverse experiences are non-stigmatized and every child receives the support they need to be set up for success.”

T O L E A R N M O R E A B O U T T H E P R O M I S I N G M I N D S I N I T I AT I V E , V I S I T H AWA I I C O M M U N I T Y F O U N D AT I O N . O R G/S T R E N G T H E N I N G/P R O M I S I N G M I N D S

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