At an October event on the lawn of the Royal Hawaiian, legendary Hawaiʻi business leader Dennis Teranishi stood alongside his daughter Ann, freshly named CEO of the year, mingling with other executives over drinks.

When I congratulated him on his accomplished daughters – Ann and Lori, founder of the strategic communications firm iQ 360 – he smiled modestly. “That’s because of my wife,” he remarked, before stepping back to let Ann have her moment.

Humility clearly runs in the family, and so does quiet influence. It was Dennis who helped shape Ann’s sense of direction decades earlier, including during their 6 a.m. walks through Kakaʻako Park before her summer stint as a law clerk.

As they talked about her career, he suggested, “If you decide to work on the continent, I do hope that you’ll consider coming back. You can really have an impact here,” she recalled.

He also told her that he could see her as a CEO or president of a company one day.

“I thought he was nuts. I thought he was crazy. People will see things in you that you don’t see in yourself,” Ann said to a group of UH students during a 2022 leadership virtual seminar.

SHEPHERDING ASB THROUGH TESTING TIMES

Those words from her father, whom she considers a mentor, stayed with her and ultimately guided her toward a career rooted in Hawaiʻi, where she has made a profound impact on the business and community landscape.

As president and CEO of American Savings Bank, Ann has shepherded the institution through some of its most testing times, including the Covid crisis – when she led a 24/7 “war room” on the 7th floor of the ASB Campus in Honolulu devoted to supporting employees and customers – and ASB’s separation from parent company Hawaiian Electric Industries following the Maui wildfires.

Ann has also woven her values into the fabric of the company: Women make up 65% of ASB’s workforce, including nearly half of its executives. With a woman at the helm, ASB stands as a leader in workplace equity and representation – one of only nine woman-led companies among Hawaiʻi’s Top 100 largest businesses by revenue.

Several employees tell Hawaii Business Magazine that Ann is often the first to turn on the lights in the morning and the last to shut them off at night. “If she isn’t traveling for work, her car is always in her parking stall – first person in and last to leave,” one employee says.

It’s no surprise, then, that American Savings Bank has once again been recognized by Forbes as one of Hawaiʻi’s Best In-State Banks, marking six consecutive years for the prestigious honor. Among 213 banks nationwide on the 2025 list, ASB ranks in the top 4% of thousands of U.S. financial institutions, according to Forbes.

ASB manages $9.3 billion in assets and was recently honored at the American Bankers Association annual convention for its innovative Hui Kapili program, an accelerator created in partnership with aio Hawaiʻi to support small and midsize businesses in the vital construction and home remodeling sectors.

Hui Kapili – which means “building together” – coaches local entrepreneurs in strategic planning, financial management, workforce development and technology, thereby helping them address Hawaiʻi’s affordable housing and labor shortages.

You might think going public would be the natural next step for such a successful bank. However, Teranishi says, “I think for now, our focus is: It’s nice to be private. But we’re still keeping all the regular rigor: quarterly shareholder calls, monthly reporting to our board, all the governance you’d expect. The decision about going public really rests with our board, so there’s nothing to share at this time.”

CIVIL RIGHTS ROOTS

Ann Teranishi at far right, with some of her family. From left, father Dennis Teranishi, Brother-In-Law Troy Fujino, mother Brenda Teranishi, niece Sydney Teranishi Dake, and sister Lori Teranishi.

Ann Teranishi’s rise to the top in Hawaiʻi was never preordained. She originally thought she’d make her career on the mainland and never set out to become a bank CEO.

She found her footing after her second year at UC Hastings College of the Law (now UC Law San Francisco) when she clerked at the Honolulu firm of Kobayashi Sugita & Goda, working under Bert Kobayashi Jr. and Lex Smith, who became early mentors.

That summer home shifted her perspective. After graduation, she returned to Hawaiʻi and accepted a full-time position at the firm.

If her father inspired a long-term mission, her mother, Brenda, instilled execution and resolve. Ann’s elder sister, Lori Teranishi, describes their mother – a civil rights activist in the 1960s and ’70s – as “the matriarch of our family,” adding that their mother pushes her two daughters to think beyond themselves and their work.

“She’s shaped how we all see our responsibility to make this place better,” Lori says.

Their mother often reminded them that to succeed and to make the world better, they would need two things: courage and compassion.

“Ann exemplifies that,” Lori says, adding that family dinners often revolve around conversations about how to make Hawaiʻi a better place to live.

“Ann looks for the people who aren’t being talked to and tries to bring them into the fold. And that’s just one example of her leadership style. It’s an inclusive style.”

For his part, Dennis Teranishi, an Army veteran honorably discharged as a captain, declined to formally be interviewed for this story, preferring the focus remain on his daughter Ann.

He’s best known for his leadership in agriculture, business and technology innovation in Hawaiʻi. He has served as president and CEO of Hawaiian Host and, since 2011, as chairman and CEO of the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR), where he has driven technology commercialization to boost security, safety and economic opportunities across Hawaiʻi and the Asia-Pacific region.

100 YEARS IN AND FOR HAWAIʻI

As American Savings Bank celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, one of its most meaningful milestones is its growing commitment to supporting Native Hawaiian communities.

Ann’s inclusive and caring approach extends to local people, many of whom have been forced to leave their home state because of Hawaiʻi’s high cost of living and limited access to affordable housing and financing. The U.S. Census Bureau reports only 47% of Native Hawaiians now live in Hawaiʻi, while 53% reside on the continent – a reversal from a decade ago.

As Lori Teranishi recalls, “After one of the Hawaiʻi Executive Conferences, she began collaborating with a diverse group of people to create a Native Hawaiian loan program at American Savings Bank. The goal was to provide access to financing for a community that had historically faced significant barriers. It was about truly putting ideas into action. It’s something she’s deeply committed to.”

The bank has since introduced mortgage programs designed to expand affordable homeownership opportunities for Native Hawaiians. In April 2023, ASB received approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to offer HUD 184A and FHA 247 loans – programs that provide affordable financing options for Native Hawaiians purchasing or refinancing homes on Department of Hawaiian Home Lands leased land.

ASB also offers its This is Home program, created to help first-time homebuyers in Hawaiʻi, including Native Hawaiians and everyone else.

ASB also partners with local developers and nonprofits to finance housing and provide essential resources. And in partnership with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines, ASB has awarded nearly $2.7 million in grants to nine nonprofits dedicated to expanding housing access across the Hawaiian Islands.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT DURING THE PANDEMIC

In March 2020, Ann Teranishi was executive VP of operations at American Savings Bank, running every aspect of the bank’s day-to-day operations.

When Covid hit that month, she turned an open space on the 7th floor of the bank’s new campus at 300 North Beretania Street into a “war room,” where employees could safely process critical loans while socially distancing.

The bank pivoted swiftly to hybrid and virtual operations, coordinating remote teams, sanitation protocols and essential banking functions such as payroll and wire transfers.

Teranishi also played a central role in processing Paycheck Protection Program loans, ensuring local companies had access to vital federal PPP funding to stay in business.

“We worked around the clock,” she recalls. “We did 24-hour shifts the first couple of days because we were so uncertain how fast the federal funds would run out.

“We were nervous that the funds wouldn’t get to Hawaiʻi because of the six-hour time difference (with the East Coast). I just said, it’s better for us to be here and enter as many applications as we could during the window. We didn’t know if that money would run out in 24 hours, 48 hours – so we entered them as fast as possible.”

Though she was not yet CEO, Teranishi acted like one. “I said, ‘Here’s what I think we should do: 24-hour coverage in six-hour shifts. I’ll take the 12-to-6 shift, but I need at least one executive at every shift to show we’re not asking anyone to do something we won’t do ourselves.’ Everyone signed up. EVPs entered applications alongside the team. It was a mentality of whatever it takes to support businesses.”

WILDFIRE CRISIS WAS “NEXT LEVEL”

Two years later, shortly after becoming CEO, Teranishi faced another high-stakes challenge: the 2023 Maui wildfires.

The disaster devastated communities and intensified scrutiny on Hawaiian Electric Industries, then the bank’s owner. Lawsuits mounted and HEI agreed to contribute nearly $2 billion toward a broader $4 billion settlement to help rebuild and compensate survivors. The utility pledged to finance its share over several years, a sobering reminder of how deeply the fires reshaped Hawaiʻi’s corporate and community landscape.

The crisis tested everything Teranishi had learned. “It’s always interesting to sit down and replay the moments you live through as a leader,” she says. “I thought the epitome of my leadership challenges was becoming an executive, then Covid happened. When I became CEO a year later, which was not expected or planned, I thought: That’s the biggest challenge.”

But when the wildfires struck, she realized it was “next level.” The event felt almost existential: “A challenge for the whole corporate structure.”

American Savings Bank’s leadership team and board moved quickly to stay anchored in serving the bank’s customers and teammates. “The utility had to focus on the utility, and the bank had to focus on the bank,” she explains about HEI. “It was essential to show people that ASB was strong, stable, and independent, especially when many didn’t understand the separate corporate structures of the two entities.”

It was a time when regional bank failures on the mainland like that of Silicon Valley Bank had already shaken investor and customer confidence, so Teranishi and her team doubled down on communication.

“We were laser-focused on reassuring customers and employees that the business of the bank hadn’t changed,” she says. “We made it very clear we were not reliant on HEI for capital; we hadn’t received capital from them in 25 years. In fact, we’d been a dividend provider.”

That approach paid off. American Savings Bank held firm as a trusted community anchor, quietly doing what it has always done: serving customers with consistency and care.

“What got us through was staying close to people – talking one-on-one, emphasizing that we were steady. The human part of leadership mattered just as much as the financial side.”

Looking back, Teranishi sees how both Covid and the wildfires shaped her as a leader.

“As you talk to leaders over time, it’s like each additional hurdle you have to overcome becomes the thing that builds a resilient center. It’s never going to be easy, but it’s not so unfamiliar anymore.”

Following HEI’s sale of 90% of its stake in ASB to independent investors – retaining only a 9.9% non-controlling interest – the bank stands fully autonomous for the first time in decades. The transition was completed on Dec. 31, 2024, in time for the beginning of the bank’s 100th anniversary celebration in January.

“We were very, very focused on wanting it to close at the end of the year, so that we could start the new year of 2025 as a standalone independent company. That was super important to us as a bank because January 8 was our actual 100th birthday,” Teranishi says. “It felt incredible to be able to tell our team: This is how the chapter with HEI ends and this is how the next one begins. We’re starting our second century as a standalone, locally owned bank.”

A CONVERSATION WITH CONNIE LAU

Teranishi was a member of the 2018 cohort of the Hawaii Business Magazine’s 20 for the next 20. In 2019-20 she was an Omidyar Fellow. She is shown with others in the Omidyar cohort. From left, Lia Hunt, Meli James, Omidyar Fellows Director Bill Coy, Brandee Menino, Teranishi, and Rachel Solemsaas.

A pivotal moment in Teranishi’s career came while she was serving as VP and legal counsel at Central Pacific Bank, where she handled contract negotiations, litigation and corporate compliance from 2005 to 2007, including responsibilities under the Bank Secrecy Act and the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

“I was tasked with helping them with a very difficult regulatory situation,” she recalls. “And then, a year and a half into that, I was called by American Savings Bank to help them with a similar situation.”

It was demanding, high-stakes work that gave her a front-row seat to the intricacies of regulation and risk in Hawaiʻi’s banking world.

At that point, Teranishi was still at Central Pacific Bank when she was first approached by American Savings Bank. She declined the initial offer, explaining that she wanted to return to practicing law. But then Connie Lau came back to talk to her — and the conversation changed everything.

“I said, ‘Thank you so much, but no. I don’t think it’s the right fit. I’m actually going to go back to practicing law,'” she recalls.

Lau, then ASB’s CEO, heard about Teranishi’s decision and called her personally. “Before you really say no, can you tell me why you’re thinking about going back to law?” Lau asked.

Teranishi explained that while she respected compliance work, she worried about being pigeonholed. “I knew it would be really heavy lifting for two years,” she says. “I knew how to do it, but I wasn’t sure that’s what I wanted to do for the rest of my career. And I also said, if I do this a second time, then you’re the chief compliance officer and that’s the role you have for life.”

Lau, herself an attorney with an engineering degree and an MBA, offered a different view. “If that’s your concern,” she told Teranishi, “come help us build this program and you’ll have opportunities to move into other areas of the bank later.”

Teranishi accepted the challenge and joined ASB as Bank Secrecy Act officer and compliance manager, building the bank’s compliance function from the ground up. Not long after, leadership shifted: Lau moved to the parent company, Hawaiian Electric Industries, and Rich Wacker became ASB’s CEO. But Lau’s mentorship continues to shape Teranishi’s path.

ASB is a regular sponsor of the Hawaii Entrepreneur Awards, which is led by Meli James, shown here with Teranishi.

Lau saw something in Teranishi immediately. “She’s incredibly capable and humble. She didn’t think it should be her, but it was her. She’s one of those people who just has it: the intellect, the integrity, the steadiness. And the other thing is, she’s very respectful. She wants to be sure that she’s not bumping anybody else out.”

Her advice to Teranishi was simple but powerful: Trust the people who see your potential. “You’ve just got to believe that the people who are asking you to take these bigger jobs know what they’re doing,” Lau says. “We knew Ann could do it.”

Under Lau’s leadership, Teranishi expanded her expertise beyond her legal background, rotating through roles in compliance, consumer credit and customer experience – a new strategic initiative designed to embed a customer-first mindset across the organization.

“That’s what women and really, all people have to do,” Lau says. “You tell young people it’s limitless. You can do whatever you want to do if you work hard and stay open to learning.”

Only three women have held the title of CEO at Hawaiʻi’s major banks. Lau was the first: She became CEO of ASB in 2001, before moving on to lead Hawaiian Electric Industries in 2008, then retired in 2021.

Catherine Ngo served as CEO of Central Pacific Bank from 2015 to 2021. And Teranishi became president and CEO of ASB on May 7, 2021, succeeding Wacker, after she had been with the bank for 14 years.

Teranishi served as Grand Marshal for Chinatown 808’s year of the snake parade this year.

When asked what stood out most about Teranishi as a leader, Lau didn’t hesitate: calm.

“CEOs have to be calm,” she says. “I always thought of it as a pyramid – if the person at the top is anxious, that anxiety ripples all the way down. But if you’re steady, the whole organization stays steady. Ann has that inner calm. You can’t really mentor that. It’s something she brings from within.”

That calm comes from a sense of being self anchored in authenticity and community, Lau says. “In Hawaiian culture, we call it knowing your naʻau – your gut, your center. You bring your authentic self to work, you surround yourself with good people, and you lead with purpose.”

When the Covid pandemic and Maui wildfires tested institutions statewide, her centered leadership became Teranishi’s hallmark. “That’s why we chose her,” Lau says simply. “She has the character, the stamina, the integrity, the care for her community. Those things can’t be taught, but they’re what truly matter.”

From the start, Lau saw in Teranishi the makings of a future CEO. “I always knew she’d lead this bank one day. She’s exactly the kind of leader Hawaiʻi needs: grounded, humble and unflappable. American Savings Bank is an important institution for this community, so it needs to be led by someone who understands the community and is committed to the goodness of the community.”

Kylie Umebayashi’s parents were not happy when she told them she wanted to be a hairstylist.

In their minds, she’d been set up for a traditional college experience, leading to a stable government job. But in hers, a desk job was unappealing. She loved working with hair and knew she had the talent and drive to build a serious career in the beauty industry.

But the criticism was intense, complete with warnings that she would bring shame to the family. To appease them, she did everything, at full speed.

After graduating from Kaimuki Christian School, Umebayashi earned an associate degree in cosmetology at Honolulu Community College while training at Marsha Nadalin Salon in Kāhala, where she had worked since she was 15. She also got licensed as a cosmetologist.

She then jumped into business administration at UH Mānoa, packing her schedule with 18 hours of credits each semester, and 12 hours each summer, while continuing to work at the salon. The academic marathon ended with a bachelor’s degree in 2020.

“I wanted to be done with school,” she says. “I was motivated to never step foot in a classroom ever again.”

Kylie Umebayashi is an independent hairstylist at Oasis Salon in Kaimukī. Her associate degree in cosmetology has paid off more than her bachelor’s. | Photo: Jeff Sanner

Her instinct to pursue the trades and specialty skills is shared by many Gen Zers across the country, who are flocking to traditional apprenticeships and trade schools. In Hawai‘i, the trend is less pronounced, but the opportunities are immense. Employers in construction, manufacturing, health care, clean energy and other sectors are eager to hire skilled employees – and they earn higher salaries and carry less debt than many people with four-year degrees.

For Umebayashi, the financial payoff came quickly. At the salon, she worked early mornings to late nights on commission, breaking six figures in annual earnings. She put some of that money into a reduced-priced “workforce” unit at a new high-rise condo in Kaka‘ako, which she was offered in a housing lottery.

In January, at age 27, she became a self-employed stylist, renting space at Oasis Salon in Kaimukī. She says her current pace is less frenetic and better for her work-life balance, but she doesn’t let herself become satisfied or complacent.

“It’s not wise when you’re in your 20s to feel comfortable,” she says. “You should feel uncomfortable, you should take risks. … I thought I would be a millionaire at 25, so I feel like I’m behind. I’ve always had a fire under me.”

Umebayashi is paying off her mortgage as aggressively as possible. Even good debt troubles her, and she takes a very “full throttle, unconventional” approach to investing in hopes of being debt-free and financially secure. She also plans to open a salon of her own.

Despite her restlessness, she realizes she’s in a pretty good spot. She says she sees many of her peers burdened with student loans and struggling to find jobs, with no clear paths forward.

“Our education system makes it seem like college is this great promise to a good life and a good future, but often it can be the opposite,” she says. “You start behind other people who don’t take on debt.”

More money, less debt

From a career perspective, Umebayashi’s skepticism about the benefits of a traditional college experience is not off-base, particularly in Hawai‘i where four-year degrees lead to less income and opportunity than in any other state.

Five years after graduating, only 43% of four-year college graduates in Hawai‘i have jobs that typically require bachelor’s degrees – the lowest percentage in the U.S. – according to a 2024 report from the Strada Education Foundation. Maryland had the highest percentage, at 60%.

And jobs that pay a living wage are scarce. Matt Stevens, a data scientist and executive director of Hawai‘i Workforce Funders Collaborative, says: “We’re 50th in the nation as to how much you can expect to earn at every educational attainment level, adjusted for cost of living. And when you get to the four-year degree, it’s actually off-the-charts low. We’re a statistical outlier.”

The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations estimates, in uncannily precise terms, that 377,760 jobs will open in Hawai‘i between 2020 and 2030. But less than a third, or 120,290 job openings, are projected to pay at least a “living wage” of $56,841 for a single adult with no children, according to “From Crisis to Opportunity,” a report published in January by the Hawai‘i Workforce Funders Collaborative. The MIT living wage calculator recently upped that amount to $62,234.

The nonprofit collaborative calls attention to the problem of low-quality jobs and advocates for better jobs with better pay. In the process, it brings business, government, nonprofit and educational leaders together to figure out how to do that.

Community colleges in the UH system have responded with a dizzying array of short-term training and credentialing programs alongside core humanities classes and two-year degree programs. Many are new programs developed with input from employers.

“The fact is that a high school diploma is no longer enough. Students have to do something post-graduation, and there are so many options at the community colleges,” says Karen Lee, chancellor of Honolulu Community College. About 3,700 students are enrolled at HCC, which has seen its numbers steadily increase after dropping during the pandemic. That trend is similar across the UH System.

Many practical two-year associate degrees lead to trade careers, viewed broadly as skilled work requiring specialized training and often a license. People straight out of school or training programs can earn $100,000 or more – and live far more comfortable lives than a living wage provides, which would barely cover a decent one-bedroom rental, a compact car and fresh food.

The young pragmatists gravitating to the trades are sometimes called the toolbelt generation, and they’re looking for financial freedom, an escape from office life, and jobs that are less likely to be disrupted by technology and economic downturns.

Ramsey Agustin, above, and his cohort in the mechatronics program at Leeward Community College learn how to wire control panels.| Photo: Jeff Sanner

Mechatronics: demand exceeds supply

In a set of unassuming temporary buildings at Leeward Community College, students are wiring control boxes based on detailed schematics. Other rooms are filled with elaborate machines and tools for learning about sensors, robotics, control systems, computer-integrated machinery and other technology.

William Labby, an assistant professor at LCC, founded the mechatronics program to fill a specific workforce need – technicians to maintain Honolulu’s driverless trains – and it’s since blossomed into a two-year program, leading to an associate of science degree. He chafes at the “trades” label and explains that his students gain high-level math and troubleshooting skills that complement the design skills of engineers.

“Engineers and highly skilled technicians are two sides of the same coin,” he says. “Engineers are design oriented, while technicians deal with installation, maintenance, retooling, reprogramming and all the follow-on functions behind the engineering design.”

About half the mechatronics graduates are hired by Hitachi, which installs and maintains the operating system for Skyline’s trains. For the others, Labby says, companies are coming “out of the woodwork” to talk to his students, with many landing jobs at medical imaging companies, military contractors, Cirque du Soleil and the Ball Corp. in Kapolei. He says new hires at Ball, which makes 12-ounce cans, start out at about $85,000 a year, with lots of overtime opportunities.

“Automation is a growth industry in the state. We’re going to get more and more automated with all of our small food and beverage manufacturing companies,” says Labby. “Most companies would rather hire local, and now that word is getting out about this program, I’m getting more of a push for graduates. Demand exceeds my supply.”

While 22 students are enrolled in the program now, Labby says he has the capacity for 40. The obstacle is high school college counselors. “The message they convey is that if you don’t go to a four-year school, you fail, and that is not the case,” he says.

A fourth-semester student, Christian Smith, just landed a job with a military contractor, and negotiated to work part time until he graduates. Before joining the program, he was a helicopter mechanic with the military, and says he now has “a better, deeper understanding of how things work.”

Another student, Ramsey Agustin, graduated from Damien Memorial School in 2022 and spent his freshman year at Oregon State University studying mechanical engineering. Formidable out-of-state tuition and housing costs forced him to return home.

He’s now completing his final semester in the mechatronics program while also working at a machine shop in Pearl City, and he looks forward to getting a better-paid job soon and eventually finishing his bachelor’s degree.

Agustin finds the classes challenging but manageable. “I haven’t ever felt like we’re being lectured too much, which is helpful,” he says. “About 70% of the classes have been mostly hands-on, which is better for some people. I like it.”

Caitlin Fackender and Matthew Sun are second-year students in Kapi‘olani Community College’s popular radiologic technology program. | Photo courtesy: Kapi‘olani Community College

RadTech: a reverse pipeline

More than half of Kapi‘olani Community College’s students move on to four-year universities, says Misaki Takabayashi, the college’s chancellor. But some programs are so sought-after that the pipeline is reversed: people with bachelor’s degrees head to KCC for an additional associate degree.

The radiologic technology program is one of them. Two of the three students I spoke with already had degrees from UH Mānoa: Aura Coffman in animal science and Garrison Hiramatsu in elementary education. Neither felt that their choices suited them, and they were drawn to the prospect of a well-paid career with defined hours and tasks. A third student, Breanne Yang, says she always wanted to work in health care, but got sidetracked in restaurant jobs.

About 25% of applicants are accepted, with decisions based on an admissions test and grades from prerequisite courses taken in their first year. In the second year, selected students focus on how to safely image the human body using X-ray equipment and gain practical experience in health care settings.

Along with respiratory care, radiologic technology is the most popular program in the college’s health care division, and offers the highest pay. The entry-level hourly wage is $45 on O‘ahu, and a technologist with a couple of years’ experience earns about $92,000 annually, according to Program Director Kimberly Suwa. Very experienced or specialized technologists, such as those working in mammography or radiation therapy, earn about $112,000, she says.

When high schoolers tour the campus, those figures usually impress them. “They obviously understand that there is a large discrepancy between what you can make at McDonald’s versus what you can make as a technologist,” Suwa says. “But I don’t know if they fully understand the impact of being able to do a two-year degree as opposed to having to go to a four-year college.”

For one thing, the community colleges in the UH System charge $131 per credit hour for in-state students, or about $2,000 a semester for a full 15-hour course load. Tuition at UH Mānoa is $441 per credit, or about $6,600 per semester for a similar load.

Despite the lower cost, and access to scholarships and federal financial aid, more students than in the past seem to have outside jobs, says Jodi Ann Nakaoka, the chair of KCC’s health sciences department. She says the department cautions students to eliminate or minimize their work hours because the program is intense, but Hawai‘i’s high cost of living increasingly makes that impossible.

Instructors Mike Willett, right, and Brian Quinto lead the aeronautics maintenance technology program at Honolulu Community College’s airport location.| Photo: Jeff Sanner

AERO: training super mechanics

At the end of Lagoon Drive, a shoreline road snaking along the eastern edge of the Honolulu airport, young men and a handful of women are training to become airplane mechanics at Honolulu Community College’s aeronautics maintenance technology program.

Vintage and modern planes line the perimeter of the building, and engines and tools fill the interior workshops. All of the aircraft have been donated, including a small Cessna 172, a replica of an old crop duster, and a DC-9 with its engine removed but airframe intact.

Teams of students are taking engines apart and putting them back together, and learning how to diagnose and fix problems that the faculty have introduced. Much of the classroom instruction gets translated into projects, such as constructing a cross-section of a plane’s wing based on blueprints.

Instructor Brian Quinto drills the students on the importance of safety and attention to detail. “We’re often compared to auto mechanics. No denigration to them, but if something goes wrong with your car, you just pull over.” Signing off on repairs becomes a legal document, he explains to students, and planes aren’t cleared to take off until the mechanic says so.

Andy Tran, a second-year student in the program, says “there’s a big learning curve for the program. The more I learn, the harder it is to fix things.”

Students in the two-year AERO program learn to troubleshoot problems using a wide range of donated airplane engines.| Photo: Jeff Sanner

“Many of the new students are like deer in the headlights because it comes at you really fast, but we have a lot to teach in a relatively short amount of time,” explains Mike Willett, the lead instructor at the AERO program. It’s one of Honolulu Community College’s most popular offerings, with about 75 current students and more than a hundred on a growing waitlist.

Tran took a sheet-metal course at HCC during the year he waited for a spot to open up. He says he loves everything about aviation, but mechanical training is much cheaper and more accessible than flight school.

The schedule runs for seven hours, four days a week, and leads to an associate of science degree. At the end of the two-year program, the pass rate for first-time test takers seeking FAA certification exceeds the national average, says Willett.

Like the radiologic technology program at KCC, many of the students have outside jobs. Micah Holmberg, who used to repair motorcycles and manufacturing equipment, attends the full-time program, then works as a full-time aircraft mechanic helper nearby. At the end of his double shifts, he travels home to the North Shore.

Hawaiian Airlines regularly opens slots for its part-time paid apprenticeship program for AERO students, and a new scholarship program offers students financial assistance and mentorship. Both were developed to fill openings at Hawaiian caused by retirements. Willett says graduates are also hired by companies such as Hawaii Air Cargo, Swissport and United Airlines, and they leave the program with advanced mechanical skills they can take anywhere.

An apprenticeship changed his life

Drew Maberry works long hours as a journeyman millwright, a job that goes back to classical antiquity when skilled carpenters designed and built water mills. Today, millwrights install, maintain, repair and reassemble machinery used in factories, power plants and construction sites.

On the day we spoke, Maberry had just returned from Par Hawaii, where he was welding large platforms on top of the existing plant in Kapolei. His employer, APB, short for American Piping & Boiler Co., has been contracted by Par to upgrade the facility.

Drew Maberry logged 8,000 hours as an apprentice before earning the title of journeyman millwright. Many of those hours were at AES when it was a coal-burning plant, shown here. Photo courtesy: Drew Maberry

He sets the scene of his jobsite: “I’m wearing fire-resistant clothes and a head sock and gloves. I’m basically covered head to toe, with a hard hat that I change into welding headgear. And I’m two stories high,” welding in the blistering sun of Kapolei.

While the job is strenuous, the pay is good, at $55 an hour, and the benefits are great. With overtime, Maberry’s weekly check is more than he ever imagined he could make when he left high school in Missouri, feeling “lost” and stuck in low-wage retail jobs.

In his mid-20s, Maberry moved to Waimānalo, where his father had relocated. He worked in restaurants for a while, then decided he needed a “career job” so he could live on his own.

After passing math and physical tests, he got a traditional carpentry apprenticeship with the Hawaii Carpenters Apprenticeship & Training Fund, then switched to the union’s millwright apprenticeship when it opened for the first time in 2020.

The past decade has seen a sharp increase in active registered apprenticeships nationwide, from 359,388 in 2015 to over 696,205 in 2025, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor. Hawai‘i’s trend line is less robust, with a steep decline in apprenticeships in 2022, though those numbers have inched up in the past couple of years. In 2025, there are 6,094 active apprenticeships in the state, of which about 85% are in construction, 11% in manufacturing and the rest in a smattering of other industries.

Maberry recently completed his apprenticeship’s required 8,000 hours of work and weekly classes, which earned him the official title of journeyman millwright.

Some of his apprenticeship jobs were challenging, he says, including 12-hour days at AES when it was still a coal-fired power plant, with no days off. “I probably have black lung from welding in tight spaces at AES and shoveling dust, or whatever it was,” he says with a laugh.

And he’s worked with plenty of old-school “tough-love” guys, but says that he’s “fortunate that my boss at APB is so understanding and good at dealing with different personalities, which is important because it can be such long hours and grueling work.”

Despite the job’s ups and downs, Maberry says he’s finally financially comfortable and able to provide for his 5-year-old son. And he feels optimistic about the future: “I think about how far I’ve come and I just want to keep learning and building.”

Alternate on-the-job training routes

Beyond Hawai‘i’s dozens of skilled apprenticeships (see the list at tinyurl.com/hiapprentice) spanning from bricklayers to elevator constructors, some large private companies offer their own paid training programs.

Hawaiian Electric’s apprenticeship program, for example, trains people to be linemen, electricians, maintenance mechanics, and maintenance or substation electricians. The program pairs apprentices with experienced journeymen, and supplements on-the-job training with classroom or online instruction. Apprentices are hired based on written and physical tests.

About 250 employees on O‘ahu and in Maui County have completed the program since 2009, and 22 on Hawai‘i Island since 2017, according to Communications Manager Darren Pai. “Establishing our own training programs allows us to address skilled labor shortages, such as linemen, and maintain high safety standards,” he explains in an email.

The more than century-old Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard apprenticeship is the most popular program at Honolulu Community College; it provides the academic component for an associate of applied science degree upon completion.

Other apprenticeships are more informal. The 29-year-old who repaired my refrigerator says he discovered the trade circuitously. He studied environmental science at the University of Montana, then returned home to Hawai‘i Island and started a landscaping business.

After a few years, he decided to do something “less strenuous and more analytical” and mentored with a seasoned HVAC and appliance repair professional on Hawai‘i Island. Eventually, he branched out on his own in Honolulu, where he says the job is “humbling and stressful sometimes, but the fun is in learning new things and diagnosing problems.”

Reaching the other 50%

While apprenticeships and associate degrees are established routes to good jobs, Hawai‘i’s community colleges also offer short-term vocational training. The programs fill a training gap in the Islands since most private vocational schools only teach massage therapy, according to the state Department of Education’s list of licensed schools. And in June, the two Job Corps training centers on O‘ahu and Maui were terminated by the U.S. Department of Labor, along with 97 others across the country.

Short-term training lets participants sample careers, build foundational skills or upskill into better-paying jobs in a variety of areas. For example:

• LCC offers commercial driver courses, as does the Hawaiian Council through its Hawaiian Trades Academy.

• KCC recently contracted with the Kahala Hotel & Resort to develop training for employees who want to advance into midlevel leadership roles.

• HCC launched a summer program that brings high schoolers to campus to try out three career and technical education options.

• The Building Industry Association of Hawai‘i offers free pre-apprenticeship training that covers math, blueprint reading and the fundamentals of the trade.

• UH Maui College and Hawaiian Electric created a free training program that can lead to jobs at power-generating stations.

• High schools across the Islands have introduced career and technical education that helps students gain real-world skills and work experience.

The UH community colleges’ Good Jobs Hawai‘i initiative helps coordinate and fund many of these programs, using $35 million in federal Covid-recovery grants and private philanthropy. Program Manager Nicolette van der Lee says that grant funding runs out next year, but the state Legislature will continue to fund free, noncredit courses for those seeking careers as commercial drivers, nursing aides, information technologists and other high-demand positions.

The Good Jobs program targets the nearly 50% of residents who forgo college and other formal training.

“We’ve been seeking to connect with them and show that you don’t have to have a job in the hotel industry working as a server, or some other entry-level job that doesn’t have a pathway to a living wage,” says Van der Lee.

Early results are promising

A preliminary study shows that short-term training has a positive impact. Hawai‘i residents who completed Good Jobs training were making, on average, about 12% more six months after completing the program, according to a July 7 blog post on the UH Economic Research Organization’s website.

Among those employed before the program, 38% ended up moving to a different industry, where they saw even higher income gains. The biggest gains were for people switching to the health care industry, which the report says saw “average quarterly wage increases approaching $4,000,” or about $16,000 annually.

Younger participants just entering the workplace found jobs in industries “with stronger wage potential, often linked to their training,” according to the blog post.

Van der Lee says the Good Jobs initiative is part of a thriving workforce development ecosystem in Hawai‘i, spearheaded by the state Workforce Development Council. “We want to change the narrative that says you have to leave Hawai‘i for more education and opportunity,” says Van der Lee. “We’re trying to create the education and training infrastructure here, and also the employment opportunities individuals need to get the good jobs so they can stay.”

A troubled economy

Anna Pacheco, president and CEO at AE Consulting, has spent more than a decade researching education and workforce challenges, and consulting with local organizations. She sees unprecedented opportunities now in trade careers, driven by a wave of retirements.

“It has really put us into a talent crunch,” she says. “We’ve got this huge gap with the more senior folks leaving positions and the younger generation not entering them at the speed we need to fill those gaps. And the problem is becoming more and more profound.”

Like Labby from LCC, she says the predominant message that young people hear is to go to college, get a four-year degree and land a professional job.

“The reality is that our economy relies heavily on those trades positions,” Pacheco says. “I think we’re at an inflection point where we need to get students into those careers because if we don’t, we’re not going to reach our clean energy goals or our housing goals.”

While the prospects are promising for people with practical skills in the trades, the picture for recent four-year college graduates is blurrier. The current hiring slowdown, with new jobs only trickling into the U.S. economy, can hit recent graduates the hardest.

Students who majored in computer science, for instance – once seen as a sure bet, complete with snarky “learn to code” comments to English majors – are now the ones who are often bemoaning their job prospects. Today, 6.1% of recent graduates in computer science and 7.5% of computer engineering majors are unemployed – some of the highest rates of all college majors, according to recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Popular majors such as environmental studies now have higher underemployment rates than art history majors, with 49% working in jobs that don’t require a bachelor’s degree. Even new graduates in journalism have significantly less underemployment, at 36%.

In Hawai‘i, UHERO economists see the state slipping into a mild recession in 2026, the result of federal layoffs and less consumer spending and tourism due to tariffs and inflation. Only construction remains resilient, according to UHERO’s September 2025 forecast.

While higher education is always valuable, and often the pathway to a prosperous, fulfilling life, that path can be long, winding and expensive. Quicker, more direct routes are launching many of Hawai‘i’s young adults into rewarding careers, and with fewer financial risks – a big advantage in uncertain times.

First Hawaiian Bank has been the state’s top corporate donor in all but three of the last 13 years, contributing more than $70 million to charities across Hawai‘i since 2011.

That’s an impressive and consistent record, cherished by the state’s philanthropic community. Reliable corporate giving is the category most celebrated by those who rush to the aid of victims, including groups that helped out after four major disasters in the state over the last seven years.

Not only has First Hawaiian Bank been a perennial top gift-giver for more than a decade, it also shines in another area: money raised by employees, separate from corporate giving. Although the bank’s total corporate contributions in 2024 totaled $5.7 million – second only to Matson’s $7.6 million – the bank’s employees donated another $873,987 of their own cash.

First Hawaiian’s 2,019 employees also volunteered 11,211 hours of their time for charitable work.

The bank staff’s level of community concern and involvement is a point of pride for Bob Harrison, chairman, president and CEO of First Hawaiian Bank, even though the employee fundraising group operates outside of his chain of command.

The employee-run giving program, he says, “just goes miles above everyone else in that category. Others maybe have higher overall in-kind and other kinds of cash donations, but that really does stand out.

“And that’s why when you ask about the culture here about giving, it’s really important. What’s another cool thing is we make it available to our retirees as well, and a number of them continue to give even after they retire.”

Although the employee-led program operates separately from the corporate side, the company offers paycheck withdrawals for those who take part. Employees select a leadership group and choose which charities receive the funds. Last year, employees sent money to about 30 different charities.

The employee group, called Kōkua Mai, is currently led by Kayla Smith, the bank’s marketing programs officer, who has been involved with the program for more than two years.

“We host [an annual kickoff rally] at the start of the campaign so employees can meet nonprofit leaders face to face, hear their stories, and see firsthand where donations are going,” she says. “That connection makes a big difference in how people choose to give as well as how much.

“Branches and departments enjoy creating fundraisers like shave ice and Molokaʻi Bread sales, Zippy’s tickets, book swaps, and even white elephant sales. It has become a fun competition and a shared way for all of us to support our community.”

98-99% PARTICIPATION

Bob Harrison, First Hawaiian Bank

In a recent video interview with Hawaii Business, Harrison was joined by a group of executives spread across six time zones. On the monitor, he bears a slight resemblance to Bing Crosby, displaying a relaxed affability and smooth confidence – a style that can sway board members but can also make envious competitors wish he was on their team.

When Harrison suggests to his executives that charitable giving should be at the heart of what the company does, you can envision Crosby’s character in the classic film “White Christmas” rallying the troops for a surprise tribute to their former general. Everyone gladly pitches in.

“You know, there might be a little bit of arm-twisting here and there,” Harrison says with a wry smile about the employee program. “I’m not going to say that never happens, but there’s no way you can get 98-99% of the people consistently giving, year after year” without genuine commitment by employees.

“So, I think that’s pretty incredible,” he adds. “I’ve never heard of anybody at that level of giving before as an organization. Some of these are tellers making $18 to $20 an hour. That’s not a lot, especially in Hawaiʻi, given all the costs and everything,” yet they still give.

PART OF OUR JOB

First Hawaiian Bank employees organize their own fundraising events in addition to corporate giving, and more than 98% of the bank’s staff contribute.

Cameron Nekota, executive vice president at the bank and president of the First Hawaiian Bank Foundation, said the culture of community giving helps make the bank an attractive place to work.

“Part of the reason that I wanted to join the organization was because I felt like it was an organization that cared about Hawaiʻi, its people and its employees,” he says.

He relayed an example of the bank’s philanthropy – supporting a creative plan to address one element of the homeless problem in the state by encouraging self-sustainability.

“We were the first corporate giver to Puʻuhonua o Waiʻanae, which is the homeless encampment at Waiʻanae boat harbor, to move them into land that they had purchased,” Nekota says. “We were the lead $250,000 gift contribution to that effort.”

In 2020, some 200 people who live in makeshift shelters next to Waiʻanae Small Boat Harbor and their supporters raised $1.4 million – enough to buy 20 acres in Waiʻanae Valley – where they are building small, permanent homes. As homes are completed, residents move from the encampment to the houses.

“It was really outside of our natural wheelhouse,” Nekota says. “But again, thinking back to what is our job here – it’s to help impact community. … As an organization, to take a risk on them was something that we debated a lot. At the end of the day, we all came to the conclusion that we want to help move in ways that maybe we haven’t thought of before.”

SHIFT IN STRATEGY

First Hawaiian Bank (Top Corporate Donor #2) was first in employee volunteerism with 11,211 of volunnteer hours during work time or company-sponsored events and $873,987 in employee donations.

The shape of that potential impact took a sharp turn at the start of the year following widespread cuts at the federal level – from grants and aid, to staffing and even the elimination of whole government programs during the first months of the Trump administration.

“It looks like the cuts the federal government is doing are going to be way more than supporters of the traditional nonprofit community are going to be able to [replace],” says Harrison.

He credits Gov. Josh Green and the state Legislature for stepping in to support a $50 million supplement to nonprofit charities.

“We’re going to see where the cracks open up, see what they can fill, and whatever doesn’t work out with their criteria, see how we can support those areas that didn’t get help from those efforts,” Harrison says.

Nekota notes that the bank’s foundation has already seen a record number of requests from nonprofits asking for philanthropic support this year.

“We’re seeing tremendous need based on some of the cuts,” Nekota says. “What the bank is doing directly outside of the foundation, it’s going to be way more than we’ve done in recent memory.”

Last year was like an oasis of calm for Hawai‘i’s economy. The ravages of the pandemic had faded and the economy grew. The destruction on Maui in 2023, which reverberated across the state, had turned into a building boom. And tariffs, funding cuts and deportations weren’t upturning business plans.

About 5,500 jobs were added in 2024, unemployment was at 2.9% and the number of visitors to the Islands had inched up to about 93% of pre-pandemic levels, according to a March 5 report from the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism.

As measured by real gross domestic product, Hawai‘i’s economy finally exceeded pre-pandemic levels in 2024, by 1.5%, according to DBEDT.

These economic trends are reflected in the new Top 250 list, which reports 2024 gross revenue for many of Hawai‘i’s largest and most influential companies and nonprofits. The list serves as a bellwether of every important sector of the local economy and tracks the ups and downs of individual organizations.

Companies and nonprofits on the Top 250 list reported nearly 13% more revenue, on average, in 2024 than the previous year, based on self-reported and publicly available data. The nonprofit sector was up 44% on average, and construction and development companies were up 14%. Organizations in finance, health care, transportation, insurance and education saw average revenue increases of 7% to 13%.

Gross revenue in the real estate and retail and wholesale sectors increased more modestly, at about 2%, while tourism slipped by nearly 2%. Energy companies on the list saw the biggest slide, down 12% in 2024 on average from the previous year, in part because of falling fuel prices.

While 70% of Top 250 companies and nonprofits reported gains in 2024, economists are concerned about the current year. The UH Economic Research Organization downgraded projections for 2025 in a May 9 update:

“Hawai‘i’s economic outlook has taken a decisive turn for the worse, as expansive federal policy shifts look poised to tip the local economy into a mild recession. Sharp increases in U.S. import tariffs, sweeping federal layoffs, and volatile fiscal and immigration policies are undermining consumer confidence, raising inflation expectations and worsening the business outlook – both nationally and in Hawai‘i’s visitor-dependent economy.”

Goodfellow Bros.’ gross revenue increased 49% in 2024 in large part because of government infrastructure projects, including preparing a 57-acre site for the Ka La‘i Ola housing development in Lahaina | Photo courtesy: Goodfellow Bros.

How the state’s biggest organizations fared

Among the 10 largest organizations on this year’s list, health insurance giant HMSA, with nearly 800,000 members and $4.35 billion in gross revenue, ranked first – a position it’s held nearly every year over the past decade.

Health care insurers and providers on the list posted healthy gains in 2024, including HMSA at 5.2%. The health insurer traditionally spends most of the revenue it receives, and in its 2023 financial statement – the most recent one available – net income was just 0.2% of gross revenue.

Looking forward, health care providers such as Kaiser Permanente (No. 7), The Queen’s Health Systems (No. 9) and Hawai‘i Pacific Health (No. 10) could be affected by the domestic policy bill passed by Congress that calls for deep cuts to the federally funded Medicaid program.

About 21% of Hawai‘i residents are enrolled in Medicaid, and cuts would hurt beneficiaries as well as strain state spending, health care and nursing facilities, and clinicians, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Servco jumped to the No. 2 spot on the Top 250, posting $3.86 billion in gross revenue in 2024 – a 20% increase from the previous year. According to an email from Servco executives, the growth comes from acquiring car dealerships in Hawai‘i and Australia: Big Island Toyota, with dealerships in Hilo and Kona, and the Motorama Dealership Group, with 18 locations across the state of Queensland.

In third position is Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, which for the first time reported combined income for its Hawai‘i-based operations: more than $3.8 billion in 2024. Alaska Air Group Inc. completed its acquisition of Hawaiian Holdings Inc. on Sept. 18, 2024.

But a slowdown in international travel is expected to impact all the airlines serving Hawai‘i. A DBEDT report from May 28 says the total number of air seats to Hawai‘i will likely drop by 0.5% in 2025, based on airline flight schedules.

In contrast to the higher Alaska-Hawaiian revenue in 2024, Hawaiian Electric Industries (No. 6) sold 90.1% of its ownership interest in American Savings Bank at the end of last year. The company excluded ASB’s revenue when reporting 2024 data for the Top 250 list, which shows gross revenue down 12.6% from the previous year, at $3.2 billion.

Scott Seu, president and CEO of HEI, announced on Dec. 31, 2024, that the sale allows the company “to use the proceeds to reduce holding company debt, increasing flexibility for how HEI funds the HEI and Hawaiian Electric wildfire settlement contributions and key utility initiatives.”

In February of this year, the company agreed to pay about half of a $4 billion settlement to compensate victims of the 2023 Maui wildfires. In the profit/loss section of the Top 250 survey, HEI reported a nearly $1.43 billion net loss in 2024.

Matson (No. 5) had a strong year, with more than $3.4 billion in gross revenue in 2024, up 10.6% from the previous year. The main factor driving growth was its shipping lines between China and Long Beach, Calif., which saw a small increase in volume and a more significant increase in freight rates, according to the company’s fourth-quarter conference call with investors.

Rates were hiked globally last year after Yemen-based Houthis launched attacks on ships in the Red Sea, which disrupted the critical international trade route and caused delays and congestion, longer alternate routes and higher insurance costs.

In late February of this year, Matson released upbeat statements about the company’s 2024 results and projections for the current year. But those projections changed on May 5 when it posted its first-quarter results for 2025, about a month after the Trump administration imposed “reciprocal tariffs” on trading partners:

“Currently, there is significant uncertainty regarding tariffs and global trade, regulatory measures, the trajectory of the U.S. economy and other geopolitical factors. Since the tariffs were implemented in April, the company’s container volume has declined approximately 30% year over year,” wrote Chairman and CEO Matt Cox.

As of May 14, average U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports were 51%, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, after spiking to 145% on April 9.

In a final note about the top 10 organizations on this year’s list, the University of Hawai‘i System (No. 8) reported $2.2 billion in gross revenue in 2024, up 8.4% from the year before. But the flagship research campus at UH Mānoa, in particular, is now dealing with federal funding cuts, many targeting scientific research.

In a May 22 statement, UH President Wendy Hensel said that 69 federally funded grants had been terminated, representing about $83.4 million in funding and impacting more than 90 employees. Other grants received stop-work orders or drawdowns.

“As expected, the number and scale of terminations is accelerating and will undoubtedly take a significant toll on the university,” the statement said.

Construction remains a bright spot

Even in the depths of the pandemic, Hawai‘i’s busy construction companies were a lifeline in a flagging economy. The industry continues to be strong, with expectations for growth in 2025.

On this year’s Top 250 list, gross revenue among construction and development companies was up 14% on average in 2024. The number of payroll jobs in construction increased 9.2% in 2024 compared to 2023, according to estimates by DBEDT.

UHERO’s May 9 report says that public infrastructure projects and rebuilding on Maui have contributed to the industry’s growth, which can be seen on the Top 250 list.

Hensel Phelps (No. 20), for example, reported a 47% increase in gross revenue last year over the previous year, to about $560 million. In a note to Hawaii Business Magazine, the company says it expanded into education and health care construction, including major projects with Kaiser Permanente, UH Mānoa and the state Department of Education.

Maui-based construction company Goodfellow Bros. (No. 25) also saw huge growth in 2024, with gross revenue rising 49% to $452 million. Hawai‘i Division President Edward Brown says government contracts made up about 60% of the company’s business last year.

Among its projects, the company worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clear the Lahaina burn zone last year. It also worked with the state on infrastructure for the Ka La‘i Ola housing development, including building a massive water tank, blasting rocks and grading the site, and installing transmission lines.

It was a major undertaking – “a seven-day-a-week, 10-hour-days, fast-track project,” he says. The first occupants received keys to their temporary homes a year after much of Lahaina was destroyed.

And Goodfellow Bros. has been inundated with military projects, says Brown, including updates to water and sewer lines at housing complexes, as well as work on a “massive facility” to repair submarines on O‘ahu and a major Space Force facility on Maui.

“You’re going to see a huge influx of money coming in from the military in the next few years,” he says.

On Moloka‘i, the company is creating residential lots for the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. And on Lāna‘i, it’s working with Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who owns 98% of the island, on updates to his vast estate, as well as community improvements such as roads, water lines, a health center and amphitheater.

Brown says tariffs haven’t affected Goodfellow Bros.’ business yet, and the immediate future looks promising. But some challenges persist: “It still takes a lot to get things going in Hawai‘i. Permits take a long time, entitlements take a long time. People who are successful here are the ones who are patient.”

DBEDT forecasts that construction will be strong in coming years. It says the number of residential housing units authorized in 2024 increased by 78% from 2023, and more than 1,000 hotel units were under construction or expected to start construction soon.

But a UHERO forecast sees tariffs on imported materials plus labor constraints weighing on future activity, with construction employment starting to recede by 2027.

Maui recovery lifts CNHA and other nonprofits

Some of the largest nonprofits on this year’s Top 250 list are also actively involved in Maui recovery efforts.

The state’s biggest nonprofit, the Hawai‘i Community Foundation (No. 76), raised more than $114 million in 2024 and awarded $92 million through its Maui Strong Fund to organizations working in housing, health and social services, and other initiatives.

But its overall revenue in 2024 was less than half of what it was in 2023, when a surge of donations poured in from around the world after the Aug. 8 wildfires.

Other nonprofits involved in the recovery saw dramatic growth in 2024, including the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (No. 96), the Maui Food Bank (No. 102) and Maui Economic Opportunity (No. 130).

CNHA’s revenue jumped 91% in 2024, to nearly $86 million, putting it third among charitable nonprofits after HCF and the UH Foundation. The organization has diversified its operations and uses a “fee for hire” model instead of billing for services at completion, says CEO Kūhiō Lewis.

He says the increase in revenue is directly related to its expansion on Maui, which includes opening in-person resource centers and temporary housing units and helping people with rental assistance, building permits and legal advice.

“When there’s a need, we jump at it and make it happen, and people want to support that work. The work comes to us,” says Lewis.

In recent years, the organization has moved into tourism management with large contracts from the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority, expanded loan programs that it oversees as a federally funded community development financial institution, and increased offerings at its Hawaiian Trades Academy.

“We’re creating an ecosystem,” says Lewis. “We have a loan fund that supports business development. We have workforce development, which supports construction-related projects that we’re working on. All of the different tentacles support our growth.”

Another growth area is the organization’s asset portfolio, which now includes apartment buildings and landholdings, says Lewis. In 2024, for example, CNHA acquired 44 acres in the Kaumana neighborhood in Hilo, where it plans to develop workforce housing.

Lewis says he and his organization try “to fill the voids” in Hawai‘i and develop programs based on their lived experiences, including the difficulties of trying to support a family or buy a home – hardships that Lewis faced himself as a young single father.

“I like to challenge the status quo, to refine the way of doing things,” says Lewis. “I’ve seen how things don’t work, so we’re doing things differently.”

As for the future, he says, the organization has spent the post-pandemic years becoming more self-sufficient through private- and public-sector contracts and revenue-generating operations. “We might lose $1 million or $2 million in 2025, but we have lots of other legs to stand on.”

The complete Top 250 rankings are only in the August print issue of Hawaii Business Magazine.

Order your copy here.

PART I: HOW EMPLOYERS DRIVE WOMEN AWAY

The “problem employee” label has followed Claire from office to office, year after year.

She got that reputation when she threw away an old collection of adult videos from a public space at her agency. The material was clearly inappropriate for a professional workplace, but no one had ever objected before, she says. And her colleagues, all men, were angry about it.

Friendly rapport turned to icy silence. Claire says she had navigated the rough-and-tumble of the workplace with a quick laugh and an occasional well-placed verbal jab, but this situation was new.

“I became public enemy number one. This was the start of me speaking out, and then getting just absolutely crushed for it,” Claire says. She asked that her real name not be used for fear of further retaliation.

“My hairstylist said my hair had started falling out,” she recalls. “It’s like one of those things where you see stuff and maybe it’s not a big deal early on, but over time, whether it’s people not taking you seriously, or not listening to you, or getting dismissed, it’s like death by a thousand paper cuts.”

Just as the stress of being ostracized began taking a toll, she was promoted into a new position and arrived at the job in the exurbs of Honolulu, hoping for a fresh start.

But news of what she’d done had traveled throughout the organization, and the response was mostly harsh: she wasn’t a team player, she wasn’t like them, she didn’t belong. And they’d keep making her feel it.

Claire eventually hit her breaking point and transferred into a completely new role with the agency.

“Quiet Firing”

Claire is now a mother navigating solo parenting. Recently, out of the blue, the agency’s leadership team informed her that she needed to take on extra shifts, including in the dead of night.

“They’re well aware of my situation. They know there’s no one at home to watch my child,” says Claire. “It’s unreasonable. It’s almost like quiet firing.”

She pushed back. “I said, you guys talk about family first, but what do you act like? What you’re asking of me is cruel.” While friends have volunteered to stay at her house when she’s called out at night, the arrangement is unsustainable, she says.

Claire sees a therapist and a naturopath to deal with the years of chronic stress, and she’s trying to get another position that doesn’t demand overnight work. She regularly contemplates leaving the agency, but giving up the generous retirement benefits feels like a bad financial move, particularly with years of parenting ahead.

“People have asked me if I’m going to stay, because it’s been so toxic for so long. But as a single mom, you’re not really free to leave because you’re walking away from your financial security.” She says she may leave anyway.

Unequal, and Often Unfair

Claire’s work life has become an endurance test of impossible demands and a profound lack of care and respect from her colleagues. As one of just a handful of women in a large department, her treatment feels targeted and linked to her gender.

“There’s no doubt we have systemic sex discrimination in Hawaiʻi,” says Elizabeth Jubin Fujiwara, a senior partner at the Honolulu law firm Fujiwara and Rosenbaum. “It’s a matter of degree and how dangerous your job is as far as physical safety, and just emotional safety too. How much can you take before you quit, or before you get fired, because you can’t function anymore?”

Her description of gender-based discrimination matches what Claire has experienced: “Say you stay on the job and start suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. You’re not sleeping. You’re suffering every time something reminds you of what happened. And then you go home to your family and function there when you’ve been treated like hell all day. It’s a nightmare.”

In her decades litigating civil rights and discrimination cases, Fujiwara has seen clients dealing with bias, lower pay, inadequate maternity leaves, sexual harassment, rigid work schedules and a lack of affordable childcare. Some of the issues are grounds for lawsuits, and others just everyday hassles and heartaches.

Employment conditions, in fact, are driving women out of the workplace. From January to June 2025, the national labor participation rate among women ages 25 to 44 with a child under 5 dropped from 69.7% to 66.9%, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures released on Aug. 1 and reported in a Time magazine article.

Much of that drop was attributed to return-to-office policies and the loss of flexibility that the Covid era gave to many workers. The loss hit mothers particularly hard.

Men earn significantly more than women in Hawai‘i, at every level of education. The average lifetime earnings of a woman with a master’s degree still fall below a man with some college experience but no degree. Listed amounts are average lifetime earnings, in 2022 dollars. Source: UH Economic Research Organization, “The Gender Pay Gap in Hawai‘i” by Rachel Inafuku, March 12, 2024.

The Motherhood Penalty

In Hawaiʻi, data about working women, including mothers, is similarly concerning. From 2015 to 2022, the average male in Hawaiʻi out-earned the average female by 50%, according to American Community Survey data reported in a UH Economic Research Organization blog post in March 2024. Nationally, the gap is even larger, at 69%.

That same UHERO post showed that women in Hawaiʻi needed at least a master’s degree to match the lifetime earnings of a man with some college experience but no degree. The largest gap in pay happens at the highest levels, with women working as chief executives, financial managers and pharmacists earning significantly less than men.

And getting to those top roles remains difficult. While women make up 47% of the state’s workforce, only 63 women occupied the top-most executive position in Hawaii Business Magazine’s latest Top 250 list of the state’s largest organizations. That’s about 25% of all chief executives on the list. When looking at the list’s 100 largest companies – those reporting gross annual revenue of $81.6 million and up – just 9 women occupied the most senior position. That, of course, is just 9% of those elite chief executives.

According to the UHERO post, the wage gap between Hawaiʻi men and women starts in their mid-to-late 20s, at which point men’s income grows much more quickly than women’s and continues over the course of their careers. The divergence happens at the same time that women begin having children – 27 is the average age of a first birth in Hawaiʻi – and accumulates as a lifelong hit to their financial well-being, nicknamed the motherhood penalty.

In Hawaiʻi, the median annual earnings for working mothers with full-time jobs is about $56,000 a year. For fathers with full-time jobs, that number is $72,000, according to a May 2025 report from the national Institute for Women’s Policy Research. About 66% of mothers with children under 18 worked full time, year-round, in Hawaiʻi, as opposed to 82% of men, according to that same report.

The motherhood penalty can start as soon as a baby is born, given that only 32% of working people in Hawaiʻi said their employer offers paid family and medical leave, according to a 2024 survey commissioned by the Hawaiʻi Children’s Action Network. In the 2025 legislative session, a bill to enact a statewide paid family-leave program died, as have similar bills repeatedly over the past decade.

HCAN’s survey also found that 63% of Hawaiʻi residents have taken time off to care for a newborn or sick family member, or because of a serious illness or injury. Of those, 30% took unpaid leave, or quit their jobs altogether.

Beyond pay and policies, sexual harassment remains a problem in Hawaiʻi workplaces. According to an article on Fujiwara and Rosenbaum’s website, more than 60 sexual harassment complaints are investigated each year by the state Civil Rights Commission and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but that number is considered just a small fraction of actual cases, most of which go unreported.

A Culture of Silence

Soon after she stepped down as director of the state Department of Human Services in 2016, Rachael Wong filed a sexual harassment complaint against then-Hawaiʻi House Speaker Joseph Souki. The Hawaiʻi State Ethics Commission, after hearing complaints from Wong and other women, called for his resignation.

While Wong went public about her experience, none of the others who filed complaints did. And they still haven’t.

“I thought my job was to keep the door open, to pave the way so that others could come forward. And nobody has,” Wong said in a recent interview. “It really, really surprised me. I’m fifth generation here, and I hadn’t realized the extent and depth of the culture of silence. Don’t stick your head out. No make waves.”

She co-founded the organization Safe Places & Workplaces to shine a light on the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and to advocate for safer, more respectful workplaces.

A survey about sexual harassment in Hawaiʻi that her organization conducted in 2019 found that 52.2% of women and 42.4% of men said they experienced sexual harassment at work. But only 18% told an HR representative, and just 9% filed an official complaint.

In addition to cultural norms about sticking out, attorney Fujiwara attributes some of the fear to Hawaiʻi’s anemic labor market. The high cost of living means nearly everyone needs to work, yet there’s not an abundance of jobs. Many women, worried about losing their jobs, will say nothing.

Even heavily protected state workers are afraid to speak up, she says. “You can’t get more protection than the state Constitution, and union and civil service protection, but they are still afraid. They need the job.”

Strong Laws, Troubling Realities

Fujiwara grew up in New Orleans, at a time when it resembled “an apartheid state” for Black people and women had few opportunities. She rebelled and left for Hawaiʻi, where she earned a master’s degree in social work from UH Mānoa and a law degree from the William S. Richardson School of Law.

In 1986, she founded her own practice focused on civil rights and employment law and has since helped push forward some of the nation’s strongest laws protecting women, and workers in general.

For example, jurors in Hawaiʻi are asked to use a “reasonable woman” standard, rather than a “reasonable person” or “reasonable man” standard, when evaluating sex discrimination, sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination cases. That shift in focus means that deciding whether or not touching is harassment depends on a woman’s perspective, she explains.

Legal language around equal pay was recently strengthened to better ensure Hawaiʻi women are fairly compensated, says Fujiwara, and a law preventing employers from asking about salary histories was passed to prevent lowballing women and other job-seekers.

In June, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruled in favor of a city worker who had asked for a new boss because her current one was discriminating against her based on gender and disability. She claimed her employer then retaliated against her with a demotion. The court found her request for a new boss was a reasonable accommodation that should have been honored.

But what the law says and what a person experiences can be very different things. Fujiwara sees rampant problems, particularly in lower-paid service and hospitality roles.

Hawaiʻi’s tourism economy, for instance, “is based on the sexualization of women,” she says, with the expectation that “they’re supposed to be smiling all the time at the customers, even if they’re sexually harassing them.”

Employers routinely fail to protect employees from hotel guests, she says, despite a legal requirement to address this kind of “third-party harassment.” Additionally, Fujiwara says that in cases where the harasser is a male coworker, the unions often protect the men.

But most women never get anywhere near a courthouse. They’re often afraid to even speak with a supervisor or file an internal complaint for fear of retaliation, which can take frightening dimensions.

Fujiwara has seen women working in commercial kitchens who were threatened with knives. In an extreme example from decades ago, one of her clients, an apprentice in a union job, was almost thrown off a rooftop by male coworkers who didn’t want her working there.

Other clients couldn’t find another job. “They have literally had to move to the mainland because they feel like they’ve been blackballed,” she says.

More often, retaliation plays out in slights, taunts and the slow poisoning of a person’s work and life. “Even if she isn’t fired,” says Fujiwara, “her employer and her co-workers know how to make her life miserable.”

“Pure Punishment”

When Naomi looks back on the difficult year of 2022, she says she wishes she had never filed a sexual harassment complaint. The blowback in her small office at the state Department of Defense left her isolated for months, growing increasingly depressed, with only “menial tasks” assigned to her.

“I definitely got to the point where I just was so miserable every day. I hated everything about being alive and having to go into work,” says Naomi, who asked that her real name be withheld for privacy reasons.

“You can’t escape thinking about how you got there, with you being alone in an office all this time,” she says. “It truly felt like pure punishment.”

She started the job in 2021 and wasn’t concerned about working with the all-male team, who she expected “will always have my back,” she says. On her first day at work, her boss quickly disabused her of that idea by making references to the male anatomy and sex with his wife.

“That set the tone for how things were in the office,” Naomi explains.

One of her coworkers, meanwhile, needed constant attention, she says. He liked to troll people on Reddit and make her read his comments. He insisted she taste the food he brought for lunch. He once asked over and over if she would play ball games with him and, when she declined, he demanded that she clean up the office instead.

His lack of boundaries made her deeply uncomfortable. But this co-worker was best friends with the boss, who instructed the team to deal with his idiosyncrasies, help keep him organized and never make him mad.

Finally, the coworker asked Naomi if he could give her herpes, and annoying behavior turned into harassment. She told her boss that she needed him to do something to stop the behavior. Soon afterwards, her boss referred to her as a “bitch.”

Naomi filed an official discrimination complaint with the HR department, and her boss and coworker were moved into another building during the investigation.

Nearly all of her allegations were confirmed, including sexual harassment on the part of both men, as well as racist comments directed to a Black coworker, ethics violations for asking Naomi to do work for her boss’s daughter, and a breach of confidentiality during the investigation on the part of a female HR employee.

One of the “corrective actions” required, she says, was that the entire team had to retake sexual harassment training, herself included. “I used the system as they asked me to and now, as a result of that, I needed to prove that I have learned, once again, how to use the system that is not going to work for me.”

After mediation and training sessions, her boss and co-worker returned to the office, while Naomi landed another job with another agency. She says she’s happy to work with a professional team where no one calls her the “little gal who works on social media.”

But she would be very hesitant to file a complaint again. “If I were ever in that situation again, I would probably think really hard before saying something, because I am a woman who went through that situation and got no help.”

PART II: WHAT SUPPORTIVE EMPLOYERS DO DIFFERENTLY

When she was in her 20s, “I couldn’t imagine the life I have now, with the company I have now,” says Nicole Velasco, who works in business development in the Hawaiʻi office of NORESCO, a national energy company. She’s worked there for nearly a decade.

At the moment, she’s at home with a new baby, and with a toddler in tow. After the births of both her sons, she was given three months of paid time off from the company, and she’s currently negotiating to extend her leave beyond that.

But back then, before she switched to the corporate world, Velasco was a stressed-out city employee, trying to extract herself from a bad relationship and trapped in a workplace grind that seemed to never let up.

The pace ended abruptly in 2017 when she was fired from her job as executive director of the Honolulu Office of Economic Development. Looking back, she believes the official reasons were spurious, including being on her phone too much, despite handling the office’s social media. She thinks the unspoken reason was that she failed to conform.

“It came down to not fitting a particular expectation that had been established before I walked through the door. … They saw me as a young local girl, and it was a ‘She should just know to bring donuts and coffee’ thing,” Velasco says.

“Then I arrived, and I proved to be ‘difficult’ because I said I’m not going to be a ‘yes man,’ I will push for innovation and question things, and I want to know why I have to clean up your messes. … I really cared about my team as people, but I operated a little differently.”

The rupture from her job was “heartbreaking,” she says, but also a “blessing in disguise.”

“Had they not fired me, I probably would still be there because I believe in our people and in our community and that we want things to be better,” she says. “But it was actually killing me, and I don’t say that facetiously. I had been whittled away from a health perspective. I was developing cancer and just turning 30.”

Her medical treatments were successful, and she soon landed a job that supported her in ways she never expected. “This is a different environment – it took me by surprise,” she says of the Massachusetts-based company. “It’s people forward and team forward.”

In her first meeting with her boss, Velasco says he asked her what she wanted from the job. “I told him to be able to take care of family, to take care of my health, to live a life and not feel guilty about it. He looked at me like that’s pretty basic.”

She says her employer has assisted her at every critical juncture in her life since that talk. When she was being stalked and felt threatened, the company immediately changed the office locks. When her grandmother was dying, she was given time off to care for her. When her children were born, she got company-sponsored paid leave.

And when she returned to work, she could do it from home, and with no pressure to return to the office. “I’ve never once been made to feel guilty,” Velasco says.

The difference in workplace cultures continues to amaze her and makes her question why often-touted local values can be absent in the workplace.

“How did I get trained to believe my needs were too much?” she asked. “By the same culture that prioritizes ʻohana. Let’s reevaluate our collective contract with each other and ask ourselves if we’re satisfied with certain infrastructures and systems. And the answer is probably no.”

She still remembers a city employee who needed to leave early to pick up her son from elementary school. The father had forgotten the boy, and it was getting late. Shortly afterward, an HR director chastised Velasco for letting the employee go, thus squandering the “public asset” of required work time.

“We need to have a long, overdue conversation to think about how we got here. Why are we more concerned about recouping one-and-a-half hours of wages and not about a small child left on the roadside?”

Evolving Workplaces

For all the social changes of the past decades, workplaces can often seem stuck in the past. Schedules are fixed, with office hours often conflicting with school hours. Remote options from the pandemic have been clawed back by many employers. Family leave remains one of the stingiest in the world.

Some of the problems spring from lack of awareness, says Wong from Safe Places & Workplaces and the executive director of the professional development organization One Shared Future. Many leaders simply don’t know much about their employees’ lives.

“There’s one of your reliable team members, who’s making choices for their livelihood and not able to be there for their child or their aging parents,” she says. “And it’s never dawned on you that a policy could totally change productivity, culture, the bottom line, everything because you’re an old-school guy and have a really supportive family structure, and you don’t think about those things.”

Other impediments to changing workplace cultures reflect how society is structured.

“We’re still in a patriarchal culture of male leadership looking a certain way and then female leadership trying to look that way as well, versus what does female leadership uniquely look like?” says Kerrie Urosevich, the executive director of the Early Childhood Action Strategy and a founder of the ʻOhana Workplace Alliance.

The alliance looks at disparities between men’s and women’s experiences in the workplace, and ways to close the gaps. One trouble spot is women’s lower pay, which Urosevich attributes partly to men’s more assertive negotiating skills.

She shares a revealing example from her own experience on the hiring committee for a head of school. The committee’s male pick asked for $30,000 more, which they offered. When he ended up declining the position, the group selected a female candidate the following year and offered her the original salary. She accepted.

“We all started celebrating,” says Urosevich. “Then one of the women on the committee says, ‘Absolutely not. We need to offer her $30,000 over because she’s more qualified than the guy we interviewed last year.’ And I felt so ashamed. The funny part was that when we offered the candidate $30,000 more, she was really taken aback.”

Evaluating Companies

Urosevich and her team advocate for policies such as pay parity audits, remote work options, mental health programs and childcare subsidies, or even having companies develop their own childcare workforces and pay living wages.

The group is in the early stages of devising a grading system that evaluates an employer’s family-friendly policies, which they could use to attract new hires. What a family-friendly workplace looks like will vary from employer to employer, and even employee to employee.

Urosevich, the mother of three, now in their late teens and early 20s, says that many workplace policies are based on models from the 1950s and ’60s, and they’re hopelessly outdated. She particularly dislikes the idea that people in roles like hers need to be at specific workstations, at set times.

“The context is just so dramatically different now. With technology, we can be much more flexible and actually retain staff because of that,” she says. “You’re not making employees choose between their own health and their work, or their family and their work. They can take care of it all more holistically and meet deadlines and be an awesome employee.”

For Ben Treviño, the father of a young daughter and an alliance member, and the network coordinator of the Omidyar Fellows Program, work-from-home options are invaluable, but the physical workplace can be equally so.

“It’s an important space,” he says. “In the same way that we invest in our homes as a place we want to live in, how do we make workplaces a place we want to be, to be a shelter when home can’t be that?”

Another scoring system is now being developed by Llasmin Chaine, executive director of the Hawaiʻi State Commission on the Status of Women, and Aleeka Kay Morgan, executive director of the Nurturing Wāhine Fund.

Their planned gender-equity scorecard will measure organizations in areas such as compensation, hiring practices, women in leadership roles and flexible work arrangements. The scorecard is being developed based on models used elsewhere.

The goal is to recognize organizations doing good work, spotlight best practices and provide support so everyone can improve, says Chaine. “If we’re not giving folks the tools to implement policy and shift things in a positive direction, then we’re missing half of what’s needed. Ultimately, we want everyone to thrive.”

Examples of Sexual Harassment

• Using sexist slurs such as “bitch” and “slut”

• Talking about body parts inappropriately

• Making sexually explicit comments

• Demanding a date in exchange for a job or promotion

• Repeatedly texting or calling in a harassing way

• Sharing sexual content without permission

• Following someone in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable

• Purposely touching in an unwelcome way

• Offering inappropriate gifts

• Forcing a sexual act without permission

DESIGNING BETTER WORKPLACES: FOUR APPROACHES

Med-Quest: Rare Telework Options in the Public Sector

Hawaiʻi Medicaid Director Judy Mohr Peterson takes a refreshingly simple and direct approach to the job of leading about 250 employees and serving more than 400,000 Hawaiʻi residents in the Med-Quest program.

“We focus on getting the work done, and we try to be as flexible as possible while recognizing that people are trying to be good parents and raising a family and living their lives,” she says.

Some employees need flexibility to deal with family obligations. Some can do their work mostly or completely at home. Others need or want to work in the office.

To meet those divergent needs, Peterson has kept the telework model from the pandemic days, despite pressure from legislators and other state officials who want to see “butts in the chairs,” she says.

Currently, about half the team works remotely at least part of the week – more than any other division in the state, she says. And their productivity has risen because of the arrangement, she says, and continues to: “People have actually gotten more productive over time.”

“Telework really aligns with our mission and vision,” says Peterson. “We’re about promoting health and wellness, and having healthy families and healthy communities. You can’t have that if you’re not treating people with respect.”

As the mother of two adult daughters, Peterson is empathetic to her team’s struggles, especially the female managers with young kids who feel guilty about falling short in their jobs and at home. She reminds them that “this idea that women can do everything is false.”

She also tells them that fathers are rarely in similar positions, “because whether we like it or not, and whether we acknowledge it or not, women bear the brunt of the caregiving … and nothing else gets moved off their schedules,” she says.

Flexibility about where and when the work gets done helps employees stay in their jobs. “Our division has a reputation for, one, being mission driven, but also we’ve been able to retain people.”

Since she arrived in Honolulu from the Oregon Medicaid office a decade ago, Peterson has introduced innovations such as medically tailored meals for diabetic patients and programs that link health care and housing.

She’s now preparing for the challenges ahead, as new Medicaid work requirements threaten to strip away people’s health insurance. Her division is looking at how to get clients into jobs, job training and volunteer opportunities so they can keep their coverage.

“Our team believes in what they’re doing. They know that they’re making a difference for hundreds of thousands of people,” says Peterson. “We try to create an environment that is supportive of the team, that values them, no matter where they are in the organization.”

Hawai‘i Foodbank: When Focusing on Pay Really Matters

The Hawaiʻi Foodbank distributed more than 21 million pounds of food and served 154,000 people a month in fiscal year 2024 – the same number of people as at the height of the pandemic and twice as many as in 2019.

The enormity of the task keeps the organization’s president and CEO, Amy Miller, focused on practical matters. For her team of 70, that means meeting their immediate need for better pay.

When she arrived in 2021, many weren’t earning a living wage, she says. Employee surveys showed overall favorability scores were 59%, compared to an average score of 71% among food banks nationwide.

“It was pretty awful,” Miller says. “There were people who work here that needed food assistance. It wasn’t right for us to be contributing to the problem. People shouldn’t have to work two or three jobs to make ends meet.”

She immediately lifted the lowest pay from $14 to $17, and now $19, which she says is still too low given escalating living costs. The rest of the team got a wage bump as well.

Next, she conducted a compensation survey to benchmark the nonprofit against similar ones across the country, and to map specific roles against similar roles in Hawaiʻi and elsewhere. Data came from local organizations and the national Feeding America network.

While she didn’t find discrepancies based on gender or ethnicity, she says she did find that some positions needed “equity adjustments,” which they got. The organization also launched a $50 monthly “wellness stipend” and distributes fresh produce to the team each month.

Favorability metrics rose to 73% in 2024 – a 14% jump from 2021. Retention rates have also risen, from 67% in fiscal year 2023 to 77% in fiscal year 2024, and to 85% now.

At the moment, there’s a “baby boom” at the food bank, she says, with several women and one man at home on leave. The organization works with them to take paid time off, and to ease back to the job with part-time hours or work-from-home days.

“You can’t be a stickler who says, ‘You have to be back in the office five days a week on day 91 after you gave birth,’ and then that person ends up leaving,” Miller explains. “You’re hurting yourself if you’re creating a situation where good people leave.”

Because of the nature of their work, many warehouse workers and drivers have set hours. But she encourages flexibility for those who can take it and creates paths for people who want more flexible jobs, in part by removing “weeding mechanisms.”

“Every single one of our positions will ask for a bachelor’s or equivalent experience,” she says. “We have directors who don’t have college degrees and they’re fabulous in their roles.”

MacNaughton: Diverse Viewpoints Lead to Better Decisions

At this small real-estate development company, decisions are made after open discussions and listening to everyone’s ideas. “Sometimes it takes a little more time, but the positive results are quite enduring,” says COO Emily Porter.

“Sometimes I’ll say something in a meeting that’s a bit off the wall, out of the box, and probably not the right answer,” she says. “I do it because I want to make sure the room is large enough that people feel like they can share their opinion fully.”

In her varied career that included working as a litigator and in operations for a Bay Area tech company, Porter says she’s “experienced feelings of not belonging as a woman.” She’s sensitive about letting others know their voices count, and says the payoff is better, more innovative ideas.

As an example, MacNaughton bought and manages several boutique hotels in Waikīkī. The question of whether to keep or disband the valet and bell service at one of the hotels elicited a lot of emotions and conflicting opinions.

“Financially, it didn’t make sense anymore, but that team was a big part of the operation and interfaced well with other members of the front desk,” she says. After much back and forth, they cancelled the service, but employees were offered jobs at other hotels, and in some cases at other companies that MacNaughton works with.

By talking and learning about the feelings involved, “we made a good business decision in a very human-centric way that cared about the people,” she says.

Another example is working on hotel bathroom renovations. In those cases, Porter says the leadership team taps the perspectives of men and women, young and old, who have different ideas about the need for privacy or how comfortable they are sharing hot tubs and saunas. The feedback helps clarify when to provide separate or unisex facilities.

Because the tone from the top matters, the company has added two more women to the leadership team and two as general managers of hotels. It regularly reviews compensation to make sure it’s equitable, promotes people based on merit and offers flexibility in where employees work.

For Porter personally, she appreciates being able to serve on boards and work on community projects, such as a K-12 healthy relationships curriculum that she’s now developing. “I love that MacNaughton supports me to volunteer with community organizations, even during work hours,” she says.

American Savings Bank: Improvements Started with Hard Conversations

When Beth Whitehead joined American Savings Bank in 2008, she found a “great, solid, profitable company” with abysmal employee engagement scores, below 50%. As the “self-appointed guardian of the culture,” she took it as a personal challenge.

Today, engagement scores have shot up to the high 80% to 90% levels. She attributes the transformation to “the democratization of the employee experience” as the company sought answers from the entire staff about what a great company would look like to them, and where ASB fell short.

The responses led to dramatic changes, she says. The bank immediately revamped its family-leave policies to offer three months of paid leave, with the option to work part-time with full-time wages in the first month back on the job.

It runs annual, mandatory training on respect in the workplace, with lots of role-playing. “We’re trying to make sure that we are empathetic toward each other. … If we want to be collaborative and work together, we have to understand and respect each other,” says Whitehead.

She says the bank’s leaders undergo extensive cohort-based training in how to seek out feedback and accept the responses, which can be uncomfortable. In the end, she says, “I think we all have work to do on getting outside our definition of ourselves and our perceptions of greatness, as in our company is great, so how can you say something bad about us?”

And they act on feedback to fix problems. In one instructive example, Whitehead says surveys identified serious discontent with the way the operations staff communicated with the tellers and other frontline staff. She spearheaded efforts to improve the internal website and email communications, only to receive another low score on employee surveys.

“We spent a year fixing the wrong problem because we didn’t dig in deeply enough and listen enough,” she says.

The core problem was people wanted conversations, not memos. “Once we started bringing them together to talk about issues that needed to be solved, the communication score went up by 20 points.”

Four of the nine bank executives are women, including Whitehead, who is an executive VP and chief administrative officer. The bank develops talent and mostly promotes from within, including CEO Ann Teranishi and Executive VP Dani Aiu, who started as a teller 30 years ago.

“We do a really great job of nurturing talent and making opportunities available,” Whitehead says. “The culture here is one of being inclusive and welcoming and trying to make sure everyone feels valued.”

UNDERSTANDING HAWAI‘I’S EMPLOYMENT LAWS

Protection from Discrimination

It is against the law for employers to refuse to hire, bar or discharge, or discriminate against any individual because of race, sex including gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, religion, color, ancestry, disability, marital status, arrest and court record, reproductive health decision, and domestic or sexual violence victim status. The law applies to employers with at least one employee. Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes 378-2

Sexual Harassment

State law prohibits sexual harassment in the workplace, which is defined as unwanted sexual advances and other forms of verbal, physical and visual harassment that affects a person’s ability to get or keep a job, or that creates a hostile workplace. Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes 378-1 and Hawaiʻi Administrative Rule 12-46-109

Nondisclosure Agreements

Employers are not allowed to use NDAs to prevent employees from discussing sexual harassment occurring at the workplace, or to retaliate against them for talking about it. Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes 378-2.2

Equal Pay

Employers are prohibited from paying lower wages to employees in protected categories, compared to what others are paid, if they are doing similar work, requiring equal skill, effort and responsibility. In addition, employers cannot stop their employees from discussing their wages. Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes 378-2.3

Salary History

When inquiries are made about hiring and when negotiating employment contracts, employers are not allowed to ask about an applicant’s salary history, or to rely on that information to determine wages, benefits or other compensation. Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes 378-2.4

Pay Transparency

Employers with 50 or more employees are required to disclose an hourly rate or salary range in job postings. Exceptions include internal transfers or promotions and public-sector positions where pay is determined through collective bargaining. Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes 378-2.8

Victims of Domestic or Sexual Violence

Employers are required to allow employees who are victims of domestic or sexual violence, or parents of children who are victims, to take unpaid leave to seek medical attention or counseling, relocate residences and related activities. Employers must also make reasonable accommodations, such as changing locks, modifying work schedules or screening calls. Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes 378-81 and 378-72

Pregnancy Discrimination

Hawaiʻi administrative rules prohibit employers from excluding a job applicant or firing an employee because of pregnancy. In addition, they cannot terminate an employee for taking “disability” leave due to pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions. The leave must be for a reasonable period of time, as determined by the employee’s physician. Hawaiʻi Administrative Rules 12-46-107 and 12-46-108

Family Leave

The Hawaiʻi Family Leave Law says employees “may be eligible” for 4 weeks of unpaid family leave for the birth or adoption of a child. The law applies to employers with 100 or more employees, and employees must have worked at least 6 consecutive months.

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act guarantees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for parents. The law applies to employers with 50 or more employees, and employees must have worked 1,250 hours with the employer during the 12 months before they start leave.

Breastfeeding on the Job

Employers must provide reasonable break times for employees to express milk for one year after the child’s birth. In addition, they need to provide a location, other than a restroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public. Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes 378-92

Note: The summaries above describe some of the Hawaiʻi employment laws that are most relevant to women and caretakers. For the full wording of laws in the Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes, go to bit.ly/3UJSTh4.
Be advised: These summaries should not be substituted for the advice of an attorney or HR expert.

At the time, the company was shifting employees to a new open floor plan, and Ho believed it was important for executives to model the change.

“It made more sense to be with the team,” he told me as we walked through the airy open space, lined with floor-to-ceiling glass that looks out over downtown Honolulu and the Pacific Ocean.

It was a powerful gesture – one that speaks volumes about how Ho views leadership: not from above, but from within. For him, leading means putting others first, a philosophy that has shaped Bank of Hawai‘i’s culture and earned him loyalty within the organization.

After nearly three decades covering Wall Street, I couldn’t help but think of Jamie Dimon, the longtime CEO of JPMorgan Chase, who similarly embraces humility, hard work and listening as core leadership values.

“I’ve enjoyed every second of it,” Ho said. “It is the best job – maybe in the world, but certainly in this town, to me. But ultimately, what’s really meaningful is making a difference for our employees, for the community.”

That mindset is echoed by Donna Ramirez, Ho’s executive assistant, who has worked alongside him for more than three decades.

“Peter sets the bar high and he’s tough when it counts,” she said, “but he’s also shown me what it looks like to lead with heart. He genuinely cares about people and the community. I’ve been blessed to know and work for him for 30-plus years.”

Under Ho’s leadership, Bank of Hawai‘i has become a nationally respected financial institution. In 2024, the bank cracked the $1 billion mark in annual revenue – a milestone reflecting sustained growth.

Time magazine recently named it one of America’s Best Midsize Companies of 2025. The bank has also landed on Forbes’ list of America’s Best Banks for 15 consecutive years and earned a spot on Newsweek’s Most Trustworthy Companies in Banking – the only Hawai‘i-based company on the list.

Ho was named president of Bank of Hawai‘i in 2008 and added the titles of chairman and CEO in 2010. In July 2024, James C. Polk was promoted to president, while Ho retained the dual roles of chairman and CEO. A board member since 2005, Ho began his banking career in 1987 with Manufacturers Hanover in New York City.

COMMITTED PHILANTHROPIST

Ho’s influence extends far beyond the walls of the bank.

A committed philanthropist, he serves as chair of the Hawai‘i Community Foundation’s Board of Governors, a role he’s held since 2019 after joining the board more than a decade earlier. He and his wife, Michelle, also established the Peter & Michelle Ho Family Foundation Fund, which supports essential services across the state – from basic needs to health and human services – guided by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and a belief in helping underserved communities through sustainable, high-impact initiatives.

He’s a regular contributor to the Hawai‘i Community Foundation’s Catalyst Fund, an unrestricted resource that enables the organization to fund innovation, research and operational needs. His giving philosophy reflects his approach to leadership: support the infrastructure, trust the process and empower people to do meaningful work.

In 2021, Ho joined the Board of Trustees of Punahou School, his alma mater, and he also serves on the boards of several other key institutions, including the Hawaii Business Roundtable and various nonprofits committed to strengthening the local community.

A DEPARTURE FROM GLOBALIZATION

The following is a condensed version of a two-hour conversation I had with Ho at the bank’s downtown Honolulu headquarters.

HB: Given the persistent tariff wars and global uncertainty, what keeps you up at night and worries you the most?

PH: I think that there are a ton of countervailing currents happening at the global, national and local level that are creating all sorts of challenges and all sorts of mischief – a redirection of trends that are really difficult to get your arms around.

Let’s talk about Trump’s agenda, which is basically a departure from globalization – and a kind of rewiring back to a very domestic agenda. That is a complete shift from the past 20 to 40 years.

I’m not making a judgment. That might be the right call today, but whether it is or is not, that is an abrupt shift. When things that big and that far-reaching shift like that – abruptly – there are oftentimes dislocations and unintended consequences. It’s really difficult to see what’s coming.

HB: Is this a black swan event?

PH: I don’t know if it’s a black swan event, although there have been a lot of black swan events in the 21st century.

Anytime you break things that have been a consistent pattern for decades, there’s the opportunity for a lot of mischief. Your logic train has been built on the last 20 years, 30 years for corporate leaders, for community leaders, for everybody.

What keeps me up at night is the fact that there is a lot of change happening right now.

AI is a dramatic, technological, operational shift that’s happening in front of our very eyes. As much as I believe in the accretive power of that capability, they’re elements that I just don’t know how they ultimately play out for our organization, for our community longer-term.

It’s a time for everyone to try to be agile and nimble and aware of what’s happening in the world because things are coming so quickly at everything and everyone right now.

BILLION DOLLARS IN REVENUE

HB: Bank of Hawai‘i had a good 2024, cracking $1 billion in revenue with $150 million in profits. How does it feel to break the billion-dollar mark?

PH: $1 billion sounds great. I try really hard to denominate what we do in this organization, in dollars and cents and in loans and deposits and fees and things like that.

I really try to think from a first-principle standpoint: What are we trying to do here? As much as I love the idea of $1 billion – it sounds cool – I’d be much happier to hear that we really moved the dial on customer experience last year. I’d be really blown away to hear our employee experience numbers really shot through the roof or the trust that people have is at another level. Those things are frankly more actionable to us, and if we follow that path, the rest will follow and Wall Street will be more than taken care of.

HB: Can you expand on the first principles theme?

PH: There are two ways to hear that. One way to hear that is “We’re going to generate X thousand dollars of fees. Terrific! They’ll add to a pile of fees.”

The other way to think about it is, “Wow, that’s a customer that somehow our team has been able to earn the trust of, probably through really great work, probably through people that really care passionately about this individual. Let’s keep doing that.” If we focus on that, we will accrue the earnings and financial success.

But that must be the center of the plate what we’re focused on. The conversation does not begin with, “How do we make more and more money for this organization?” It’s a reminder that our value starts with people and customers and our employees. And it gets denominated in financial outcome, which is important. But sometimes people can get carried away in how they think about what they do.

HB: So if you’re too attached to your stock price or revenue figures, other things suffer.

PH: You begin to make decisions for what seemed like an obvious reason, but for the wrong reason.

HB: What’s Bank of Hawai‘i’s investment strategy now?

PH: Prior to 2000, we were quite possibly the world’s smallest international money center bank. We had operations in the South Pacific, the West Pacific, Asia, Southeast Asia, on the U.S. Mainland, East Coast and West Coast.

The strategy was to be really expansive. That turned out to be a very difficult strategy for Bank of Hawai‘i. We were overstretched. We frankly didn’t quite have the capital base to make a go of that. And the company suffered as a result.

What we learned was our home is in Hawai‘i. The core of the competitive capabilities and advantage of Bank of Hawai‘i is in Hawai‘i. No surprise.

What we did over the course of a couple of years – and this was kind of seven, eight years into my term at Bank of Hawai‘i – is that we brought everything back to the Islands. We brought all our capital back to the Islands, all our operational focus back to the Islands and the West Pacific. We have a good-sized presence in the West Pacific as well.

And the mantra was rewired back to “We need to focus on Hawai‘i. We need to focus on understanding this marketplace better and better and better – and in a way unique to a 127-year-old Hawaiian company.” And that really ought to be our core competitive advantage as an organization and as a team. We’ve been running that strategy pretty much full tilt for going on 26 years now. It’s been highly successful.

The investment thesis is we have been in Hawai‘i for over 100 years. We understand the uniqueness of this marketplace better than most, we like to think. In terms of stewarding investors’ capital, what better way to do that but as kind of “The Resident Expert” or “The Resident Brand” in a unique and special place.

HB: Do you consider Bank of Hawai‘i a community bank?

PH: I do. There are going to be plenty of people saying, “You’ve got $25 billion [in assets], $1 billion of revenue. How could you possibly be a community bank?” Fair enough if we screen by size.

But if we were screened by intent, our intention is to be the best bank in this community. And to be the most valuable bank in the eyes of our customers in this community, I can’t think of a different way to describe a community bank than that. From an intentional standpoint, I think we’re absolutely a community bank. That’s how we think about ourselves.

“HIGH-QUALITY, VALUE-ADD FINANCIAL INSTITUTION”

HB: Let’s pivot to Bank of Hawai‘i’s culture. What is the culture here?

PH: We think of how we get things done in a couple of ways. One, we have to get right an understanding, a feel and an essence for this community like no other financial institution.

That’s important because, one, this is a unique marketplace and two, because this is our only marketplace other than Guam. We’ve got to be really good at that.

The other piece of the requirement is we’ve got to operate as a high-quality, value-add financial institution in 2025.

We’re a digital bank, we’re a physical bank, we’re a trust bank, we’re a commercial bank, we’re a consumer bank. There’s a fair amount of complexity to what we do and a lot of technology – and a lot of technological change that comes with that.

We absolutely have to understand this marketplace and be of Hawai‘i. But we also have to know how to run a 21st century financial institution really well. That’s challenging. We have to bring those two worlds together to create the outcome we get. That really is talking about people and talent and passion.

Make no mistake, this is a competitive place, where excellence means something, but it’s always against the backdrop of how we bring together the right talent and culture that meld these two worlds. They really drive a world class, financial institution with an organization that ultimately really gets what it is to be a Hawaiian company and serve the people of Hawai‘i.

HB: You’ve brought up technology and being equipped for the 21st century? Please walk us through why digitizing our financial institutions are so crucial.

PH: It’s essential for a bank because increasingly the way people utilize [and] store their wealth or find opportunities to build through borrowing products and lending products and the like, that’s increasingly becoming digital. That’s just the way the world is heading.

To think that we somehow could say, “But in Hawai‘i, here’s how we do things,” it’s just not likely to be met with a lot of success. We have to recognize that Hawai‘i might not be on the cutting edge of technology and development, but we’re not far behind.

People have to feel like Bank of Hawai‘i is a modern financial institution like any place else. The difference between going to Bank of America or Chase or Wells Fargo or Bank of Hawai‘i, from a modern field standpoint, is not very different.

What Bank of Hawai‘i gets right is they understand me, they understand Hawai‘i, they understand what’s important from a cultural standpoint here in the Islands. All of those things being equal, I’m going to give my business to Bank of Hawai‘i.

We must resist the temptation to believe it’s just different here. The Islands are different but in terms of convenience, security and value, we’re no different.

ROLE OF CRYPTOCURRENCIES

HB: What about cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as well as blockchain?

PH: Let’s separate crypto from the blockchain technology that it sits on. Some see crypto as effectively a substitute for U.S. dollars. I think we need to think about crypto or use it with eyes wide open. I get that people want to explore different ways of storing value and transacting. There are hundreds of years of lessons learned and systems that make a lot of sense built into the U.S. financial system, that make a lot of sense as well.

How could crypto exist either as a substitute or in harmony with the U.S. dollar? I think there’s a lot to unpack. There are plenty of incidents of fraud over the years. Plenty of instances of this stuff being used to finance really bad things.

Conversely, as it relates to the U.S. dollar, there’s been a huge amount invested to make sure that the dollar isn’t used to those ends and is durable and safe as possible for the end user. I’m not anti-crypto. I also am not sure it’s going to become a replacement currency for the world. I do get there is a thirst for something different, and people are interested in it. But I think there’s got to be a rigorous approach to how we think about and enter into this stuff.

“AS HAWAI‘I GOES, SO GOES BANK OF HAWAI‘I”

HB: Let’s talk about Bank of Hawai‘i’s influence on the community.

PH: We pride ourselves in having such a concentration of our business in this marketplace that we care an awful lot about what happens in this marketplace. Because as Hawai‘i goes, so goes Bank of Hawai‘i.

One unique opportunity for Bank of Hawai‘i is we touch one out of every two people in [the] state by some product. We bank most of the larger commercial businesses in town. We do business with every county in the state, we do business with the state and state agencies. That gives us the opportunity to build a different and unique understanding of what’s happening here.

HB: How is Hawai‘i’s economy doing from your perspective?

PH: Not as well as it needs to. We really decoupled from the national economy during the pandemic. When you look at the slope [when national and local economic numbers are charted], there is a noticeable negative deviation of performance economically between Hawai‘i and the broader U.S. economy.

The broader national economy has grown well over 10% post-Covid from March 2020 to today. And the state of Hawai‘i is about flat.

I know we’ve largely gotten tourism back. The military is as strong as ever, as is the construction industry. And yet, we’re struggling economically. If you ask me, “Is the economy performing the way it needs to be performing?” I think the answer is no. We’ve got work to do.

HB: How do you expect tariffs and crackdowns on undocumented immigrant labor, which could hurt Hawai‘i’s important construction industry, to impact Bank of Hawai‘i and Hawai‘i?

PH: I think that it’s very difficult to understand, kind of back to what we started with: How quickly and violently all sorts of things are changing.

I honestly don’t know the economic outcome of the tariffs or the depth this immigration policy will take and what its impact will be. What I do know is this abrupt shift in policy and practice is creating uncertainty in the business community and among consumers. You see that in the soft data. That’s not healthy. I think we and the country were already beginning to soften a bit economically.

LOCALLY HEADQUARTERED BANKS

HB: How is Bank of Hawai‘i distinguishing itself from other banks and financial institutions?

PH: Nationally, it’s clear that you’ve got some banks – Citibank, Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo – with tremendous scale in capital, tremendous technological capabilities. I don’t know if that necessarily brands as well out here.

In contrast to our national competitors, we understand what it is to bank this community. We really mean that. Yet we fully accept that from a product, service and capability standpoint, we have to score very close to what anyone in the world can provide.

But in terms of the feeling that you get by banking with us, we know we have to over-perform in terms of delivering banking in a Hawaiian way, in a local way.

HB: So you think you are competing not just with banks here but from everywhere?

PH: Right. You could go online and open an account at Bank of America in about 30 seconds or at other banks.

This is the only market [in America] where there are so many locally headquartered banks. Most places are dominated by large national players. Hawai‘i still has banks that have always serviced Hawai‘i. Hawai‘i has American Savings Bank, Central Pacific Bank, Bank of Hawai‘i, First Hawaiian Bank, Territorial Savings Bank – the five largest Hawai‘i national banks. That’s different. There aren’t a lot of places that have the banking landscape – I won’t say dominated – but managed by hometown local banks.

I think that’s fantastic for the community. What if Hawai‘i’s four biggest banks weren’t around and what was around was Bank of America, Citibank, Chase and Wells Fargo? You get a different outcome. I don’t think you get a better outcome.

DOING BETTER FOR BUSINESSES

HB: Why is it so hard to start a business in Hawai‘i? Are politicians not engaging enough with business owners and entrepreneurs?

PH: Starting a business needs to be easier. Now, politicians are an extension of a community and respond to their voters. If you look at the history of the Islands, we’ve not always had a great relationship with business.

Think about the plantations. That was decades and decades of a less-than-healthy relationship between business and the broader community. There are parts of Bank of Hawai‘i’s history that we’re not terribly proud. We’re not going to look away. We have to recognize the errors of our actions at that moment and make sure that we rethink about how we appear, operate and act to the community-at-large today. I think we’ve come a long way in that regard.

I think it begins with – to your question – there’s not a consensus that business is a good thing in Hawai‘i. I think that’s a problem because we all need to make a living. We all need to earn and pay for the things we need. I think we must work to demonstrate why commerce and business are necessary and important to the Islands. Clearly, we haven’t done as good a job as we need to.

The feel of the Islands is extremely attractive to lots of good talented people, and that is an exportable asset that we ought to promote.

I love the idea of bringing back people who went away and have attained fantastic experience – to come back and share and apply their experience with our community.

I also love the idea of finding people that love the idea of Hawai‘i and the culture of Hawai‘i and bring them here to help expand the pie. We’ve found a lot of talent from all of these kinds of people.

I don’t think we are going to unlock the potential of the Islands without becoming a more business-friendly place, number one, and number two, without unlocking the real asset of the Islands, which is the spirit of the Islands. The real brand asset of Hawai‘i is not sun, sand and surf. No, the real brand asset of Hawai‘i is what it feels like to be part of this community. Sometimes people don’t understand how valuable that is. There’s a specialness to this community that doesn’t exist in other places.

VISION FOR BANK OF HAWAI‘I

That was the unorthodox prescription the keynote speaker offered to nearly 500 attendees at the Hawaii Business Leadership Conference at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

Williams, a globally recognized expert on innovation, urged executives to move beyond their fixation on ROI — return on investment.

“Equally as important, perhaps more important these days, is return on learning,” Williams said at the conference in late July. “Every organization in America needs to accelerate their rate of learning. If you can learn at the pace of change, you have an advantage. But if your learning falls below the pace of change, you fall further and further behind. And that’s where we get into real trouble.

“So in order to accelerate the rate of learning, you need waste.”

The author of “Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business” cited a litany of companies that went bankrupt or lost their edge because they failed to keep innovating.

Williams said so-called “disruptive thinking” among employees leads to uncertain results, and not all ideas need to be implemented right away, or ever.

“But you’ve got to break the cycle of incremental thinking,” the idea that today’s successful ideas will continue to serve you well into the future.

In an interview after his speech, Williams expanded upon the idea.

“Disruptive ideas, if the advantages are clear, they’re no longer high risk,” Williams said. “They’re really risking the thinking time, and that’s a matter of priorities.

“I think of different currencies in a business. We often think of money as the main currency, but there are different currencies. I want businesses to see ideas as their most valuable currency.”

Williams challenged attendees to go back to their companies after the conference and to encourage all of their employees to start rethinking everything about their businesses.

“If you don’t have new ideas, you don’t innovate, you can’t grow,” explained Williams who is also Adjunct Associate Professor of Marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business. “Particularly in mature economies like the U.S., they’ve got to get themselves in a position where they’ve got more ideas to spend than their competitors.

“That means as circumstances change, we’ve got more options. We can do A, B, C, D or E depending on how circumstances change, so we’ve got better optionality than our competitors.”

Williams insists no new technology needs to be invented for companies to thrive and grow.

“My message is everyone in the organization needs to have a comfortable fluency moving between the core business and introducing new business ideas,” Williams says. “That’s why I talk about discourse. It’s not the device that’s important, it’s the discourse.”

“Ideas beget ideas,” he says.

So how does a guy who tells others to endlessly innovate keep his own creative juices flowing? After all, Williams has more than 30 patents for product designs and is constantly pushing his mantra — innovate or perish.

He scoffs at the idea of waiting for some creative bolt of lightning to spring from casual imagining.

“I’m a big believer in deliberate creativity,” Williams says. “I don’t believe in shooting water pistols and getting people to take off ties and sit on bean bags. It’s exercising a muscle.”

He has recently gotten back in touch with a creative outlet he pursued when he was younger: drumming.

“I find that really helps with creativity,” Williams says, adding: “It has actually engaged different parts of the brain. … I think my aspiration is to be a jazz musician at some point. Jazz has a lot to do with creativity and improvisation.”

A year of corporate profits in Hawai‘i was overshadowed by a massive loss at Hawaiian Electric Industries, parent of the utility at the center of litigation over the deadly Lahaina wildfire that killed 102 people in August 2023.

Once among the state’s most profitable companies, Hawaiian Electric reported a more than $1.42 billion loss in 2024 – driven largely by a $4.04 billion wildfire settlement with thousands of Maui residents and businesses.

Plaintiffs alleged the utility failed to shut off power lines despite high-wind warnings that preceded the fire. The company, which supplies electricity to about 95% of Hawai‘i’s population, agreed to pay nearly half the settlement amount.

The state, Maui County and other defendants, including Kamehameha Schools, West Maui Land Co., Hawaiian Telcom and Spectrum/Charter Communications, also agreed to contribute to the settlement.

Hawaiian Electric’s 2024 loss was greater than the combined total annual profits tallied by 53 companies and organizations in the state during the same period, according to the annual ranking by Hawaii Business Magazine of the most profitable companies in the Islands. The list includes all the local companies whose data is publicly available or was submitted to us.

Hawaiian Electric president and CEO Scott Seu said in the company’s annual report that the Hawai‘i Supreme Court ruling earlier this year to allow settlement funds to be released helped “to move the settlement forward and provide more clarity for our company’s path toward reestablishing financial stability.”

The amount of Hawaiian Electric’s loss was also seven times the size of the company’s prior year profit of nearly $200 million.

To help pay for its portion of the settlement, Hawaiian Electric sold 90% of its stake in American Savings Bank to independent investors for $405 million in cash.

“Importantly, the proceeds from this transaction support our efforts to rebuild our financial strength while creating flexibility for how we finance Maui wildfire-related obligations and key utility initiatives, such as wildfire risk reduction,” Seu told shareholders.

“We are deeply committed to advancing our wildfire mitigation efforts, and since launching an expanded wildfire safety strategy in the wake of the Maui wildfires, Hawaiian Electric has rapidly advanced efforts to reduce the risk of wildfires ignited by its equipment.”

Each of the 341 participants in the BOSS Survey were asked:
The pandemic began in March 2020. Compared with late 2019, how much has your business revenue and profit recovered?

Of course, businesses that failed since 2019 are no longer around to answer the BOSS Survey.

Companies that said they had hired people in the last year were asked
which best describes their hiring process:

Each respondent was asked:
How often, if at all, do you choose local suppliers, even if the cost is 10% or more higher than other suppliers?

Survey methodology

Hawai‘i Business Magazine contracts with Anthology Research to conduct the BOSS Survey and 808 Poll twice a year.

In the BOSS Survey of local business owners and senior executives – conducted by phone and online – the sample of companies surveyed is stratified based on number of employees. Businesses with one to nine employees are designated as “very small” and those with 10 to 49 employees are designated as “small.” Medium-sized firms are those with 50 to 99 employees; companies with 100 or more employees are classified as “large.”

A total of 341 random interviews were conducted from April 15 to June 30 on the four biggest islands. The data is weighted to reflect the proper proportions of each company size based on its number of employees as reported by the Hawai‘i Department of Labor.

A sample of this size has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.31 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

A secondary goal was to interview businesses that derive relatively significant proportions of their revenue from the construction industry. A total of 72 were surveyed in this segment.

In the 808 Poll of the general public, 410 online surveys were conducted from April 11 to 30. Respondents were screened to ensure they were at least 18 years old and full-time residents of Hawai‘i.

The margin of error for a sample of this size is plus or minus 4.84 percentage points with a 95% confidence level. The data is weighted to reflect population estimates of adults in Hawai‘i based on ethnicity.

Want your voice in the next BOSS Survey?

If you are the owner or a senior executive at a business operating in Hawai‘i and want to provide your responses for the next BOSS Survey, email stevep@hawaiibusiness.com.

This article was updated on September 2, 2025.

Hawai‘i isn’t often at the forefront of national policymaking, but its 2018 ban on a widely used but controversial pesticide set the stage for other states, the federal government and even the European Union to follow suit.  

With much fanfare, then-Gov. David Ige signed the bill into law in June of that year after a heated public debate in Kaua‘i. Residents there had raised alarms about seed companies spraying the pesticide chlorpyrifos on fields near schools. 

Now, a soft-spoken Kaua‘i pediatrician who helped focus state lawmakers’ attention on the health risks of chlorpyrifos back then is again sounding the alarm. 

This time, the showdown is over a seemingly innocuous 71-word section of the appropriations bill that the U.S. House of Representatives will take up this month following their summer break.  

“It’s a sleeper poison-pill,” says Dr. Lee Evslin, describing the provision that opponents argue could prevent Hawai‘i and other states from again setting their own pesticides restrictions.  

“Hawai‘i’s children and families live closer to pesticide spray zones than most Americans,” Evslin wrote in an appeal to the state’s congressional delegation. He urged them to scrutinize the measure, warning that it “would lock in outdated federal determinations, preventing timely updates that could save lives and protect vulnerable populations.” 

Opponents of the provision say it would also shield chemical companies from lawsuits by people harmed by pesticide use and would limit research that might document hazards posed by chemicals already on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s approved list, such as glyphosate, the prime ingredient in Roundup and other herbicides. 

“It’s so much under the radar,” Evslin says of the section of the bill, which has been overshadowed in Washington by higher-profile debates involving tariffs, tax cuts, immigration enforcement and Jeffrey Epstein files.  

“Tilting at Windmills” 

With lawmakers returning to Washington, one of the first orders of business will be to debate and vote on the appropriations bill. From his island outpost in one of the western-most reaches of the country, Evslin is hoping his single voice can add to a roar that is heard in Washington. 

He has sent letters to Hawai‘i’s congressional delegation, written articles and talked with those in his profession, hoping to convince anyone who will listen. 

“It’s huge, how [the health risks] can be so well documented, and there’s so little publicity out there,” he says.  

U.S. Representative Jill Tokuda, who represents the Neighbor Islands and much of rural and suburban O‘ahu, strongly opposed the measure. “This provision is a blatant giveaway to powerful pesticide manufacturers, shielding them from accountability while leaving families, farmers, and workers to bear the harmful consequences of toxic exposure,” says Tokuda, a Democrat, ahead of the vote. 

But the math is against Democrats in the House, where Republicans outnumber them.  

Evslin, who seems more at ease combing through academic journals or giving measured medical advice to a patient, muses at how he keeps getting pulled into the political arena despite his natural tendency to shy away from the limelight. 

“To some degree I feel like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills,” Evslin says with a chuckle. “There’s a part of me that’s unbelievably passionate about it, and there’s a part of me that looks at myself from a distance.  

“It’s a battle that I think is vital, and I understand that it’s daunting, and I tell myself, just do your best, take one step forward at a time.” 

Evslin’s work to raise public awareness caps a career that included roles as CEO of Kaua‘i Medical Clinic and later Wilcox Hospital, Senior VP at Hawai‘i Pacific Health as well as private practices as a general pediatrician and sports medicine/wellness clinic physician.  

He has drafted testimony for the American Academy of Pediatrics, has written columns for local newspapers and was a keynote speaker at the 2022 U.N. General Assembly Science Summit. 

Evslin says he tried to pull away from medicine during a stint as a small-scale farmer on the Garden Isle after he retired, but science kept pulling him back. He says he was drawn to an increasing number of studies that showed medical hazards from chronic exposure to chemicals that are used in Hawai‘i at much-higher levels than on the mainland. 

That’s when he bumped into less familiar territory of politics, where even the immutable laws of science are often treated merely as cards that can be traded in fungible transactions for personal, professional or partisan gain. 

“At times I say to myself, ‘Am I nuts? I’m happily retired and have nine grandchildren. Why am I even doing this?’ But it feels so right to me, and I’ve become moderately knowledgeable. I feel that I should speak out.” 

Evslin says he was at first a reluctant traveler in the campaign to ban or restrict certain uses of pesticides. He didn’t focus on pesticides – a catch-all category that also includes herbicides, insecticides and fungicides – until reading two papers in 2012 by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which reported on the health threats of chronic low-level exposure to pesticides. 

“I’ve always been interested in why some people are healthy and some are not,” Evslin explains. “That’s been a thread of my career and looking at what you can do about it.” 

“So, when these papers came out, that was a game-changer to a certain degree to pediatric thinking.” Up to that point, he says, pediatricians were taught to treat acute poisoning – accidental spray exposure or consuming a pesticide.  

“If someone called me and said they took something, the first thing I would do is call the poison control center because they had the data at their fingertips” and could most quickly treat the immediate symptoms. 

He adds: “The idea of chronic, low-level exposure to pesticides being dangerous just hadn’t been something I or most pediatricians thought about.” 

That was about to change. 

Three Growing Seasons a Year 

Hawai‘i has played a critical role in the development of crop seeds that are sold by major companies around the world and become, literally, the source of much of the food consumed on the planet. That’s because those multinational seed companies – through complicated genetic engineering and hybrid techniques – need to test their creations before receiving regulatory approval. Currently, that means they need to show the seeds have performed through three growing seasons.  

Because of its geographic location and benevolent climate, Hawai‘i is one of the few places in the United States that offers seed growers such favorable conditions. Companies such as Syngenta, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont Pioneer and BASF Plant Science were drawn to the ideal farmland on Kaua‘i to develop new seed strains, while Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, concentrates its farming operations on other islands. 

In 2012, the companies operating in Kaua‘i “were reportedly spraying or applying 18 tons of restricted use pesticides in a relatively small footprint,” says Evslin. “It became a huge issue with activists on Kaua‘i.” 

Evslin says the seed companies explained they had to use large amounts of pesticide because insects in the tropics were worse than on the mainland.  

“So, if you compare our usage of chlorpyrifos, which is a very toxic insecticide, with the usage on the mainland, we ended up using about three times” mainland amounts, he says. 

Shortly after Evslin had shifted his focus to chronic, low-level pesticide exposure, members of the Kaua‘i County Council introduced legislation to limit the use of chemicals in the fertile fields of the island’s west side. 

“I wrote testimony for the hearing,” Evslin says. “At that point in my career, I was in my practice on Kaua‘i, which had a lot to do with wellness, so it was in my alley.” 

About 15 other physicians and medical practitioners on the island signed the testimony he read to the hearing, which was packed with hundreds of people representing both sides.  

Not comfortable in front of big crowds, much less emotionally charged ones like this, Evslin remained clinical, explaining that from a scientific perspective, it was important to think about the health risks from long-term, low-level exposure to the chemicals that were being sprayed in the community’s fields. 

“All they were asking for was that they wanted no-spray zones around schools, they wanted stronger right-to-know language so that people would be informed about what was being sprayed where,” Evslin recalls.  

Long story short: The council approved restrictions, the seed companies won a legal appeal that said only the state could impose such limits, and the state Legislature later followed up with its own law imposing a phased-in ban on chlorpyrifos on state agricultural lands. 

Other states followed suit. Federal government attempts to bar the use of the pesticide followed a similar on-again, off-again pattern as the issue – and control of the EPA –bounced between shifting political camps and agendas. 

Today, long after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated the EPA’s effective ban on chlorpyrifos, use of the pesticide still faces restrictions but is not banned at the federal level.  

New Evidence of Harm Emerges 

Coincidentally, a study published this month in the journal JAMA Neurology links prenatal exposure to the insecticide with enduring widespread molecular, cellular and metabolic effects in the brain.  

Researchers for the study, from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, and the Keck School of Medicine at USC, also linked the chemical exposure to poorer fine-motor control among youth. 

“A study like this is a powerful argument for the ban that Hawai‘i enacted in 2018,” says Evslin, who had served on a state-county joint fact-finding task force on this issue, and it provides evidence about “the danger of the federal government saying that even a blockbuster study like this could not even be analyzed [under the pending legislation] until the next formal review of the chemical,” a process that occurs about once every 15 years. 

That’s why he says Section 453 in the appropriations bill is so potentially dangerous.  

“What they’re saying is that if new data comes along, they can’t spend money reviewing it to see if they should modify” existing rules, Evslin says. “So theoretically what that would mean is only every 15 years could you do research and point out issues and make a difference about the danger of one of these chemicals.” 

Section 453 as Political Strategy 

Environmental and other non-governmental organizations advocating for restrictions on certain pesticide uses have ramped up efforts to block section 453, which opponents say plays into the strategy of chemical companies. 

After losing heavily in recent court cases, companies like Bayer/Monsanto have sought relief from state legislatures and courts, with limited success, according to Jay Feldman, executive director of one such group, Beyond Pesticides. Next, they turned to Congress. 

“They do it in a very circuitous route,” he said. “They do it through an appropriations bill, where they basically say to EPA, ‘you can’t change the label [on pesticides] unless you do an extensive health assessment,” which can take over a decade. “So, they’re not directly saying you can’t sue manufacturers, they’re saying the EPA cannot allow a change in a label without these tremendous hurdles that are very time-consuming. 

“The manufacturer then goes to the court, and says ‘Judge, we couldn’t change this label [to provide better warnings to consumers], because this is the label EPA gave us and Congress has precluded the change in label, so we can’t be held responsible for failure to warn.” 

The sort of Catch-22 routine blocks the last avenue for litigants seeking relief for damages, he said. The irony, Feldman adds, is that the pesticide companies are the ones who helped write the language in the bills. “Whether that would even hold up in court, it remains to be seen, but it’s been done before,” he said. 

In a statement, Bayer responded: “We agree that no company should have blanket immunity and, to be clear, the language in section 453 of the appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior would not prevent anyone from suing pesticide manufacturers. Anything to assert otherwise is a distortion of reality.

“As part of our multi-pronged approach, we support federal legislation alongside more than 360 agricultural organizations because the future of American farming depends on reliable science-based regulation of important crop protection products – determined safe for use by the EPA. Other measures include the support of legislation at the state level and a Supreme Court petition.

 “Legislation at a federal level is needed to ensure that states and courts do not take a position or action regarding product labels at odds with congressional intent, federal law and established scientific research and federal authority….”

In court filings, Bayer unit Monsanto has argued that because the EPA has approved glyphosate-based product labels without cancer warnings, plaintiffs cannot sue under state laws for failure to include such warnings.

Even so, with the application of Roundup on farm fields around the country, lawsuits alleging health damage from exposure to the chemical also began piling up. After initially winning some of the lawsuits by claiming research showed the chemical was safe, Bayer started losing, big-time, and the losses and legal costs piled up.

As of August 2025, Bayer had settled about 100,000 Roundup lawsuits for about $11 billion, but another 61,000 cases remain active.

In a statement on glyphosate, Bayer said it “stands behind the safety of our glyphosate-based products which have been tested extensively, approved by regulators and used around the globe for 50 years. The EPA has an extremely rigorous review process which spans multiple years, considers thousands of studies and involves many independent risk assessment experts at the EPA.”

Political Twilight Zone 

After the Kaua‘i hearings, the fact-finding recommendations and the County Council vote to restrict pesticide use around schools, Evslin says, he was stung by the seed industry representatives’ comments that he was “fear-mongering” and “unscientific” – the antithesis of his self-image. 

“And that’s when I was struck by this kind of Twilight Zone. It was as if they weren’t looking at the same scientific information at all.” 

A representative of the Hawaii Crop Improvement Association, which represents the seed companies, did not respond to Evslin’s assertion but in a statement said it supports the House measure.

The section, it said, will “help ensure that our hard-working agricultural producers across the country can rely on consistent agricultural labeling based on well-established and thorough scientific protocols.” 

Peter Adler, a conflict resolution consultant and chair of the joint task force charged with finding common ground among the feuding sides, recalls the role played by Evslin. 

“He did a lot of careful rounding up of studies,” Adler says of the task force debates. “It wasn’t just an opinion jamboree. It was much more based on trying to understand what the data was [concerning] the use of some of these pesticides.” 

Adler says the task force sought to sort out which claims were real and which ones were exaggerated or imagined, what could be confirmed, and what couldn’t. 

Evslin “was really good about pulling in a lot of data and groups of studies,” he says. “It was bringing evidence to the table. We’re not in a court of law, but we’re trying to work out [a solution in] a highly charged political environment. He was very fact-centered.” 

Evslin’s concerns intensified when he later started digging into the scientific studies on glyphosate, the active pesticide ingredient in Roundup and many other herbicides. 

“It was so obvious that the scientific literature had so much data about how dangerous it was, and all you hear from these industry places was, ‘no, it’s safe, it’s one of the best studied ones in the country, no regulatory agency has banned it, and on and on,” Evslin says. 

“I began to babble about it to my wife, and she said, ‘stop talking about it and write a book’.” 

So, he did, published in July 2021: “Breakfast at Monsanto’s: Is Roundup in Our Food Making Us Fatter, Sicker, and Sadder?”  

While conducting research for his book, Evslin said, he came across what he said was convincing scientific evidence that glyphosate was pervasive in our food supply and was causing damaging health effects. 

Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Changed Seed Science 

If chlorpyrifos proved a moral victory for Hawai‘i advocates hoping to limit chemical exposure that can cause developmental delay in children, the presence of glyphosate in food posed a greater challenge.  

In plant and crop genetics, one of the most profound changes in agriculture has been to genetically alter seeds so they become resistant to toxic chemicals in glyphosates. That is the primary ingredient used in Roundup, which is produced by Monsanto and has become the world’s most heavily used herbicide in history.  

By using seeds that are resistant to glyphosate, farmers can spray their fields with the pesticide, killing everything but the intended crops, and saving millions of dollars on weed control.  

After that discovery, use of Roundup and related glyphosate-based pesticides spread like, well, weeds.  

“We in the United States use 30-40% of the glyphosate in the world, and we have much less restrictive guidelines” on it, Evslin says. So, everything from soybeans to corn to canola to wheat – many of the ingredients used in our highly processed foods – are often sprayed with glyphosate herbicides and leave traces in the resulting food products that we consume.  

Tests, meanwhile, have shown that 80-90% of Americans have glyphosate in their bodies, which dissipates over time but can also be replenished if a steady diet of food and water contain the chemical. And pesticide opponents say they do. 

After examining hundreds of scientific studies on glyphosate and glyphosate formulas, Evslin says it became clear to him that there was powerful evidence suggesting links to cancer and other detrimental health effects.  

Glyphosate’s Role as an Antibiotic 

Amid piles of studies, Evslin thinks he’s found the regulatory Achilles heel for glyphosate. 

“It’s definitely an antibiotic,” Evslin says, “And it affects the microbiome – the bacterial content of our intestines and our skin and our respiratory tract. The vital role that it’s playing is only beginning to be fully understood. 

“We have more bacteria cells in us than we have human cells. They are an unbelievably integral part of everything – how we think, how our immune system works, how we digest foods.” 

Studies, he says, are showing links to obesity, inflammation, DNA changes and liver disease, among other disorders. 

But regulatory agencies don’t consider chemicals’ effects on the microbiome, he says.  

“What I’ve been trying to do with that is say, yes, I understand,” he says. “But we do regulate antibiotics in food and it’s an antibiotic, and we need to accept that fact. It seems to me it’s an Achilles heel, because it is an antibiotic, we regulate antibiotics, and that should be a short way to get it out of our food.” 

Prospects for Section 453 

What are the chances that Section 453 of the appropriations bill will be approved? 

Rather likely, it turns out. Few Republicans have gone against the party line in any recent votes. 

Hawai‘i congress member Tokuda stood firm in a statement ahead of the vote: “Hiding dangerous information on pesticides endangers everyone but especially workers, pregnant women, keiki, and vulnerable communities. It is another win for corporate interests and their priorities and yet another reckless, shameful, and immoral effort by Republicans. No corporation should be above the law, especially when lives are at risk.” 

The state’s other representative, Ed Case, also opposed the bill. In a letter to Evslin, he wrote that section 453 and other parts of the bill “prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing environmental and public health regulations related to clean water, clean air and hazardous waste and pesticide laws.”  

He said he also opposed a 23% cut to the EPA’s budget, “which severely impacts its capabilities to protect human health and the environment.” 

Says Evslin: “In terms of what will happen with the bill, my guess is that the House will pass it, and there may be more of a fight in the Senate if it crosses over. The provision is so buried, though, that I don’t think it will get defeated unless there is a dramatic increase in public awareness.” 

Either way, after the vote, Evslin will glance out at the tropical land where he once considered gardening, and then he’ll turn his attention back to the latest medical studies examining health effects from long-term exposure to pesticides.