Since 1960, Hawaii’s entrepreneurs have worked with Hawaii National Bank to grow their businesses, serve our communities and help our islands thrive. 

Entrepreneur Tiana Gamble, CEO of Goodmerch Supply, chose to work with Hawaii National Bank because they understand Hawaii and what being a local bank means.

From our first branch in Chinatown to locations throughout Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii Island, we have championed locally owned, closely held businesses. Now in our third generation of family leadership, we know what it takes to run a local business – from putting in long days to finding the right financial solutions. 

“We succeed when our customers succeed, and together we strengthen our whole community,” says Hawaii National Bank President and CEO Bryan Luke. “Highly personalized service is what sets us apart, allowing us to bring big visions to life for the smallest business.” 

Junichiro Tsuchiya, of Maguro Brothers, has been working with Hawaii National Bank Relationship Officer Kenneth Koroda for over 15 years.

Our experienced relationship officers start by listening carefully to each customer’s story, getting to know them and understand their goals. Each customer is different, and so is each financial path, requiring tailored products and services to meet individual needs. 

Your favorite local restaurants, artists, doctors, distributors and many more are working with Hawaii National Bank to shape the sights, sounds, tastes, and services of this place we call home. 

Entrepreneurs and musicians Jenn “JRoq” Wright and Quinn Miyashiro of Gate Ki, appreciate the hands-on support of Hawaii National Bank.

“In this business environment, it’s great to have a community around you, and part of that are the partners that you get to work with,” says Elisia Flores, CEO of L&L Hawaiian Barbecue and a longtime Hawaii National Bank customer. “A banker is one of those partners, and if you’ve got a great relationship with your banker, you’ve got someone at your back. They can be a tremendous resource.” 

Local Businesses Start with Hawaii National Bank. Find out more at hawaiinational.bank.

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.”

The Catalyst Fund is the heartbeat of the Hawai‘i Community Foundation. It powers everything we do and allows us to move at the speed of our community’s needs. These flexible dollars let us address our state’s greatest challenges in the moment and evolve as needs shift and change. We can be nimble and responsive—proactive, when necessary, reactive when the moment demands it.

Your contribution helps us stay ready for whatever comes next.

Learn more about the Catalyst Fund and our other funds creating CHANGE across Hawai‘i. Visit hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/give or connect with our team at hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/donors.

Mahalo for investing in what matters most—our people, our ‘āina, our future.

On Saturday, October 11, 2025, the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) Hawai‘i Pacific Chapter hosted its 4th Hoʻohuli Design Excellence Awards at the ‘Alohilani Resort—an evening celebrating interior design across the islands. As the local chapter of the IIDA, a global network supporting commercial interior designers, students, educators, and industry partners, they continue to foster a tight-knit and supportive design community. 

True to the meaning of hoʻohuli, “to change or transform,” the awards recognize work that shapes how people live and experience place. IIDA CEO Cheryl Durst opened the celebration virtually, noting that Hawai‘i’s designers set “the highest standards for design that is responsive to place, environmentally sensitive, and culturally grounded,” and describing design as “the story of change, and the profound impact it has on all who inhabit a space.” 

The Grand Hoʻohuli Award went to Yohei Sushi Kahala by Wander x Wonder, praised as “a space that doesn’t shout—it resonates,” reflecting thoughtful restraint and cultural clarity. Next Design had an especially strong showing this year, earning recognition for several projects, including Central Pacific Bank Kahului, the Fertility Institute of Hawai‘i, and Uncle Paul’s Corner Store—a sweep that underscored the firm’s range and impact across multiple categories. Across the board, many strong and thoughtful projects were recognized, showing the depth and care of Hawai‘i’s design talent. 

The program also highlighted the designers whose leadership and service move the profession forward. Mary Philpotts was honored for her lasting influence and cultural stewardship; Monique Palisbo for her commitment to supporting the chapter; Holly Boling Ruiz for strengthening industry partnerships and advocacy; and Allyson Gonzaga for the promise she brings as an emerging professional.

The evening came together through the dedication of the volunteer planning committee and the generous support of chapter sponsors. Anyone interested in contributing to this growing community—whether as a member, partner, or sponsor—can learn more and stay connected by visiting https://iida-hi.org/ or following us on Instagram at @iidahawaiipacific. 

Is it showing up early or staying late at work – or both? Is it leading by example or directing from the top?

At Hawaii Business Magazine, we believe great leadership reveals itself in times of crisis – when calm, compassion and clarity matter most. That’s why we selected Ann Teranishi, president and CEO of American Savings Bank, as our 2025 CEO of the Year.

She was chosen not only for her steady guidance through the Covid crisis, the Maui wildfires and Hawaiian Electric Industries’ divestiture of ASB, but also for her ability to tackle real-world problems, including pressing issues like home affordability.

2025 marks ASB’s 100th year of serving Hawaiʻi, and under Ann’s leadership, the bank has continued to address our state’s most critical challenges.

If her father, prominent business leader Dennis Teranishi, planted the seeds of purpose with his guidance and example, it was her mother who instilled courage, compassion and a deep sense of inclusion – traits that define Ann’s leadership. Dennis, who declined a formal interview, insists the spotlight stay on his daughter, a reflection of the family’s pride in her accomplishments.

CREATING AN INCLUSIVE ENVIRONMENT

I interviewed her elder sister, Lori Teranishi, several times, and she is effervescent, insightful and downright determined. Lori is the founder and CEO of iQ 360, a certified woman- and minority-owned consultancy firm, and she describes Ann as neither fully introverted nor extroverted, but “in the middle,” able to observe thoughtfully while still driving decisions. That balance, Lori says, allows Ann to consider multiple perspectives while leading decisively.

“Mom always taught us that when you walk into a room, try to talk to the people that no one else is talking to,” Lori says. Ann exemplifies that lesson in the workplace, ensuring all voices are heard and creating an inclusive environment.

Lori notes, “After one of the Hawaiʻi Executive Conferences, she started to work with a variety of people, and they created a Native Hawaiian loan program at American Savings Bank to really provide access to financing to a group that historically had a lot of difficulties accessing capital.”

Another recent initiative is Hui Kapili, a 10-week accelerator supporting small and mid-sized construction and home remodeling companies that are helping to address Hawaiʻi’s housing and labor challenges.

Ann’s leadership is also reflected in ASB’s financial strength and industry recognition. The bank, which is ranked in the top 4% of U.S. financial institutions (according to Forbes), managed $9.3 billion in assets at the end of 2024 and has been recognized by Forbes as one of Hawaiʻi’s Best In-State Banks for six consecutive years. And her focus on thoughtful, people-centered leadership and connection to local communities ensures ASB will continue to thrive.

For more on Ann and her family, be sure to read our December cover story.

REWIND 2025

This year has been inspiring for all of us at Hawaii Business Magazine. We’ve covered a lot, from the record-breaking Wahine Forum to thought-provoking cover stories on toxic workplaces, Bank of Hawaiʻi’s Peter Ho and local social media stars. And there’s the tale of U.S. Army veteran Sae Joon Park, a green-card holder who felt compelled to self-deport to South Korea, and our online viral ICE map spearheaded by managing editor Ken Wills that brought timely, critical insights to readers across the state.

We celebrated Hawaiʻi’s business excellence and generosity with cover stories on the Top 250 and the Most Charitable Companies, and we launched our inaugural Excellence in Business Awards to honor outstanding local organizations.

With this issue’s 28th edition of the Black Book, which profiles 401 of Hawaiʻi’s most influential business and nonprofit leaders, we continue to spotlight the people shaping our state’s future.

But the true source of our success is you, our readers, whose ideas, feedback and support guide and challenge us. Mahalo for helping us tell the stories that matter most. Here’s to another year of learning, leading and building a better Hawaiʻi together.

There is good reason many people – parents, teachers and other community members – are cautious about using generative AI in classrooms. That’s largely because our overall use of AI is an experiment and we don’t know what the long-term outcome for society and learning will be.

We do know that AI makes it easier for students to cheat and shortcut their way through school, even when schools and teachers put restrictions on its use. There are other questions, including: How do we know which AI content to trust? Will AI diminish or destroy the human element in music, art, videos and other creative fields? Will AI make future generations dumber?

‘Iolani School’s Gabriel Yanagihara says the biggest issue about AI in schools is the lack of clarity about when or even whether students can use AI tools in individual classes. The Hawai‘i DOE has general guidelines about ethical and transparent use of appropriate AI tools, as well as data privacy. Its Digital Design Team outlines these guidelines for teachers and students on its website; go to tinyurl.com/HIDOEai.

“Teachers aren’t sure what’s safe, what’s allowed, or what tools are worth their time,” he says. “They are worked so much already, so even though AI can help lower their workloads and help with work-life balance, it’s a big ask to ask them to learn a whole new system on top of all we already ask of our educators.”

Yanagihara helps with ‘Iolani’s AI strategy and teacher support. “We were able to move quickly because we had the flexibility to build an internal task force, test tools and implement support systems in-house.”

However, schools vary greatly in resources, he says. Some schools lack devices or reliable internet access, which makes hands-on training harder. Others worry about ethics or student misuse, and lack of understanding by teachers and parents.

Ethical and appropriate AI use

Brian Grantham of Mid-Pacific Institute is working with teachers and departments on appropriate AI tools in each subject area. The goal is to use AI for deeper learning, not just copy and paste and turn the assignment in.

Teachers’ knowledge of AI is limited, and they are concerned about students cheating. His response is to have students and teachers work together, “co-creating classroom expectations.”

When kids are invited into the AI discussion, they see ways to use AI tools from their perspective and how each individual learns, Grantham says.

Teachers can create assignments that make sense to themselves, but students might see them differently, particularly if they have a learning difference such as ADHD, he says. That means the teacher’s instructions for the assignment can seem overwhelming or ambiguous.

Mid-Pacific’s syllabi include clear guidelines on use of AI, including when students must ask permission to use it. Last year teachers had varying policies about AI use, which confused students. So, this year AI policies are consistent within each subject.

Mid-Pacific high school students can directly use ChatGPT, Gemini, CoPilot, Adobe and Apple Intelligence. Elementary and middle school students can use the SchoolAI platform.

Mid-Pacific also has an AI Certification Course that prepares students for the workplace of the future, providing them with skills that are in high demand across industries, Grantham says.

AI literacy training and ethical standards

High schools and colleges are concerned that AI use without clear guardrails to keep students safe is rampant.

AI’s effects are “terrible,” says an English teacher from Farrington High School. She says she’s returning to pencil and paper assignments so she can better assess her students’ writing. In fact, many English teachers agree on the importance of having students do more in-class writing without access to the internet.

Both independent and public schools in Hawai‘i are addressing issues of ethical AI use through AI literacy training and by having guardrails on AI tools used at school. The idea is to encourage AI use in ways that enhance critical thinking while keeping student information safe.

That training on the ethical use of AI is crucial because schools cannot monitor and protect students when they use AI and social media at home.

AI detectors don’t work

Educators interviewed for this story unanimously said that AI detection tools don’t work effectively and can be wrong. A teacher might end up punishing a student when a teacher’s guidelines for AI use aren’t clear. Teachers who get to know their students can recognize when a student has turned in work using AI without being transparent about it and not labeling how they used the tool – but if you have dozens of new students each semester, knowing each of them well can be a challenge.

Mid-Pacific Institute has done a lot of testing with AI detectors and found they hallucinate worse than AI itself does. Plus the detector provides the percentage of content that might have been generated by AI, which can be misleading.

“How do you take a 70% accusation and then leverage that against a kid when you may or may not be right?” Grantham says. Because once you accuse a student of cheating, the student might get suspended or expelled, and that will hurt their future.

He suggests that early in the semester, teachers assign several writing pieces on paper in class, “so you can start to capture how your kids speak.”

When the teachers see the student’s work later, the teacher will know whether the writing is too clean or above the student’s level.

Left: Mike Latham of Punahou, Center: Mike Sarmiento of Purple Maia, Right: Michael Ida of Kalani High School

AI ethics and trust

In 2021, Hawai‘i’s Legislature passed Act 158 to improve digital literacy among young people. It required all K-12 public schools to offer computer science courses or computer science content by the 2024-2025 school year. And, according to the state Department of Education’s Miki Cacace, AI will be integrated into updated computer science standards next summer. (See guidelines on computer science education from a national consortium at reimaginingcs.org.)

“The mandate from Act 158 provides crucial support needed for expanding professional development,” Cacace says.

This legislation has driven a significant increase in the number of computer science instructors, growing from 1,237 in 2022-2023 to 3,815 in 2024-2025, she says. The DOE has created AI guidance and training through its Office of Curriculum and Instructional Design. In fact, DOE administrators are ahead of many school districts in the U.S. They’ve drawn up guidelines for ethical use of AI in their schools (tinyurl.com/Hawaiiai), encouraged computer science and AI literacy training, and are developing approaches for holding students accountable for ethical use of AI. Find the DOE’s AI guidance for teachers and resources at tinyurl.com/Hawaiiai2, and guidelines for students at bit.ly/hidoe-ai-students.

Public school teachers who want to learn more about computer science/AI learning opportunities can email cs@k12.hi.us. The Magic School AI pilot is only available for HIDOE K-12 public schools.

The challenge faced by the DOE in increasing AI literacy training and education lies in the size and complexity of the public school system. Reaching about 152,000 students and 13,000 teachers, librarians and counselors takes time and patience. However, there are schools with pockets of early AI adopter teachers who are motivated to experiment and lead others.

Winston Sakurai, executive assistant and chief of staff at the DOE’s Office of Curriculum and Instructional Design, says schools should complete a self-assessment and build AI literacy by identifying key personnel, finding areas for growth, and setting a vision for how they want to use AI while meeting DOE goals for graduation.

Each school will approach this differently, just as they do with curriculum and instruction, because communities have unique needs. The overall goal is the same: to use AI responsibly and effectively while also legally protecting students’ private data and information that they provide to an AI tool or chatbot. Such protections are required by federal laws such as COPPA, or the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

Safeguarding student data

Some of Hawai‘i’s private schools have moved quickly with teacher training on AI, including syllabi with ethical standards and guidelines on when to use AI tools.

Mid-Pacific’s Grantham says educators use AI tools at school that have guardrails to protect student data. Mid-Pacific’s elementary school uses SchoolAI, a “wrapper” program that adds guardrails around other AI programs to protect student data. It limits AI responses to those appropriate for the child’s age.

Just as with Magic School AI, students do not have their own SchoolAI accounts. They piggyback on the teacher’s account, letting the teacher set the boundaries.

Grantham says the process of doing an assignment can be more important than the final product. Some teachers focus on individual steps rather than the final exam, paper or project. That makes cheating less likely too because a final paper can often be generated by AI.

“It’s about, ‘What did you do to get to that product and the thinking?’” Grantham says.

Yanagihara of ‘Iolani calls this process “scaffolding,” or “steps” in the learning process.

Michael Ida’s students in computer science and math at Kalani High School collaborate on whiteboards on stands in the classroom and also use Chromebooks at school that have internet access for AI use. Ida says AI won’t replace teachers but is a valuable tool to save teachers time on tasks like generating sets of problems with unique answers, which takes hours to create manually.

“If I try to be creative, maybe I can use it to supercharge my teaching in a way that I wasn’t able to do before,” Ida says.

You can’t “unring the bell”

Punahou School’s approach is focused on AI “as a kind of critical literacy,” according to Punahou President Michael Latham. “We want our students to have a clear understanding of how the technology works, of actually what’s involved in the technology,” he says.

“We want them to be aware of and able to use it in ways that provide them with advantages, especially in personalized learning. But we also want them to be aware of the pitfalls, the ethical problems” and risks, he says.

“I think the biggest challenge for us, and really for probably any school, is to figure out how to use these tools in ways that amplify or enhance the kind of teaching and learning that we do, but not undermine our core learning objectives,” Latham says.

“You can’t unring a bell; you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. These tools are out here,” Latham notes, adding that it would be a disservice to students to ignore AI.

Latham says that “we plan really carefully about where AI is best deployed in the curriculum and the pedagogy and where it should be avoided.” One of those areas where AI should be limited, he says, is English instruction.

A lot of ideas are communicated in writing, and that involves critical thinking skills, Latham says. “I think students need to go through the cognitive work of framing an idea, figuring out how to express it, thinking about the evidence they’re going to use, how they’re going to structure an argument,” Latham explains.

ChatGPT can create an essay, but that deprives the student of the struggle involved in framing ideas, which in turn erodes critical thinking skills. An experimental study by MIT researchers supports the idea that cognitive skills are compromised when using AI, but the study also notes in its preliminary findings that “rewriting an essay using AI tools (after prior AI-free writing) engaged more extensive brain network interactions.” (See the study at tinyurl.com/568tjud3.)

Punahou’s Candace Cheever adds that “more teachers are doing in-class writing where they can monitor students on school computers with lockdown browsers so they cannot access the internet or AI.”

Social and emotional learning

Teachers are coping with AI’s arrival at the same time they are dealing with leftover effects of the Covid lockdowns, which left students on average with diminished propensity to interact with each other and to speak up in class.

“I feel like there’s more hesitancy for kids to collaborate, communicate in person. So we always try to emphasize a human element in education,” says Kalani High’s Ida.

Now, collaboration is an essential skill. “When we were younger, the stereotype of a programmer was a lone person in their basement just hacking out code,” he says. But now projects require cooperation and working in teams.

Many other teachers mentioned this same issue and say that’s why they are focusing more on social and emotional learning, or SEL. That means more in-class discussions and collaborative learning to encourage students to speak in class – and they say AI tools can support these verbal presentations and class discussions in many ways.

“The teacher is no longer the central figure or authoritarian of content because kids have access to content far more than what we know at this point,” Grantham says. “So, the teacher’s job is going to be much more focused on SEL.”

Teachers will check in on how individual kids are doing. “How’s your group dynamics in your class?” he says. “Do your kids feel comfortable talking? Do you have a safe environment where everybody is contributing?”

At a recent event at Mid-Pacific Institute, a student said he’d be comfortable being interviewed for a job by an avatar or chatbot. But Grantham says some people fear that children will become less social if they have companion bots. “Because now I can just go talk to this friend who’s always going to be nice to me, and I don’t have to worry about dealing with the actual humans in the world, but that’s why human-in-the-middle matters.” Keeping children engaged socially matters more than ever, he says.

On the other hand, the DOE’s Sakurai says AI can help students who have anxiety or social struggles. Conversational tools, including voice-to-text, let them practice safely, which can lead to real-world conversations. Therapists now use AI to help students manage anxiety and learning challenges in ways we never imagined, Sakurai says.

Punahou is also “leaning into discussion skills,” Cheever says. The school brought in educational leaders from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to teach instructors how to engage students in authentic discussions. Substitute teachers were brought in and regular teachers were given two days off to attend a retreat to learn how to conduct effective discussions in their classes.

Grounding tech in Hawaiian culture

Purple Mai‘a is a nonprofit whose mission is to build the next generation of culturally grounded, community serving technology makers and problem solvers. Its website says it empowers community through the application of Indigenous innovation, technology and computer science.

Mike Sarmiento, VP of educational design for Purple Mai‘a, shares an important ‘ōlelo: I ka wā ma hope, ka wā ma mua – we move forward looking back. The future is found in the past.

“The first thing we do is that we understand our ‘ike, our knowledge base, is rich,” Sarmiento said during a discussion during Honolulu Tech Week in September.

“When I think about AI, we start with the framing of ancestral intelligence, about ancestral knowledge.” The common thread or knowledge base has always been ‘āina and mo‘olelo (our stories).

(Hawaii Business Magazine is working on a report that more fully examines how people in Hawai‘i are integrating AI with Hawaiian culture, local values and the specific needs of Hawai‘i. Look for that report in 2026.)

Cacace wonders whether those running AI companies will embrace diversity and cultural identity so AI produces accurate responses. “Do they have our best interests at heart?”

Hawai‘i’s schools are in the early stages of a transformation. AI already supports personalized practice, reduces teacher workload on repetitive tasks, and enables creative projects that were previously impractical. At the same time, it raises difficult questions about access, authenticity, ethics and cultural relevance. The journey has just begun, but Punahou’s Latham is correct: You can’t unring this AI bell.

Revist part 1 here.

What parents need to know

Here are questions parents and guardians should ask their child’s school about its use of artificial intelligence.

1. How is AI being used at the school? In which classes?

2. What are the guidelines for ethical AI use at school?

3. Which AI tools can my child use for homework?

4. How are my child’s privacy rights being protected?

5. Please give me examples of how AI tools will enhance learning.

6. Will my child still learn basic skills like how to write and multiply?

Part I: Meet the Early Adopters in Our Schools

Public school computer science teacher Miki Cacace noticed her daughter struggled to read long passages of text. So Cacace developed a custom AI chatbot that added more white space. Now she has “beautiful reading comprehension,” says Cacace, an award-winning resource teacher in the state Department of Education’s Office of Curriculum and Instructional Design.

Cacace also used AI to help her daughter improve her math and music skills. After they created a song using AI, her daughter told Cacace: “That’s not mine. It’s my ideas, but now I’m going to use this to make it my own.”

“That’s what we need to make students understand: How do I use it to make it my own and use AI as a tool to help me grow,” Cacace said at a panel on AI during Honolulu Tech Week in September.

She is exploring the many possibilities for individual learning using AI and now trains other DOE teachers on how AI tools can save them time and personalize instruction to best fit students’ needs.

LOCAL LEADER IN AI EDUCATION

Gabriel Yanagihara

Another early adopter is Gabriel Yanagihara, an ʻIolani School teacher in emerging technologies such as game design, AI and fabrication. He says he wants everyone in Hawaiʻi to be AI literate, and he’s working toward that goal.

He leads free workshops and boot camps for students and parents, consults for organizations, and has a newsletter and website of free resources (gabrielyanagihara.com). He says he wants parents to learn how the tools work so they can best guide their children in their use.

His students use AI to brainstorm, debug software code, generate visuals, and write dialogue or scripts for their projects. They are creating video games, websites, apps and even books from scratch.

“We don’t just allow AI; we structure how it’s used,” Yanagihara says. “I train students on specific tools and show them when it makes sense to bring AI in and when it doesn’t.” Class projects that were once just “dream-level” are now standard.

He says AI tools have made him more efficient and effective – he has his personal life and weekends back – while improving student outcomes.

Yanagihara says not all schools can afford licenses for AI tools that have guardrails to protect student data. Free versions often lack those guardrails. “That worries me, because it creates an equity gap. My students have 24/7 AI access tied to my lessons, and I can track how they use it in class. Most students in the state don’t have that,” he says.

However, many of AI’s early adopters hope it can enhance equality in education. Candace Cheever, K-12 director of teaching and learning at Punahou School, is optimistic that some AI technology might democratize learning by making tutors accessible to everyone.

AI WILL SOON BE EVERYWHERE

Artificial intelligence is not going away, whether you like it or not, leaders in the field say, and educators must accept and guide the transformation – not be swept away by it. But that transformation won’t be easy.

“This is going to be a huge disruption to our education system,” says Winston Sakurai, executive assistant and chief of staff at the DOE’s Office of Curriculum and Instructional Design.

“Moving a system like we have is very challenging,” Sakurai said at a panel discussion during Honolulu Tech Week. Change, he added, will happen “one classroom at a time, one school at a time” until AI is “like the air we breathe.”

To leverage it for student success, he encourages teachers to try AI and get comfortable with it, so they feel less threatened.

Michael Ida, “Dr. Ida” to his students and colleagues, teaches computer science and math at Kalani High School. He says AI is far more transformative than previous technological advances. “Unlike a search engine or gradual tool upgrades, its range of capabilities – whether generating lesson plans, activities or hyper-realistic images and video – suggests it will fundamentally change professions and daily life,” Ida says.

Most people have trouble recognizing what’s generated by AI. When Cacace trains DOE teachers, she shows them two images of children in a garden: one real and one generated by AI with students it created. Many teachers cannot tell the difference. Her point is that teachers need to learn to understand the basics of how AI works in terms of computer science fundamentals so they can guide students in using AI tools.

“Because if we as teachers are not educating ourselves with these new technologies, how do we then teach our students to be safe and effective users of technology?” The key, she says, is teachers and schools need to choose tools and methods for powerful student learning – instead of students “using it as just something to cheat or something to just get a quick answer from.”

When training teachers about AI, Miki Cacace will show this AI-generated picture and a picture of real children. Many teachers can’t tell which is real. She says, “If we as teachers are not educating ourselves with these new technologies, how do we then teach our students to be safe and effective users of technology?”

AI DESIGNED FOR EDUCATION

Magic School is a national AI platform designed to comply with laws that protect children under age 13, though older students can use it too.

Since November 2024, about 1,500 DOE teachers have been trained on Magic School, which is currently free for them, and they use it for lesson planning and student assignments that they can complete on the Magic School platform. Student data is protected and private, and most work on school devices that are kept at school.

Magic School says its software serves diverse learners, saves teachers time and improves student results.

In Hilo, Waiākea Intermediate School social studies teacher Jonathan Peralto says Magic School is “a lot of fun.” He says the platform’s chatbot, named “Raina,” has helped him improve his lessons and planning. Now, he says, he can modify lessons in minutes instead of hours.

Using Magic School, his U.S. history students role-played Oregon Trail characters, and then wrote three journal entries for their characters’ experiences, with details about their journeys. Then the students could generate images for each entry.

Before Magic School, Peralto used a social studies tool called Humy.ai, with chatbots that mimicked historical figures. Students interviewed George Washington, then asked Thomas Jefferson about writing America’s founding documents. A debate with James Madison taught them about the U.S. government and Constitution.

Peralto and other social studies teachers are now dabbling with a Magic School writing-feedback tool for short responses that students write in class. “It’s pretty unbelievable,” he says, because giving feedback is less burdensome and he can reach more students individually. That’s crucial because each social studies teacher at his school has 130-140 students.

Peralto has also tested AI writing-feedback tools, which help him automate feedback for individual students based on his curriculum. One tool also identified common issues among students’ work, helping him target instruction to build specific skills like citing evidence.

THE URGENCY TO DO WHAT WE SHOULD DO

At ʻIolani School, faculty can use Magic School AI with students from 2nd to 12th grade. “Its strength is that teachers can assign specific AI tools for a class and then turn them off afterward, so it supports intentional use for particular activities,” Yanagihara explains.

ʻIolani high school students will be trying Google’s Gemini AI this year, and already have Perplexity AI and Magic School through their teachers. These are provided under educational licensing currently for select students, which protects teacher and student data.

“I love the AI because it creates the urgency to do what we should have been doing with education for the last 20 years,” Yanagihara says. “You don’t just grade the final paper that’s turned in.”

For example, he uses Magic School for his seventh graders; with it, the students create an idea for a game and include three arguments to discuss. Then Yanagihara assigns each of them a chatbot they can interact with as a thought partner while they are writing their ideas for their game design. The students write a 12-page document that covers details about the game, from the concept and story ideas to the code they need to write. They also include a list of resources. It’s both technical and creative writing.

“I give them access to the tool, and when it’s done – time for the test – I turn the room (in Magic School) off, and then it’s back to me,” Yanagihara says. He can see their chat histories, and Magic School warns him if a student is doing something that’s off-task or concerning.

Yanagihara uses an AI tool that gives students instant feedback on technical things based on his scoring rubric, which assesses things like correct grammar and paragraph structure, after they upload their assignments into that tool. He says using these tools cuts his grading time by 90%. That gives him more time to build relationships with students.

He notes that using AI for assessment can also lighten the burden for English teachers, who grade thousands of papers.

Educators, students and tech leaders gathered at ʻIolani School in September to discuss AI’s evolving role in education. Among those participating from ʻIolani were teacher Gabriel Yanagihara, left, and students Thomas Macchiarulo and Maya Gonsowski.

EXPERIMENTING AND SHARING RESULTS

At Punahou School, 35 teachers volunteered as AI innovators this year, according to Cheever, Punahou director of teaching and learning, who is also an English teacher. For that they receive a small stipend. Their mission, Cheever says, is to “lean in to experimenting with uses for teaching and learning with AI and sharing out what’s working with their colleagues.”

Several English teachers at Punahou signed up to develop an AI literacy and ethics unit in ninth grade, the grade in which many new students join the school. And teachers of fourth through eighth grades get help implementing AI, particularly in the health class that all students take in middle school. In high school English classes, Punahou says, “teachers selectively incorporate AI into specific instructional units to enrich learning, amplify students’ ideas and voices, and ensure that their own critical thinking remains central to the work.”

Punahou Mandarin language teachers Elisa Lo and Joy Lu-Chen signed up for Magic School to learn how to use AI at different levels of Mandarin, then shared their time-saving knowledge with teachers of other foreign languages.

They created custom chatbots to help students and got feedback on their learning. In one level 3 chatbot, “We’d create the prompt and feed it all the information we thought it would need and then have students interact with AI in different ways,” Lo explains. For example, there were grammar patterns and vocabulary the teachers wanted the students to learn.

The teachers created two chatbots that students could interview about student life at Peking University – living on campus and off. Then the students compared what they learned from the chatbots with their peers.

Lu-Chen also integrated Speakology AI into all her classes to provide students with opportunities to practice interpersonal speaking through simulated video chats.

Despite all these uses for AI, the final exam is still a live, in-person conversation.

Among those leading the introduction of AI into K-12 education in Hawaiʻi are, left to right, Brian Grantham of Mid-Pacific Institute. Jonathan Peralto of Waiākea Intermediate School and Winston Sakurai of the Hawaiʻi Department of Education.

EARLY ADOPTER SCHOOL

Mid-Pacific Institute, which still emphasizes a broad education for all its students, was an early adopter of AI. Among its offerings is an Immersive Technology Program.

Brian Grantham, director of educational technology for Mid-Pacific, trained a theater teacher on NotebookLM, a Google platform designed as an AI research tool and “thinking partner.”

“I asked her to give me a famous artist that you talk about in class” and she suggested the famous English actor and director Laurence Olivier. They researched him and created a podcast with two people discussing his acting techniques.

“She was blown away with the accuracy of it,” Grantham says. “This is the same thing that she would always talk about in class, but now she could basically create the podcast and have two people discuss the acting techniques and how he embodied his characters, which comes off way differently than a lecture. And now it has a video feature where it will create a video of interaction.”

Chris Ferry of Mid-Pacific – an English as a second language teacher who calls himself a “champion of multilingual and inclusive learning” – uses AI to differentiate lessons for different kinds of students, whether they are multilingual or have ADHD or dyslexia.

“You will drive yourself into the ground, as a lot of teachers do, trying to prepare materials the proper way for different students,” he says.

AI tools help him design content for individual learners at their language level, which works better than them just using a translator. He follows the Common European Framework for Languages, which works well with AI and can create reading assignments at different levels.

STUDENT AMBASSADORS SHOW AND TELL

Some motivated students have appeared at events and in videos as AI ambassadors, including those at Mid-Pacific Institute and ʻIolani School. A lot can be learned from students, educators say.

One example is former Mid-Pacific student ambassador and now alumna Gianna Groves. She says she was afraid to use AI at first because many people associate it with cheating, but she found it helped her reach her goal: She has been accepted to the architecture school at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. Before that, while learning derivatives in a calculus class at Mid-Pacific, her teacher used a particular method that worked well for her. But when she used ChatGPT to help with a derivative problem, she didn’t understand what the AI was telling her. So she asked the chatbot to use her teacher’s method instead; when it did, she understood what the chatbot was saying.

“That was a pivotal moment for me,” Groves says. “It’s not just a tool there by itself.” The AI tool sometimes needs you to explain to it how you learn, she says. “It enhances your ability to learn and to understand things. It can empower you to be you.”

Mid-Pacific expects students to be transparent in how they use AI. Students must be able to explain their assignments and how they did them, Grantham says. They must be able to evaluate AI work for accuracy and bias, and know that it should not replace their own ideas or thinking. They are also not allowed to disseminate harmful content.

If a student can’t explain what they wrote, that means they used AI as a shortcut that harms their actual learning. “But if you can talk to me about it, and it’s somewhere close to what you wrote, then you use the AI to deepen your understanding.”

Thomas Macchiarulo

ʻIolani students Maya Gonsowski and Thomas Macchiarulo are student directors of ʻIolani’s Digital Literacy Ambassadors program. Some teachers have allowed them to test AI tools like Perplexity AI for research or assess ChatGPT’s ability to write a paper. They say they want to learn about AI but can’t if most teachers don’t want it in their classes.

Maya Gonsowski

“I need at least one course to give me the support to fully understand AI and its capabilities,” Macchiarulo said at a public panel organized by Yanagihara.

He and Gonsowski say students need to be familiar with AI before they’re in college or in the workforce, and teachers should be preparing them for that future now.

This Charter School Is Surfing the AI Wave

Kūlia Academy, a public charter school on Oʻahu, is the first school in the U.S. to offer a seven-year AI and data science program to “grow engineers,” says Executive Director Andy Omer Gokce.

“We need to surf this wave,” he says. The school is located at 2340 Omilo Lane, near the H-1 Freeway and off Kamehameha IV Road, in the former school building for St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. He says students are coming from across Oʻahu: Waiʻanae, Mililani, Kailua, Kāhala and elsewhere.

Kūlia Academy launched in 2024 with a sixth grade class. This year, there’s a seventh grade class as well, and another grade will be added each year through 12th grade. Current enrollment is 150 and is open to all students in available grades.

The academy’s website (kuliaacademy.org) announced in September that the school achieved the highest proficiency scores among all middle and high schools in Hawaiʻi, according to the Strive HI 2024-25 state test results. In math, the school had a 75% proficiency score; in English, it scored 80%. (A student is considered proficient if their test score meets or exceeds the benchmark level set by the state.)

School is from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and most student work is done at school with little homework. Teachers are paid on a 12-month contract and teach in the summer; they can also choose to stay from 3-4 p.m. for extra pay. That keeps salaries competitive, and the teachers union supported this arrangement, Gokce says.

He explains that some households are not suited for doing homework, so students get almost everything done at school, where teachers can monitor them.

And the teachers have fewer students to supervise than regular public school teachers. The teacher load is about 70 students compared with 130 to 150 students in a public middle school, Gokce says, allowing teachers to know their students well.

Gokce, formerly a charter school administrator in California, helped launch the school after years of work with the Hawaiʻi Department of Education; most of his co-founders are now members of the academy’s board. Their goal is to have a public school that prepares students for emerging technologies.

They looked at STEM school models for children that were taught at MIT, Stanford and UCLA, among other institutions.

While Kūlia Academy is focused on AI and data science, students learn to manually code before they use AI so they can understand how algorithms work. They cannot use ChatGPT to produce code. And they learn Python, HTML and later, C++ programming.

The school controls how students use technology, Gokce says, and students are not allowed to bring phones or other devices to school. Instead, they use computers the school purchased with help from a federal grant.

“We have plenty of devices here; maybe double the number of students,” Gokce says. “We have computers and iPads and iMacs here at this school.”

Students also take English, social studies and science, and have other options such as drone programming, music and sports. The school has added environmental science, a subject that often involves a lot of data particularly relevant to Hawaiʻi.

English teachers collaborate with AI and data science classes when students write about data science information and present reports in groups.

Gokce explains that students have to defend their reports, not just present the data. “We ask them to come up with conclusions. What does it mean? Where do we go from here? They need to come and defend what they are proposing.”

He uses a metaphor to explain the focus of the school: “Our aim here is to put them in the kitchen: to design the algorithms, to design AI models.” Students will learn how something works, he says, and that includes computer engineering.

“We want to designate a place where students can take a computer, take it apart, put in some RAM, change the GPU, attack it, install Linux, attack it, harden it, and then attack it again. So, the idea is for them to understand the architecture behind it, how it works.”

Read part 2 here.

Amanda Pump, Presiden & CEO of Child & Family Service

Child & Family Service is one of Hawai‘i’s oldest, largest and most impactful nonprofits. During the 2025 fiscal year, it says it directly served 16,402 individuals and reached an additional 117,000 through phone calls, referrals and walk-in visits. The beneficiaries were spread across O‘ahu, Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i Island, Maui, Lāna‘i and Moloka‘i.

“I truly believe that Child & Family Service does not belong to any one person but to the community. This organization will continue to be here for Hawai‘i’s families until the day the community no longer needs us,” says Amanda Pump, president and CEO since January 2024.

CFS’ free services focus on five areas:

• Caring for keiki: Early education and child abuse prevention through family support.

• Healing from trauma: Counseling and therapeutic services for individuals and families in crisis.

• Empowering youth: Helping teens overcome challenges and achieve success in school and life.

• Honoring kūpuna: Support and wellness services for elders and their caregivers.

• Social enterprises: Strengthening families through goal-setting, resources and resiliency programs.

“We rarely see a family that just needs one thing,” says Pump, who has been in human services for 25 years. “Usually a variety of different things, like, ‘I need better income, I need childcare, I need housing. I might be coping with some substance abuse issues, mental health.’ So one program alone can’t tackle everything.”

Some families get help for a year, while others are supported for five or six years.

CFS was founded in 1899 and today offers 49 programs, with more than half open to walk-ins and the rest available through referrals from family or criminal court, family welfare and others.

Transition to Success is an anti-poverty approach that CFS calls “revolutionary,” because it is making a meaningful impact on families in rural communities across the state, including those with high populations of Native Hawaiian families. This model of care is woven into existing programs and addresses 21 key areas of well-being, connecting families with essential services and resources to maintain stability and improve overall health. There is personalized support, coaching, mentorship and practical resources, and people can share their stories.

“We’ve seen great success in strengthening the social determinants of health,” says Pump, referring to the non-medical factors that often impact health and lifespan, like income, education and available resources.

Every family’s journey is unique, but once they start at CFS, they are guided toward the services they need and supported with food, clothing, information and programs, she says.

Pump says every child deserves two safe parents. Families often turn to CFS for resources, education and preventive services that help to lead them become safe care givers. That means CFS works with many types of parents – including domestic abuse offenders with substantiated child abuse or neglect cases – to create opportunities for healing and change.

“For the most part, kids are resilient and they love their parents,” says Pump. “They deserve access to parents when they are safe.”

To track impact, CFS uses short-term measurements to assess how each service is helping people. For example: With a family seeking safety, success is measured by whether they develop a safety plan, secure housing and basic needs, and sustain permanent housing without relying on multiple systems. Another key measure is whether a family has successfully completed certain programs, Pump says.

“Sometimes I get the most meaning when I’ve worked with a family, five or six years ago and I run into them in the community, or they’ll come to an event that we’re throwing, and they’ll talk about how their kids have grown up, or how they are in the military and so successful, or, some even remark like how Child & Family Service might have saved their lives.”

Pump says the program she is most proud of starting is Hope and Healing, which helps children who have been victimized by sexual trauma to receive trauma-related care and counseling.

CFS recognized that many of those displaced by the August 2023 wildfires on Maui were children, so it provided mental health resources and expanded its tutoring program, Hale O Hulu, to help students get back on track if they had fallen behind.

Amanda Pump speaks to students at Hawaii Pacific University about the history and impact of Child & Family Service in Hawaii.

The wildfires intensified many problems. “We’re seeing more child abuse and neglect cases right now. We’re seeing more sexual assault hotline calls. We’re seeing more people needing basic needs and needing housing. And we’re really seeing a lot of our staff worried like, ‘Hey, am I going to get outpriced from Maui?’” Pump says.

CFS has a staff of nearly 400 and a $37.8 million budget for fiscal year 2026. Most of its money comes from federal, state and county governments and 21% comes from private funding, but cuts this year by the federal government have created uncertainty about the future.

“This is a concern all nonprofit leaders face,” Pump says. “We don’t have certainty about what lies ahead, which puts us in difficult situations – how do we uphold our promises to the community or meet our ethical obligations when the necessary resources aren’t guaranteed? It takes a significant toll on the well-being of both leaders and nonprofit staff.”

Hawaiʻi’s health care system is short thousands of workers, and while progress has been made to fill shortages, more work is required. According to the Healthcare Association of Hawaiʻi’s 2024 Workforce Survey, the health care system is short 4,669 non-physician workers and more than 700 physicians — a gap that threatens to widen as the demand for care increases.

“The demand remains high and is going to continue to increase because of the aging population,” says Janna Hoshide, vice president of workforce development for the Healthcare Association of Hawaiʻi. “So it’s really critical that we continue to invest and grow our own here, especially because Hawaiʻi is so geographically isolated.”

To meet the growing need, Kaiser Permanente is taking an active role in strengthening the health care workforce pipeline through community partnerships that offer students mentorships and early exposure to the industry. These initiatives target high school and college students to build awareness and spark interest in health care, especially in roles where the need is most urgent.

“By far the biggest need are entry-level positions,” Hoshide says, noting roles such as certified nurses, medical assistants, patient service representatives, and phlebotomists. “So overall, we have a lot of efforts trying to impact the entry-level positions.”

Innovative learning labs

The Diagnostic Imaging Summer Experience eight-week program introduces students to careers in radiology.

One early exposure initiative led by the Healthcare Association of Hawaiʻi is transforming high school classrooms into learning labs, starting with Waiʻanae High School, with plans to eventually expand statewide.

With support from Kaiser Permanente and other funders, the Waiʻanae High School Health Services Lab broke ground in July; it’s set to open in February.

The renovated building will have classroom space and state-of-the-art lab areas, including an exam room, a hospital bay, long-term care bays, and a phlebotomy station. Once open, it will immediately benefit 153 students who have chosen the health services pathway.

“We really appreciate the partnership with Kaiser Permanente and I think it’s been great that they’ve been innovative and trying out new programs and models with us,” says Hoshide. “That’s been really helpful. And that’s what it takes, all of us experimenting and having that innovative spirit in order for us to support the students and really strengthen the health care workforce.”

Hands-on internships

In addition to its community partnerships, Kaiser Permanente also runs its own initiatives focused on the health care pipeline. The Summer Youth Employment Program, now in its second year, marks a focused effort to engage younger talent. The paid summer internships offer Oʻahu and Maui high school and college students meaningful, hands-on experiences in health care settings.

Far more than just summer jobs, the internships are thoughtfully designed to expose students to roles in health care and support their long-term growth. “We want to make sure that it’s an experience for them that they will forever remember,” says Kaiser Permanente operations manager Jackie Fernando.

She emphasizes the importance of intentional placements, as interns are thoughtfully matched with departments of interest, and if the fits aren’t right, they can explore different areas the following year.

The approach helps the interns figure out their future paths, so they may feel confident in the health care careers that they choose to pursue. “I feel like the impact that it’s making is going to change the future of health care,” Fernando says.

In the field of radiology, another Kaiser Permanente summer program is offering similar opportunities to high school and college students, in partnership with the University of Hawaiʻi Maui College.

The Diagnostic Imaging Summer Experience is an eight-week program that exposes students to different health care fields within radiology departments.

“What we’re trying to do is to get local students or kids to go into the health care field,” says Dr. Lee Miyasato, a radiologist for Kaiser Permanente. “And you know, you can’t be what you can’t see.”

Students receive hands-on experience working with CT scans, ultrasound, MRI, and X-rays.

“The students have a rotation of different experiences, particular to diagnostic imaging, but they also are exposed to what happens, such as the consult, communicating with the different physicians, and really being able to increase their professional skills, and seeing how it actually happens in the workforce,” says Juli Patao, associate professor of Cooperative Education at UH Maui College.

While students rotate between the Kaiser Permanente Maui Lani and Wailuku Medical Offices, they also report to UH Maui College to talk about their college futures and how to prepare for the workforce, with such topics as employer benefits, financial education, and how to budget college loan debt.

“The goal was not only to lead them into a diagnostic type imaging summer experience, but any student who wanted to major in the medical field would be exposed to different careers,” says Patao, who notes that some students aren’t aware of medical careers outside of being a doctor or nurse. “It really gave them that huge exposure of something to look forward to in their future.”

Career exploration day

Maui County students at the Career Exploration Day received hands-on experience in different health care fields.

To further spark interest among young people in health care careers, the Maui Economic Development Board held its first Career Exploration Day in April at the Maui Lani Medical Office, in partnership with Kaiser Permanente.

“We have the greatest shortages in Maui County,” says Leslie Wilkins, president and CEO of the Maui Economic Development Board. “That’s why we launched our health sector partnership, to hear directly from our medical providers on how can we continue to support growing the health sector economy with all kinds of needs,” she continues. “But of course, the No. 1 need that comes up is the workforce pipeline.”

The Career Exploration Day gathered students from Maui County high schools to take part in activities such as creating casts and splints, exploring echocardiograms and MRIs, learning about labor and delivery, and practicing suturing techniques.

“We had five breakout sessions that were looking at critical need and the gaps we have in medical care here,” says Wilkins. “And so the students actually physically did activities under the direction and alongside the doctors practicing in these fields.” Those breakout sessions focused on obstetrics, cardiology, orthopedics, radiology, and general surgery.

Wilkins says she’s gotten great feedback from students who say the Career Exploration Day piqued their interest in medical school, and from their parents as well. More events are scheduled for the winter and spring.

“With the volatile and ever-changing state of public funding, the private sector investment from Kaiser Permanente has a really important impact in sustaining our efforts in education and career pathways,” Wilkins says.

The event, like other programs supported by Kaiser Permanente, provides the hands-on experience and mentorship that will inspire the next generation of health care professionals across Hawaiʻi, with the hope of helping to close the health care workforce shortage gap.

When Food Becomes Health Care

Community-led programs supported by Kaiser Permanente are using food to improve health outcomes.

Using food as medicine is a powerful way to tackle one of the most significant social determinants of health, especially in communities facing food insecurity.

The Food is Medicine movement is gaining momentum in the health care field, with meal and grocery distribution programs, produce prescriptions, and more. And it all stems from the principle that better nutrition not only leads to healthier lives, it promotes equitable and preventive health care and reduces the risk of chronic diseases.

“I think health care is catching on to the fact that food is a primary health care intervention. It’s a form of primary health,” says Lucas McKinnon, managing director of the Hawaiʻi Good Food Alliance.

The organization represents a diverse hui of organizations and individuals, from “farmers to producers to aggregators to food banks to federally qualified health care systems to cultural practitioners,” says Kaʻiulani Odom, executive director of the Hawaiʻi Good Food Alliance.

Prescribing Produce

The alliance is piloting a Food is Medicine program with the Waimānalo Health Center, providing Medicaid patients with weekly produce boxes sourced from local farmers. Supported by Kaiser Permanente, the six-month pilot is laying the groundwork for the state’s Section 1115 Medicaid Demonstration Waiver. Beginning in 2026, the waiver will allow Medicaid coverage for nutrition services, such as produce boxes and medically tailored meals customized to patients’ health conditions.

Kaiser Permanente is helping to fund the pilot, ensuring that when Medicaid is ready to launch its nutrition support services, infrastructure and partnerships will already be in place.

In a separate effort focused on the benefits of nutritious food, Alternative Structures International, dba Kahumana, recently completed a one-year Food is Medicine program that supplied biweekly produce boxes and healthy meals to residents of its ʻOhana Ola transitional housing in West Oʻahu. Funded by Kaiser Permanente, it significantly improved access to fresh food. Each box contained a variety of vegetables, roots, leafy greens, and fruit.

“The program contributed to our food security here in Hawaiʻi, supporting small-scale and socially disadvantaged local farmers,” says Avary Maunakea, executive director of Kahumana. It also introduced residents to agriculture programs that could supplement their incomes while also contributing to the local food system.

“The impact that Kaiser Permanente allowed us to make was substantial,” says Maunakea. “These are programs especially in West Oʻahu where not much food is grown anymore, but this did help us and it gave us that ability to make this impact.”

Not far away, the nonprofit ʻElepaio Social Services, a subsidiary of the Waiʻanae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, has many different programs that support food as medicine, from its farmers markets and prescription food programs to its keiki and kūpuna pantries.

“We offer five sites a week to serve our kūpuna, who are 60 years and older. Every week, we serve an unduplicated 1,000-plus kūpuna, providing them fresh, local produce, some pantry items, and ready to eat healthy meals,” says Alicia Higa, executive director of ʻElepaio Social Services. The nonprofit’s workers load about 50 to 60 pounds of food into each car per week at the drive-through distribution.

Higa says feedback from the people ʻElepaio helps underscores the importance of the work. “We’ve had seniors tell our pantry manager that what we provide really dictates what they’re going to eat for the entire week,” she says. “They really depend on it. So I think stress levels have gone down for many of them. They really are so grateful when they come through and express how needed our services are.”

System-level solutions

To address food security, Hawaiʻi Investment Ready is casting a wider net. It created a Food Systems Accelerator program that targets systems-level challenges to diversifying Hawaiʻi’s food systems. “We have people who want to grow and we have people that want to buy, but we haven’t seen a lot of progress toward increasing our local food production for local consumption,” says Keoni Lee, co-CEO of Hawaiʻi Investment Ready.

The accelerator brings together two cohorts: an enterprise cohort full of innovators working on food system solutions, and a funder cohort with government and philanthropic funders, including Kaiser Permanente. Lee says many of the enterprises are part of the Food is Medicine ecosystem that’s working to strengthen the local food system.

“So now we have a collective of aligned, diverse stakeholders across the food system that are in relationships, collaborating, doing things that weren’t possible five years ago,” Lee says. “I think the value of our network and the conversations that are now possible because of all of this collaboration that’s happening in Hawaiʻi is going to be able to move and solve this systemic challenge together.”

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.