Moore on Technology

Engineer Tom Moore, 67, who founded Hawaii’s first high-tech company in 1964, is sitting in his comfortable (high-tech) Lanikai home wondering if advanced technology has much of a future in these islands that he loves. Inventor, teacher, pilot, restless wanderer, former director of the State of Hawaii’s High Technology Development Corp., Moore is back in business in Hawaii with a company called Tropical Networks Corp. that designs, engineers and manufactures residential telephone systems for home offices and telecommuters and seeks to be a big player in the fast-growing residential wiring market. He works at home, out of his garage, which he shares with a classic 1988 BMW 6-series sedan, and he takes pride in the knowledge that he only has 58 steps from his bedroom to his home office each morning. (“I’ve counted the steps,” he says.) But he knows that to keep Tropical Networks flourishing here, with marketing, engineering and logistics bases, will require the continuing development in Hawaii of an entrepreneurial infrastructure amenable to successful high-tech companies.

When the reporter pushes the door button at the Moore residence, it rings all the phones in the house. Moore answers the phone at his desk, tunes his TV set to channel 125 and sees who’s at the door. Over the phone he invites the visitor in. This is the basis of his Tropical Networks (one of his major systems, called the Waikiki, rings phones, stores voice mail, handles intercom calls, provides an information mailbox, listens for fax tones, plays outgoing greeting messages, separates business from personal calls, among other tasks). “Welcome. You’re in the first house in Hawaii wired to the new U.S. standard,” he says to the reporter.

Q: What brings you back to Hawaii?

A: There’s too much going on in the world, you can’t stop. Intelect (sic) was a Hawaiian company for 35 years until, sadly, we moved it out of here. Then we took it up to NASDAQ and sold our interest in it. In the last few months, it has gone private and has been purchased by Singapore Technologies. They bought it for the fiber-optics multiplexing equipment we had developed. Now with Tropical Networks we have a formal office in Hong Kong and a factory and engineering group in Shenzen.

Q: Obviously you believe Hawaii does have a high-tech future?

A: One of the things we proved with Intelect is that Hawaii can build high-tech products and sell them competitively worldwide. We did that here for many years, and we won all kinds of awards and we were doing very serious work. We were building air traffic control air defense systems. You want an example? All of the aircraft that go up to Afghanistan from the Gulf now communicate when they’re over Pakistan on a system design and manufactured in Hawaii and installed for the Pakistani air force by five people from Hawaii. This is what Hawaii can do. I don’t know what the future of Hawaii is but I can tell you that this is what has been done in the past.

Q: Is the talent here?

A: Technology companies feed on each other. In technology, there’s a herd instinct. The thing is, you not only have to find a way to build companies, but more important to keep them here, as they grow. Many of the high-tech companies that have left Hawaii did so because the State lacked one of the ingredients for growth. There’s a preoccupation with mediocrity here and that’s not going to hack it in the high-tech world. This is where you’re out on the cutting edge, where you dare big and fail big.

Q: High-tech development requires high-risk initiatives. How would you describe the risk-taking attitude in Hawaii?

A: A lot of people tell me that that only risk-takers we have in Hawaii are the ones that stay at the California Hotel in Vegas. When you have the attitude that nirvana is a GS-12 job at Pearl Harbor you don’t foster a society that likes to take risks. We have such a disproportionate number of our people working in government jobs that it’s very hard to create a risk-taking environment. This is a risk-averse society, and it’s a big, big burden. We don’t need everyone to be risk-takers, but what we need to find are people who are willing to take some chances. The next wave in high-tech is just about to come, but it gets sharper each time, with a cutting edge that’s well-aimed. You bleed a lot when you’re out on that cutting edge. And that requires a risk-taking philosophy.

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