Between the Head and the Heart

David Heenan says this tension is holding Hawaii back

David Heenan has a finger or toe in just about every Hawaii industry these days. You might think his "real" job as a trustee of The Estate of James Campbell would be enough. Not by a long shot. In May, Heenan became the non-executive chairman of Maui Land & Pine Inc. (AMEX: MLP). The former University of Hawaii business school dean and Theo H. Davies & Co. Ltd. executive also serves on the boards of Bank of Hawaii and Aloha Airgroup.

MULTIPLE HATS: Award-winning author and Campbell Estate Trustee David Heenan is also a director for a number of big Hawaii-based companies. Photo: Karin Kovalsky

Heenan says: "My priority, my job is Campbell Estate. So that, by far and away, is the top of the pecking order, but all three of the other organizations really enrich my understanding of the estate and the economy and what's going on."

Maui Land & Pine is now a company in transition. That's nothing new for Heenan. Between 1982 and 1994, he spearheaded Theo H. Davies' transition from a "Big Five" sugar company into a local fast-food giant, acquiring franchises such as Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. But Maui Land & Pine doesn't require that kind of overhaul, he says. Unlike sugar, fresh-cut pineapple is still a high-growth area for Hawaii. "Plus, [MLP has] a tremendous land bank of other assets that, over the process in time, getting the right entitlements, we'll be able to bring those on for housing and attack some other resort development opportunities," he says.

What does this "dean" of business consider the biggest of Hawaii's many economic challenges? "It has been, for a long time, job growth and job creation," Heenan says. "Without a variety of industries out there creating sources of employment, as well as preserving existing employment, we'll continue to be more or less in a funk and just sort of fritter around the edges."

Heenan thinks "a tug between the head and the heart" is the main tension holding Hawaii back. "Whether it's competing for slots at Punahou or honking your horn in traffic, there's a different value system … that scares the bejeezus out of some people who haven't had those experiences," he explains. "So it's this question of trying to reinvent, or reconnect or redefine Hawaii's appropriate role in the global economy. And, frankly, there's been very little leadership in business, government or labor to make that happen."

You might say Hawaii's maturing process has been painfully slow for the uber-businessman. Heenan says: "[Hawaii is] like a child who hasn't used [his or her] potential, and that's frustrating - particularly because there are other communities that compete on a different basis that have solved these sorts of issues and have become vibrant places without losing their core values. I think Hawaii can do that, but it's had a very hard time coming to grips with that process."

Heenan is also a prolific and award-winning author. His latest book, Double Lives, encourages people to learn from examples such as Sony Chairman Norio Ohga (who is also an orchestra conductor) and details themes to leading a successful second life. Heenan's own double life started early, during the university phase of his career. "I was an academic or acade-maniac or academia-nut in Hawaii - I was on a tenured track," he says. "And at Wharton, where I taught, it's publish or perish. So if you're in that business, you have to write." Heenan has had to adjust his style, applying less empirical rigor to achieve more average readability.

The main lesson of Double Lives, he says, is that skills tend to be cumulative in nature, so we should not wait until we are as old as Grandma Moses to pick up a paintbrush. Says Heenan: "The sooner you get with it, the bigger the payoff over time. So from a personal note, that would be one lesson that I would leave."

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