Lawrence Pai VP and Business Banking Team Manager, Central Pacific Bank Question: What’s the best way to accept payment from customers? Answer: As a small business owner, the more payment options you offer customers, the more convenient and accessible are your products and services. That means increased revenues. However, each payment method has risks and costs. Here’s an overview of…
Steve Novak Business Operations and Strategic Planning consultant, Owner, PPR Management Services, LLC Question: Our company is having trouble turning a vague list of long-term ideas into a concrete plan. Even worse, we can’t seem to reach our short-term targets in a reasonable amount of time. How can we get more focused and achieve our goals? Answer: Strategic planning is…
You make your own bitters and brew your own beer. Your iPod playlists get rave reviews from your friends and you know how to throw a party. Why not profit from your obvious talents? The lure of owning a bar, nightclub or lounge is strong: no boring 9-to-5 schedule, no dress code (at least not for you), no cubicles. You can…
Legacy Isle Publishing is a new company that says it removes the stigma of the “vanity press” by giving self-published writers access to professional editors, designers and printers to enhance their books. Creators: George Engebretson and Dawn Sakamoto, respectively publisher and director of sales and marketing at Watermark Publishing, which, like Legacy, is a division of aio, parent company of Hawaii Business. Service: “We…
It’s inevitable that China’s economy will overtake America’s in the next 20 years, right? After all, Chinese gross domestic product grew at an average annual rate of 9.3 percent over the past five years, according to the World Bank, while U.S. GDP actually shrank in two of those years and ended up with an average annual growth rate of just…
Grace, a Maori, originally from Turangi, New Zealand, began his career at the Polynesian Cultural Center 30 years ago as a student performer. He climbed the ranks to senior VP of sales and marketing, assumed the newly created post of COO in 2009, and was named president and CEO on Feb. 26, 2013. He talks about the future of the nonprofit visitor…
Moy took the helm on May 20 after serving 12 years at Hawaii Gas’s parent company, New York-based Macquarie Infrastructure. As a senior VP at Macquarie, Moy worked on the acquisition of Hawaii Gas in 2005 and 2006. The native of Orlando, Fla., has been a member of the Hawaii Gas board of directors since 2011. She talks about her…
Welcome to the Hawaii Business Top 250, the most comprehensive ranking of Hawaii’s business elite. We list local companies based on annual gross sales, and include the number of full-time employees, names of key executives, a description of the business, parent company, website and headquarters. For companies not based here, we include only the gross sales for their Hawaii operations. The information is…
Once a month on a Saturday morning, Francis Imada flips on radio station 105.1, and heads to his backyard, where 20 miniature trees await his gentle care. Then, with Hawaiian music playing in the background, the CFO of Clinical Laboratories of Hawaii spends two hours snipping, pruning and weeding, or carefully bending tiny, delicate branches to achieve something close to shibui, the Japanese concept of perfection personified in a bonsai…
Adult’s definition of parkour: a noncompetitive sport that builds coordination, strength, patience and discipline, while emphasizing safety, community and creativity. Kid’s definition of parkour: ninja skills and Spiderman training. Parkour, which originated less than a generation ago in the immigrant-rich suburbs outside of Paris, takes any environment and turns it into an obstacle course. Being French, parkour’s object isn’t just to power through the course but to…
Kevin Lefforge says there’s nothing like the aroma of a garage housing a classic car. The lifelong “gearhead” and Steeltech project manager was on a quest for a hobby car while living in California in 2005. He ended his search when VW restoration specialist Lenny Copp showed him a green and white 1967 VW bus owned by a client who could no longer afford the restoration project. Lefforge bought the…
From Haleiwa to Punaluu on Oahu’s North Shore, the scent of garlic wafts from shrimp trucks parked along Kamehameha Highway, enticing visitors and residents. But don’t assume the main dish was harvested from a nearby pond; very little of the shrimp served from the trucks is actually raised on the North Shore. Irene Theofanis owns the bright yellow Shrimp Shack truck, now parked outside Chings’ Punaluu Store in Hauula, that was featured a few years ago on the Television Food…
Chaminade University has long emphasized the study of ethics in its business programs, so it was gratifying when a group of Chaminade students took first place in an international business ethics competition. “We knew that the students worked really hard on the competition and they were ready, but it was a very pleasant surprise when they won the whole thing,” says Professor Richard Kido. “It shows that our Chaminade University students can compete with anyone.” The winning…
Name: Paulette Kahalepuna Job: Feather artist and owner of Na Lima Mili Hulu Noeau, a store where Hawaiian feather work is taught, and supplies and finished pieces are sold. Experience: 21 years. START: In 1991, Kahalepuna helped her feather-expert mother Mary Lou and father Paul Kekuewa open the shop at 762 Kapahulu Ave. “We’ve been here ever since,” she says, though both of her parents have since…
This year, Hawaii celebrates 100 years since local life was first captured on cinematographic film. Over that century, however, our humid tropical climate has made it difficult to preserve those images. To the rescue comes Uluulu: The Henry Kuualoha Giugni Moving Image Archive, dedicated to digitizing, cataloging and sharing significant old reels. Online visitors to Uluulu, which means collections in Hawaiian, have access merely to the tip of an iceberg of 20,000 hours of archival footage salvaged from local media, educational institutions, and private individuals and filmmakers. Often,…
Cool Kakaako has been spawning no end of places to eat well. Now there’s another place where you can work it off: the Volcanic Rock Gym on Keawe Street, a 2,000-square-foot bouldering facility that opened in April. Just to be clear, we’re not talking about something you can do with your body while your eyes watch “Breaking Bad.” Bouldering, which splintered off from traditional mountain climbing in the 1960s, is also a workout…
Are they worth it? That’s the question asked each year by shareholders, regulators, politicians and the public when publicly traded companies reveal how much they pay their CEOs. Different methods have emerged to try to answer the question of “Are they worth it?” with no general agreement, but one way to more accurately calculate a CEO’s compensation is called “realizable…
Profitability is the bottom line, but it’s not the end of the story. Consider banks: In 2010 and 2011, Hawaii’s two largest financial institutions, First Hawaiian Bank and Bank of Hawaii, were also the state’s most profitable companies. Last year, they ranked first and third; First Hawaiian’s net income came to $216.92 million and Bank of Hawaii’s profits totaled $166.21 million. That’s not…
The hard reality of a slow-growing national economy and persistently high unemployment rates has helped spawn a mythical creature, the purple squirrel. Even though no one has ever seen a purple squirrel, some employers keep looking for one. And, for job seekers, that is a frustrating problem. A purple squirrel is the ideal job candidate: smart, motivated, tech-savvy, likeable, hardworking,…
Phillip Ana, an employee at Hawaii’s Executive Office on Aging, leads workshops on state-run disability services, manages an online database of resources and consults with clients by phone about services for Hawaii’s disability community. Andrew Sensano is in charge of maintaining the technology infrastructure of Apple computers, printers, servers and wireless routers at UH-Manoa. Jerry Lonergan runs a snack shop…
Hawaii Business won 18 awards this year from the Hawaii chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, more than any other organization. The prizes were announced June 24 and covered all media in the state, including newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, and websites. The awards honored articles, design, photographs and videos published and shown during 2012. Twenty-one local news and…