You have a business idea and are mapping out your business plan. Heather Moir-Dangler, chartered life underwriter and chartered financial consultant with Moir Financial & Insurance Services, suggests these five steps to ensure that appropriate risk management is included in your overall business plan. 1. Forward Think. Before starting a business or shortly after opening, you should have initial business insurance…
When you think of innovative startups, what usually comes to mind are tech companies that create something new – a mini-revolution. Instead of high-tech, think about tea, one of the oldest drinks on the planet. That’s what Elyse Petersen does: She thinks about tea day and night, and she, too, is planning a revolution. Her tools are digital innovation, traditional…
Many of us love our tablets for writing, drawing, emailing and Web browsing, and often want to add a keyboard or even a stylus. Nimblstand is a clever way of combining all three: an Apple wireless keyboard and a Wacom Bamboo styluswhile cradling a tablet or smartphone in either portrait or landscape mode. Creators: Kailua’s Matt Esecson is managing director and co-founder of nimblstand with…
I get a few requests each month from sources who want to review stories before they go to press. Implicit or explicit in that request is the right to make changes. Each time, I tell them no and have to explain why, so maybe a lot of readers don’t understand that bedrock principle of journalism.
You might assume that Hawaii residents are good swimmers who can always handle ocean conditions because they are surrounded by the Pacific. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Hawaii has the second-highest resident drowning rate per capita in the U.S., a rate about twice the national average, according to 2005 statistics from the state Department of Health (the latest year for which…
If you love looking at the stars in the night sky, but want a better view than you get from your backyard, you might consider renting a Mauna Kea observatory for a night. There are 11 observatories perched above the 13,000-foot level of the dormant volcano on Hawaii Island, which is widely considered the world’s best site for studying the…
If you look at John Thielst today, sitting in an office in downtown Honolulu, you would never imagine his previous career. The managing principal of Coffman Engineers, a Honolulu-based engineering consulting firm, once worked almost entirely underwater. For about three decades, Thielst, 53, was a commercial diver – basically, an underwater laborer–sometimes diving to depths of 850 feet to work…
Taking pictures with friends has always been fun, but taking pictures with purikura makes it a blast. Purikura are customizable photo stickers printed from special photo booths at the Funpix store at the McCully Shopping Center. You pick the backgrounds and can decorate your pictures with stickers, writing and accessories. With some of the seven photo booths, you can even…
Question: An employee may have stolen a lot of money from our company, but we’re not sure. What should we do? Answer: This kind of nightmare can come in many forms: An employee may or may not have stolen from you or a customer; your driver may have improperly dumped chemicals; your sales VP may have had “off-the-record” conversations about pricing with your…
NAME: Yoshie Miakoda Chihara JOB: Spiritual psychic medium YEARS OF EXPERIENCE: Seven START: “I started out as ahypnotherapist to help people stop smoking. Around the same time, I was having serious relationship problems and nothing was working. I have always been a nonreligious person and a skeptic, so when I started hearing voices in my head, I thought, ‘Now I’m…
Sometimes, economists see the world more clearly than you and I. For example, the best explanation I’ve read for Hawaii’s chronic shortage of affordable housing is a recent blog entry on the website of the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization. “The Unintended Consequences of Affordable Housing Policy,” posted by economist and UHERO executive director Carl Bonham, neatly highlights the counter-intuitive…
Long-running college basketball tournament scores bonus points for local businesses For 30 years, Maui businesses have had something extra to be grateful for at Thanksgiving: the Maui Invitational basketball tournament. It lures about 5,000 visitors during Thanksgiving week and provides free TV advertising around the world for the Valley Isle during an otherwise slow period in the tourism calendar. Held…
Collin Kobayashi plans to make a paddleboard with his 3D printer. Some people, including his wife, may chuckle at the idea, but the president and chief 3D officer of 3D Innovations LLC has the expertise and technology to do it. He’s already “printed” many different things, from surfboard fins to the strobe light casing for a record turntable, so he understands the…
The president of one of the largest charitable foundations in the state talks about how and why corporations give the way they do. Why would a company like Island Insurance create a foundation rather than just give directly to charity? Before, a lot of our giving was done through our company, but I think we formed the foundation so it would allow…
Restoration is a slow and sometimes painful process for people whose bodies have been battered by strokes, car crashes and other calamities. Helping those people regain their basic skills and abilities is the main goal of the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific. Sometimes the challenges are almost impossible for the rest of us to comprehend. “I was chatting with a physical…
Faced with a problem that’s literally out of this world, scientists went looking for a solution on an isolated part of Mauna Loa. Astronauts who eat the same freeze-dried and dehydrated options day after day tend to suffer from “menu fatigue” in outer space. That’s more than just a challenge for the taste buds, because a loss of appetite can…
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK ARBEIT One of the things that sets Chaminade University apart is its emphasis on community service. If you want to see how that plays out, tag along with Joan Riggs’ students in the environmental and interior design program. The students work hard studying aesthetics and good design, but they also spend time being “disabled” so they can better…
Some things are almost impossible to oppose: Mom, apple pie and renewable energy. After all, renewable energy promises independence from world oil prices, fewer greenhouse gases and, possibly, lower prices. For many people in Hawaii, geothermal perfectly fulfills that promise – energy that is relatively cheap, plentiful and always on. For others, especially people living close to the existing geothermal…