WEfficiency lets you support your favorite nonprofit and still get repaid How many people does it take to change a light bulb? Ask David Aquino and he’ll say it often takes a crowd. Aquino, the project director of Blue Planet Foundation’s WEfficiency program, says the program is part of the foundation’s plan to get Hawaii off fossil fuels and onto…
Attorney Nancy Youngren was looking for a volunteer opportunity that would really make a difference in an individual’s life when an ad for Hawaii Literacy caught her eye. She looked no further. Starting in early 2011, for almost three years, Youngren volunteered with the same person once a week until the woman happily broke the news that she had found…
When conjuring up interesting pau hana activities, cooking may not come to mind first. But CookSpace proves you can burn off steam (literally and figuratively) and have fun, whether you’re a novice cook, a top chef wannabe or just enjoy pairing food and drink. CookSpace is an interactive cooking studio with live culinary activities ranging from private and corporate events,…
Hawaii Kai’s Remington Scott is a global pioneer in making video-game and movie creations come to life Remington Scott understands the unpredictably of life. Growing up in New York in the pre-Internet era, Scott thought he was going to be an artistic painter. Living in Hawaii wasn’t even a consideration. Today, the 45-year-old has been working in computer-graphic imagery and…
Palama Settlement has served low-income and immigrant families in Kalihi and Palama for more than a century, but the facilities have deteriorated over the years and some can no longer be used. “We’re land rich but asset poor,” says Wendy Abe, the nonprofit’s CEO. “Anyone can tell immediately that our buildings are very, very old. Some are nearly 100 years…
Question: We are forming a limited liability company with multiple owners. Does our LLC need an operating agreement and, if so, what makes one effective? Answer: Yes, you should have one. An operating agreement, which defines an LLC’s operations and its members’ rights and responsibilities, is among a business’s most important legal documents. Although not required by the state of…
Owning and running a brewery or brewpub is a lot of people’s idea of a fantasy job. The reality is there are casualties spread across the Hawaiian Islands. Companies that recently failed include Alii Brewing, Pacific Breach Brewing, Aloha Beer Co., Brew Moon, Hawaiian Islands Brewing and Keoki Brewing Co. But there are success stories, too: Hawaii’s eight operational craft…
PoochFit founder gets paid to run with dogs When Dustin Metzler shows up for a client meeting, it’s pandemonium – the clients are jumping with excitement, crowding each other to get close to him, even licking his knees. It’s all in a day’s work for the founder of PoochFit, a dog-running business on Maui that has Metzler hitting the road…
Five years ago, Honolulu consultant and social-media expert L.P. “Neenz” Faleafine was talking with Ian Kitajima, corporate development director of the Honolulu R&D firm Oceanit, when he told her about a new idea called “Design thinking.” Developed at the Institute of Design at Stanford University, the term describes a methodology for arriving at creative solutions and out-of-the-box ideas, and Kitajima…
It’s as if the noodles from Sun Noodle have a life of their own. In 1982, the first batch emerged from a Kalihi warehouse. Three decades later, Sun Noodle makes enough noodles each week to circle the world at the equator. First, the noodles stretched from Hawaii across the Pacific to Los Angeles, unspooled from there to New York and…
Ever since the rise of the Model-T more than 100 years ago, cars have shined as potent symbols of independence, status and freedom. But that image seems to be losing its allure in America. Recent studies show that, after nearly 60 years of annual growth, driving is declining across the country. The downward trend is holding steady even as the…
Hollywood has long loved Hawaii, flying A-list actors and crews to the Islands to produce an eclectic mix of TV shows and movies. But what about Hawaii’s own filmmakers and their stories? Global Virtual Studio had those local storytellers in mind when it launched its GVS Transmedia Accelerator this summer on Hawaii Island, with support from many public and private…
Hawaiʻi’s Most Charitable Companies is the most comprehensive listing of corporate philanthropy in the Islands. Since its debut in 2012, the list has grown from 53 organizations to 113 this year.
A lot of elements are needed to make Hawaiʻi self-sufficient in food. Here are a few examples of struggles and resiliency that enable more productive local farming and food production.
As Dennis Hollier’s story on page 40 points out, there are many impediments to local farming, but a shortage of farmland is not one of them. In fact, 45.8 percent of Hawaii’s 4.1 million acres are classified as agricultural district and 49 percent as conservation district, land-use expert Lee Sichter said last month at the annual conference of the Hawaii…
Name: A. Christian Whelen Job: Administrator, state Laboratories Division Experience: 28 years in healthcare Responsibilities: If the Ebola virus somehow found its way from Africa to Hawaii, Chris Whelen would lead the local analytical testing to help the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention manage the situation. He has worked with swine flu, leptospirosis, typhus and rat lungworm, to…
During Crazy Shirts’ 50 years of business, many T-shirt styles and designs have come and gone. What has persisted in the company’s culture, say longtime employees, is creativity, a sense of humor and a “go big or go home” attitude. “We’re at our best when we’re trying to jam an idea through,” says Mark Hollander, president and CEO. “Those are…
Coco Ho eliminated in the semifinalsEach year, the world’s best surfers – both men and women – compete against each other for millions of dollars in prize money at tournaments around the globe staged by the Association of Surfing Professionals and other promoters. Hawaii surfers do reasonably well in these competitions: At press time, Hawaii had three surfers in the…
Earning trust is absolutely crucial if nonprofits are going to succeed, says a national expert who will be speaking at a Hawaii conference on National Philanthropy Day James M. Greenfield, a national expert on fundraising, says the most important best practice for charities is professional ethics. “Public respect for the work of nonprofit organizations and a willingness to contribute is…