All Stories

The Careerist: Stood Up

FEW ASPECTS OF LIFE are as thrilling, complicated, satisfying and maddening as our jobs. Victory can puff us up with satisfaction, a promotion and a bigger salary. Defeat can destroy our confidence. That’s because we express and define ourselves via our…

Travelin’ Music

KELLI CRUZ IS a “doer.” She learned early on how to build things from her father, who was a carpenter, and create Hawaiian music from her mother, who was a hula dancer. “When I was 18, I picked up a guitar…

Yes, Locally Owned Has a Future

It feels like offshore-owned companies are taking over Hawaii, but the reality is their number peaked in 2007. Meanwhile, the number of locally owned companies has grown seven times faster since 1995. The same forces that ate so many local…

Top 250: Inside The Bottom Line

Hawaii Business launched the list of Hawaii’s Most Profitable Companies in 2011 to add another dimension to the Top 250 list. We use the “top line” of gross sales to rank our Top 250. But the top line won’t stay…

Catchafire

N onprofits always need specialized help at an affordable price. Meanwhile, skilled professionals want meaningful volunteer opportunities that go beyond stuffing envelopes. Rachael Chong says Catchafire solves both issues with a database that connects businesspeople’s skills with nonprofits’ needs. Catchafire’s…

Did You Know: Size Matters

The Hawaii Community Development Authority, the agency that oversees development in Kakaako and a few other places on Oahu, runs its shop with a mountain of rules and regulations, as you might expect. Whether you agree with HCDA’s rules or…

Re-Energized

W Hen Iolani Palace’s monthly power bill doubled to more than $41,000 last fall, even drastic steps like cutting off the air conditioning in the adjacent barracks couldn’t bring costs back to where they had been just a few months…