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…
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…
Imagine a retail business in which one key measure of sales growth was up 42.2 percent last year, with similar growth this year. You’d be on Easy Street, right? Except this same business is plagued by a perennial problem: Customers…
Geckos are iconic in Hawaiʻi, as much as pineapples or ukuleles, and, like them, are not native to the Islands. The Polynesians brought them here about 1,500 years ago along with other plants and animals.
Kimberly Hahn says no escape waspossible. Growingupwithonly brothers near the red-dirt cane fields around Mililani meant growing up riding dirt bikes and loving it. “The boys weren’t going to play Barbies,” she says with a laugh. “So you either play…
If you have lived in Hawaii for a while, the ranking of the richest and poorest ethnic groups shouldn’t surprise you. The hierarchy has remained the same for the past four decades, says UH ethnic studies professor Jonathan Okamura, who…
Payday is always a great day. It means more money in your wallet or bank account. But imagine if your pay stub had an asterisk and tiny print that was hardly readable: *Each dollar worth only 82 cents. That’s what…
PHOTOS BY MARK ABEIT When people think about the fashion business, they tend to focus on the designer’s creative ideas and the finished products they buy. The beginning and the end. But it takes a great deal of work…
Nandini Bhattacharjee is not your typical retailer. Her Kailua shop, Nomads Hawaii, abbreviated as Nohi, is based on her personal philosophy and approach to life. “I would not have done this if it did not allow me a way to help people,” Bhattacharjee says. “At…
