As Abercrombie heads into an election year, Hawaii Business met with him and Young to ask how their policies affected local businesses and about their plans for the future. In our December 2013 BOSS Survey, we asked business leaders if your policies helped their businesses, hurt them or didn’t matter. What’s your view? Abercrombie: Sometimes in business discussions, people complain that government is…
Question: I feel like my business is far behind the new media and social media marketing trends. What can I do to keep up? Answer: The best thing to do is start. New media is constantly evolving, so there’s always the chance to catch the next wave as long as you’re willing to get your feet wet. Luckily, you…
Ahi, also known as yellowfin tuna and bigeye tuna, have suffered from overfishing and are becoming harder and harder to catch in the wild. That’s why farm-raised ahi are so coveted, but the prize has proved elusive. Others are trying and Kraul has worked on the project himself since 2005. “Replacing or supplementing wild catch with hatchery-raised tuna makes sense,…
Imagine buying a home without visiting it. That’s what a California buyer did to a Waikiki penthouse listed by Realtor Margaret Murchie, thanks in part to a video the buyer first saw on YouTube. Such videos, unlike a virtual tour, tend to have more features, such as background music and multiple views of the property. The videos are professionally produced…
In our lives, we’re probably given more than a million words of advice. Almost everyone feels free to dispense it, even if we don’t ask for it, but much of it is trivial and soon forgotten. The advice that resonates and sticks is worth sharing. We asked a wide range of prominent people about the best overall advice or the…
Open any celebrity magazine and you’ll likely find photos of stars living it up in Hawaii: lounging behind oversize sunglasses, playing in the surf or sipping on an umbrella-adorned drink. But not every famous person who visits the Islands is focused just on rest and relaxation. The itineraries of some A-list entrepreneurs include everything from business meetings to product sampling….
For lawyer Ken Lawson, it began with a sports injury and a prescribed painkiller. It ended in disbarment and prison. In between were years of escalating dependence on prescription opiates, alcohol and cocaine, plus abuse of clients’ trust funds, missed court dates and increasing paranoia. The only thing that saved him was prison. On his first night there, Lawson says,…
Creator: Wilson Vinano Jr., avid surfer and owner of Z to A Innovations, has been inventing things for years and wanted to make the ocean safer for people. With the help of two local engineering and development companies, Vinano says, he was able to create a small, affordable shark defense device. Product: The Electronic Shark Defense System emits electrical pulses designed to keep…
Tanna and Bryson Dang operate a popular women’s clothing boutique called Eden in Love at Ward Warehouse, and have been planning for a year to sell products online. Their site, edeninlove.com, was set to go live on Sunday, April 22, the same day as their bricks-and-mortar store held a big birthday sale. If that wasn’t enough to keep the 30-something entrepreneurs…
Margaret Larson has felt “range anxiety.” If you buy an electric vehicle in the near future, you will feel it, too. Larson is the electric vehicle specialist for the state Energy Office and was driving the state’s Nissan Leaf electric car back from an event on the North Shore along H-1. Just as she passed the Likelike Highway exit, an automated voice…
Four or five times a year, Mike Upton closes the door in Petaluma, Calif., and flies to China to check an operation that’s making several hundred-thousand Hawaii-inspired ukuleles a year. Originally based in Hawaii, Upton moved to California but maintains a distribution center in Honolulu for his Kala Ukulele brand. The company has grown in six years into a multimillion-dollar business that…
After nearly three years of construction, Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa, opened in September at Ko Olina. In an exclusive interview with Hawaii Business at the resort, Disney’s chief executive talks about Aulani’s role in the global conglomerate, about planning and executing a new product, and about future plans for Hawaii. HB: In the bigger picture, how does Aulani fit…
You can see from his face that Miles Hashimoto loves working, whether it’s assembling mobile-phone kits or shredding documents. Both jobs are at Goodwill Industries, and Hashimoto is no ordinary worker. Like an estimated 1.8 percent of Hawaii’s population – about 24,500 people – Hashimoto was born with a developmental disability. At Goodwill’s secure shredding facility, he quickly and expertly removes paper…
Travel by private jet – a leading economic indicator for lifestyles of the rich and famous – increased by double digits at key Hawaii airports last year, which was great news for dozens of local companies that fuel, feed and ferry these wealthy fliers. During the recession, the sector was dragged down by a combination of financially required thriftiness and…
Some of Hawaiʻi’s Best Places to Work are adding special benefits to help turn new hires into lifers and keep them excited about their jobs.
Seeds Seeds are Hawaii’s fastest growing major crop. The value of seeds grown in Hawaii has almost tripled from $77.3 million in the 2005-06 season to an estimated $222.6 million in 2009-10. Harvested acreage was 6,630 – up 11 percent from the previous season. The industry employs about 1,800 people on Kauai, Oahu, Maui and Molokai because Hawaii’s ideal weather allows for…
It seems so easy. Get a truck, create a menu, make a few hundred plate lunches and find a spot in a business district or near a beach. The investment is minimal, the hours are great, the money is easy. Or so a lot of people think. But ask anyone who runs a lunch wagon and they’ll tell you just…
WarehouseConquering the world was not part of the original plans for many Hawaii businesses that have succeeded in global markets. For some, it was a years-long process of gradual growth and careful planning, while others found their way quickly with inspiration, instinct and good timing. Either way, exports help inoculate local companies against economic swings at home by diversifying their…