The 8th Hawaii Energy Conference (HEC) explored the energy transition in Hawaii with a focus on investment in people and projects. Presented by Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB) and supported by the County of Maui Office of Economic Development, the annual conference, virtual this year, featured keynotes, panel discussions, interviews, networking, and exhibits. The conference addressed how to invest in the people while designing energy projects that are resilient, financially viable, and respectful to the community.
The panel discussion titled ‘Investing Respectfully in Hawaii’, moderated by Frank De Rego, Jr., MEDB Director of Business Development, Vice Chairman of the HEC Program Committee, and President of the Maui Native Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce, employed a cultural and indigenous lens to focus on the dos and don’ts of developing energy projects in Hawaii. De Rego was joined by Carol-Marie Ka’onohi Lee, Po’o, ‘Aha Moku O Honua’ula Council; Suzanne Singer, Founder and Executive Director, Native Renewables; and Wren Wescoatt, Director of Development, Hawaii Longroad Energy.
De Rego observed, “The panelists agreed, cultural knowledge and community participation are key to implementing new energy projects, while conference attendees benefited from the cultural ‘ike (knowledge) shared.”
Lee said, “Developers contact me to learn the lay of the land about areas they want to develop. We work with the method of managing the land from mauka to makai because mauka affects the ocean. Developers need to understand basic native Hawaiian values, and historical and generational knowledge, to better serve the community.”
Singer explained, “The mainland and Hawaii have strong cultural ties to community and land, both vital to the development of renewable energy projects. The cultural knowledge and values of our indigenous Navajo and Hopi nations, many of whom are off the electric grid, is essential to discussions with developers about our economy and energy transition.”
Wescoatt added, “Building trust and respect within the context of equitable community development is vital. As a local representative in clean energy transition, my job is to help stakeholders understand the culture and values of the host community. A successful project here in Hawaii does not just produce clean energy, it needs to reflect and respect the values of the community.”
In order to build trust in renewable energy development, there has to be a sincere and pono two-way conversation.
Wren Wescoatt, Director of Development, Hawaii Longroad Energy
David and Ululani Yamashiro of Ululani’s Hawaiian Shave Ice, a participant in Maui Economic Development Board’s Maui Business Connect program, collaborated with Maui moms Jenny Coon and Nicki Barsamian to launch their second children’s book, Huli the Hawaiian Chicken Searches for Snow. During the Covid-19 pandemic when many where discouraged by its impacts, Coon and Barsamian created Huli.
Coon had been laid off from her position as the Sales and Special Events Coordinator at Trilogy Excursions and found herself at home with her young daughters. Her toddler was learning about rhyming words and her favorite word to rhyme was chicken, which inspired Coon to create a story featuring a Hawaiian chicken. Barsamian, formerly a middle school art teacher at Kamehameha Schools Maui, had made the choice to stay home with her two young daughters when Coon approached her to illustrate her story.
“These silly rhyming words became the springboard to write about Huli,” said Coon. “Barsamian and I partnered up and thought, what better way to learn about this beautiful island we live on, than to write and illustrate a fun story alongside our children, featuring our neighborhood?”
A percentage of each new book sale goes to support IMUA Family Services, a local nonprofit focusing on providing resources and educational opportunities to Maui’s most vulnerable children. “In addition to featuring a local business in our stories, we decided to support a local nonprofit,” said Coon and Barsamian. “With our first book, Huli the Hawaiian Chicken Dances on the Moon, a portion of sales goes to Maui Cultural Lands, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to stabilize, protect, and restore Hawaiian cultural resources.”
Once the authors decided on Huli’s next adventure, they approached the Yamashiros and asked if they would be interested in having Ululani’s Hawaiian Shave Ice featured in their second book, where Huli searches for snow. David Yamashiro said, “We were honored to be part of Huli’s second adventure. It is a lasting legacy that will be read to our keiki now and in the future. From the beginning, it has been a project of pure aloha.”
Our original story, Huli Dances on the Moon, was embraced by many and the question quickly arose, what is Huli going to do next?.
Jenny Coon and Nicki Barsamian, Authors of Huli the Hawaiian Chicken
In 2008, Mark and Leah Damon, owners of Maui Bees Incorporated in Kula, combined their shared passion for bees and wholesome organically grown food to create a joint farming venture, including a farm stand to offer their grown-on-Maui products. The Damons’ commitment to their honey is second to none. They have always insisted on keeping it pure and unfiltered by using a 100 percent cold process to ensure the honey stays below room temperature. Their seasonal honey is produced by worker bees that head out daily onto the slopes of Haleakala to forage for nectar and pollen.
“Twice a year we harvest our honey to produce two distinctive honey varieties,” Mark noted. “In the summer months, May-October, we gather nectar and pollen from abundant forests of Wilelaiki that grow on the leeward side of Haleakala. This timeline produces a mild amber honey. In the wintertime, December-April, the bees frequent tall stands of Eucalyptus that yield a deeper darker honey with mellow caramel undertones.”
Hidden deep inside every beehive, the sole queen bee lays about 2,000 eggs per day. Sometimes there are as many as 60,000 worker bees in a single hive. The queen can live from two to five years and in that time produce over a million workers. Nevertheless, prolific as they are, bees face a range of complex and interacting hazards.
Mark explained, “Today, beekeeping is confronted with the disappearance of bees due to a variety of threats including habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation; and the widespread use of pesticides in subsidized intensive farming. Beekeepers have become bee farmers. Without their work, the bee, despite its prodigious life force, may disappear from our communities through its sensitivity to toxins. The bee is a true natural indicator of the environment’s health.”
Recently, the Damons’ added a Bee Museum, an educational component of their farm. Visitors can watch bees safely behind the glass walls of two observation hives and learn all about the inner workings of a living bee-hive. The farm offers structured educational programs and regenerative agriculture tours for guests who want a more in-depth educational experience.
Our observation hives teach about pollination, bee jobs, and what is in the hive. Our compost and garden studies explain regenerative farming practices and how soil fertility produces our beautiful food.
Brandy Nālani McDougall recently took part in the W.S. Merwin Maui Conservancy Green Room Series. Led by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo and six other Pacific Islander poets, the event celebrated National Poetry Month. McDougall is now an established author who has deep Maui roots: originally from Kula, she graduated from Kalama Intermediate School in Makawao, and later Kamehameha Schools. Her most recent book, ‘Finding Meaning: Kaona and Contemporary Hawaiian Literature’ is the first extensive study of contemporary Hawaiian literature. It recently won the Beatrice Medicine Award for Scholarship in American Studies. Currently, McDougall is a University of Hawaii associate professor of Indigenous American Studies.
“In ‘Finding Meaning’, I examined a selection of fiction, poetry and drama by emerging and established Hawaiian authors,” McDougall said. “At the center of the analysis is kaona, the reference to a person, place or thing in a common experience and the intellectual practice of finding meaning that encompasses the symbolic and the figurative. I interpreted examples of kaona, by guiding readers through olelo no’eau (proverbs); mo’olelo (literature and histories); and mo’okū’auhau (genealogies). Kaona and indigenous stories connect the past to the present by unveiling complex layers of Hawaiian identity, culture, history, and ecology.”
Aside from her scholarship and poetry, McDougall is the co-founder of Ala Press, an independent press dedicated to publishing creative works by indigenous Pacific islanders. In addition, she currently serves on the board of managing editors of the American Quarterly, as well as the board of the Pacific Writers’ Connection. Her current research focuses on the aesthetics of indigenous women’s activist fashion within land and water protection movements.
“I am researching the role of visual arts in Hawaiian culture in addition to literature and theater,” McDougall explained. “Fashion in land and water movements plays a vital role in making a meaningful statement. For example, silk-screen t-shirts, hand-made printed shawls and other items made in Hawaii, make a difference. Fashion is sometimes seen as superficial; however, it puts Hawaiian women in the place of being educators in the community. Fashion is a way of carrying an important message about the āina.”
Understanding kaona in Hawaiian literature is a journey to find meaning in the lives of others, as well as the commonalities we share as humans in different cultures.
Brandy Nālani McDougall, University of Hawaii Associate Professor, Indigenous American Studies
Loren Lapow, founder and director of the Maui Hero Project (MHP), Inc., believes that everyone has a hero or heroine within. With a master’s degree in social work, Lapow founded MHP in 2000 and has been coaching adults, youth, families, and communities ever since. Using evidenced-based techniques and his exceptional capacity to guide people through life crises, he has helped thousands to transform their lives.
“We are all on a journey in life,” Lapow noted. “We can all learn how to take control and create positivity in our lives as well as to serve others. In fact, the main skill participants come away with is to be the person who steps up when something happens, to be more confident in taking the leadership role while others might not.”
Lapow integrated the Teen CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) Program with the Hero Project to create a Hawaiian-style disaster preparedness course. Meeting at the Paia Youth & Cultural Center, students in the program undertake 100 hours of training that follows the national CERT curriculum. “The students amaze me by how much they care about each other and the community they are part of,” Lapow said. “I think they find strength in the way they act as a team.”
The Teen CERT program fuses disaster-preparedness training with Maui cultural stories, then adds in the adventure, search and rescue components. By re-tracing the Maui myths, youth are experientially taught core skills, as well as appreciation for Hawaiian culture. Some graduates of the program bring their training when they join the new HEROEZ Junior Red Cross Club also housed at the youth center.
Program graduate Elizabeth Clark said, “I still reflect on and learn from my experiences with MHP. Lapow inspired me to go into human services to work with youth in the future.” Maui author Toby Neal added, “Lapow is a motivating communicator who forges new and unique connections among diverse groups of people in a way I have seldom seen done in social work. He teaches his students to have confidence in themselves and how to provide help in the community.”
Our mission throughout the global pandemic is to help youth find connection despite distance, through acts of service to their community and everyday heroism.
Loren Lapow, Maui Hero Project, founder and director
Rainbow Jo, a dynamic upcountry clothing company, offers original artwork on clothing by Maui resident and designer Michele Joy Thornton. Since 1986, Thornton has served wholesale and retail customers throughout Hawaii and beyond with innovative and updated resort wear. Headquartered in Makawao, with a factory in Indonesia and her own building with a retail store and an Airbnb in historic downtown Hilo on the Big Island, Thornton manages both her Hawaii and overseas production staff.
Creating all of her own fabrics, Thornton’s designs and colors are complex, with each design requiring seven different screens for the process. She works out the color theories, doing the print designs and working with silk screeners to turn her artistic ideas into technically perfect realities.
“At Rainbow Jo, all of my original artwork is hand silk-screened onto natural fiber rayon clothing and steam set, using no chemicals to set the dye,” Thornton explained. “Plus, the highest quality French seams are used to ensure that the clothing from Rainbow Jo is always perfectly made and easy to care for. The ideas for my prints are inspired by nature and Maui’s beauty. I believe the continued successful growth of the company comes from my strong retail background, and my love of color and design.”
Thornton started selling clothing at age 16 and through the years her work led her to Hawaii. In 1982 she received a degree in marketing from Indiana University School of Business and after years of working in the clothing industry she was ready to begin her own venture.
Thornton reflected, “My ambition was to own my own business and Maui was the perfect location. Currently, the pandemic has changed normal business routines. At Rainbow Jo we have stayed resilient with an online business and now many of our island-wide retail stores have re-opened. My plan is to stay flexible enough to know when to make changes and follow new trends and procedures. My hope is that careful planning and the hard work that built Rainbow Jo will see us through the Covid crisis. Persistence and resilience are everything!”
We feel blessed at Rainbow Jo to be resilient in an economic climate that has hit small businesses hard.
Michele Joy Thornton, Rainbow Jo, owner and designer
Maui Nui Marine Resource Council (MNMRC), a nonprofit organization founded in 2007, is recognized for working with the local community to create culturally appropriate and effective science-based solutions to serious threats facing Maui County’s reefs and environment. With unemployment at record levels because of Covid-19, MNMRC was recently a fiscal sponsor of a County of Maui Office of Economic Development (OED) Maui CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) program.
“Our vision is healthy coral reefs, clean ocean water, and abundant native fish,” said Mike Fogarty, MNMRC Executive Director and a principal organizer of the program. “Our team is grateful for this wonderful opportunity to help coral reefs and the surrounding environment and to provide paychecks to unemployed workers on Maui and Molokai during this challenging time of Covid-19. We thank Mayor Victorino and the OED for taking the bold step to establish the Maui CARES program with funding through the Federal CARES Act.”
MNMRC managed the rapid employment of more than 70 Maui and Molokai residents to work for seven local conservation nonprofits. The unique collaborative employment and workforce training program had a great impact on the local environment. The projects and accomplishments incorporated traditional Hawaiian cultural practices and modern technology to prevent sediment pollution in the ocean and protect valuable cultural resources.
“Many problems facing the local reefs originate on land, which is why the MNMRC projects and programs are community-based and work from mountain to sea, mauka to makai,” Lindsey said. “All projects were rooted in Hawaiian traditions and values that serve as the foundation of the community. They are all of great importance; a celebration of all that was accomplished and learned by those who came before us. The employees put their heart and soul into these challenging and impactful tasks.”
The participating nonprofits included: Ka Honua Momona on Molokai; Kipahulu ‘Ohana in East Maui; Hawaiian Islands Land Trust in Waihe’e; Ke Ao Hali’i in Hana; Kipuka Olowalu in West Maui; Na Moku Aupuni O Ko’olau Hui in East Maui; and Na Mamo O Mu’olea in East Maui.
The MNMRC workers ensured that legendary places would endure for generations to come.
Mike Fogarty, Executive Director, Maui Nui Marine Resource Council
As we celebrate Women’s History Month across the nation, Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB) pays tribute to the late Maui-born Patsy Takemoto Mink, whose extraordinary achievements brought gender equality and other social justice issues to the forefront. Women’s History Month celebrates the contributions women have made to our country and recognizes their specific achievements over the course of American history in a variety of fields. In 1972, Time Magazine named Mink one of 100 women of the year who leveled the playing field, overcame oppression and worked to bring about changes in Hawaii and the world.
Representative Mink, rejected from numerous medical schools because she was a woman, also faced discrimination as a practicing lawyer. She then devoted her life to advocating for gender equality and educational reform. She was the first Asian-American woman to practice law in Hawaii and the first Asian-American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Mink said, “We have to build things that we want to see accomplished, in life and in our country, based on our own personal experiences, to make sure that others do not have to suffer the same discrimination.”
“As a champion for equity, Congresswoman Mink was one of the most influential voices in advancing women’s rights, civil rights, racial and social justice in the 20th Century,” said MEDB President & CEO Leslie Wilkins. Serving Hawaii and the nation for 13 Congressional terms, Representative Mink was the principal author of Title IX in the House of Representatives, with the late Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana writing the companion legislation in the Senate. Its enactment in 1972 mandated equal access for women’s academic and athletic programs in institutions receiving federal funding. Following her death in 2002, Title IX was officially renamed the Patsy Takemoto Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act.
In October 1975, Mink told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, “It is easy enough to vote right and be consistently with the majority, but it is often more important to be ahead of the majority. This means being willing to cut the first furrow in the ground and stand alone for a while if necessary.”
Representative Mink’s life-long advocacy for equality continues to inspire us to build upon her legacy.
As for many businesses during the worldwide pandemic, it has been a challenging time for small community pharmacies. Kimberly Mikami Svetin, the third president of family-run Molokai Drugs, Inc., is worried about what is happening state-wide in her industry and across the country. “Our small pharmacies are going out of business,” Svetin said. “It is tragic. With everyone shopping online or going to the major chain stores, all small businesses, including mine, are being affected. I am a vocal supporter for small businesses, and am involved in our community with legislative matters that affect them.”
Molokai Drugs was founded in 1935 by Svetin’s late grandfather, Richard Sakata, who was Molokai’s first pharmacist. Several members of the family have taken part in the growth of Hawaii’s oldest independent pharmacy since then, including her father, David Mikami, who became the island’s second pharmacist in 1969.
Svetin currently oversees a staff of 29 employees, most of whom work between the pharmacy and the family’s 48-flavor ice cream shop. In fact, one employee, Frank Maniago, Jr. recently celebrated his 32nd anniversary at the pharmacy. In 1988, Mikami hired Frank two days before Christmas and he has been their right-hand man since, helping with the pharmacy’s services, delivering hospital beds to hospice patients, fixing broken wheelchairs, delivering prescriptions to kupuna, and other pharmacy services in the community.
Svetin is responsible for all management, human resources, marketing, community relations, purchasing, finance, and legal matters. “My focus right now is also on training future employees,” she added. “I am encouraging internships through the Aloha Connection Innovation program by employing people who want to work in pharmacy. I have collaborated with Frank De Rego, Jr., Director of Business Development Projects at Maui Economic Development Board, on this new initiative to nurture and grow knowledge-based work opportunities. Our stores are also focused on giving opportunities to Molokai’s public school students.”
Svetin concluded, “My personal legacy here at the pharmacy is to be a good employer, offer exceptional customer service, mentor the future generation and advocate for local businesses. Please support your local shops. The mom-and-pop businesses make Hawaii special and unique.”
My parents and late grandparents placed a high value on community service. I recall them often returning to the pharmacy at night to fill an emergency prescription
