Hawaii Business Magazine - March 2012

Admin Staff - Sean Bova

Ocean Learning

There’s a new way for children and adults to view tropical sea life and even touch some of it. The Living Art Marine Center near the airport has a modest collection of fish tanks with creatures from around the Pacific,…

Pau Hana with Barron Gus

At 4 on a Sunday afternoon, Barron Guss – businessman, entrepreneur, inventor – is often at the field mauka of Kailua’s Kawainui Marsh flying part of his vast collection of remote-controlled helicopters and airplanes. His passion for flight began in…

Custom Cakes

What’s It Worth? $3,000 Abigail Langlas makes special occasions especially sweet. The cake artist and pastry chef created a four-foot cake shaped like a 1959 pink Cadillac for the 50th anniversary of the Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association three years ago.…

Train to be a Yoga Master

If you are seeking calm in a hectic world, you may find it at a yoga school in Puna, surrounded by a Big Island rain forest. Among the classes at the Yoga Oasis is a 200-hour, monthlong program for Yoga…

Advice from the top

ART USHIJIMA, President & CEO, The Queen’s Health System Art Ushijima has been at Queen’s since 1989 and its chief executive since 2005. Interviewed BY Jason Ubay HB: The Queen’s Medical Center is a 153-year-old Hawaiian institution. What’s the most…

Teaching Dollars and Sense

With so many individuals, businesses and governments facing financial problems, it is more critical than ever that people learn about economics and finance from a young age. However, the subjects are rarely taught in local high schools. The Hawaii Council…

Pssst, Your Employees May Have a Secret

A new company offers Hawaii businesses something unique: a peek at secrets that may be hidden inside their own organizations. Risk Source Hawaii provides customers with a 24-hour whistleblower hotline so the customers’ employees can report workplace problems anonymously. “Through…

My Job: Magician

Name: John Hirokawa Job: Master illusionist, Magic of Polynesia Experience: 39 years as a performing magician Starting out: When he was about 8, Hirokawa saw the 1953 movie, “Houdini,” starring Tony Curtis, and was entranced. “My mom borrowed magic books…

ReadiBand: Identify, Assess and Manage Fatigue

What is ReadiBand? ReadiBand is a civilian product that commercializes technology developed for the military to identify, assess and manage fatigue. It is made by Fatigue Science, a spin-off of Archinoetics, a Hawaii-based, dual-use company. How does it work? ReadiBand…

Charging Up the Visa

A little belatedly, the rest of the country is getting it: Tourism is big business. This realization is at the heart of President Obama’s executive order in January, which calls for a national strategy to make America the world’s top…

Salesperson of the Year Shares Her Sales Secrets: Vicky Cayetano

Vicky Cayetano, president and CEO for United Laundry Services, will receive the “Salesperson of the Year” award next month from the Hawaii chapter of Sales and Marketing Executives International. Hawaii Business publisher David Tumilowicz recently asked Cayetano about her sales…

New Voice for Hawaiians

With another Hawaiian Renaissance on the horizon, two local media companies are collaborating on a new forum to report on and explain coming events. The Kalaimoku Group and aio are launching Mana, a magazine designed for Native Hawaiians and others…

Ask SmallBiz: Buying Commercial Property

Q. I’m tired of renting space for my business. Is this a good time to buy a commercial property? If so, how do I get financing and what options are available?    A.  Your timing is good. The current financing environment offers…

SEO Tips for your Small Business

When Todd Yamanaka joined Island Insurance 11 years ago, the company’s website,www.islandinsurance.com, was essentially a tool that shared basic information about the company’s products. That was it. Needless to say, the site didn’t rank at the top in search results,…

Behind the Scenes at Polynesian Cultural Center

      6:37 pm, Thursday Polynesian Cultural Center, Laie Photographer: David Croxford >> Wardrobe worker Aliecha Wilkenson assigns costumes before the show to the actresses of Ha: Breath of Life. More than 120 costumes are used in the performance. A…

Editor's Note: More Than Just the Chinese Will Visit Hawaii

Chinese visitors in their 20s and 30s. At least I assumed they were Chinese and, judging from their features, probably from the northwest provinces of China. But when we reached a security checkpoint, they pulled out their Mongolian passports. (Please,…

Talk Story with Mike McCartney of HTA

Mike  McCartney President & CEO, Hawaii Tourism Authority McCartney, who served on the APEC 2011 Hawaii Host Committee, discusses the after-effects of APEC and HTA’s plans for 2012. How will APEC affect Hawaii’s visitor industry now and into the future?…

Aloha for Japan Revealed Hawaii’s Heart

Though it was an ocean away, the devastating earthquake, tsunami and ensuing nuclear crisis that ravaged northeastern Japan in March 2011 struck Hawaii in the heart. People all over the world grieved over the magnitude of the tragedy, but it…

Best Practical Jokes at Work

First Place: Baldridge & Associates Structural Engineering Inc. OVERALL WINNER - THE FOOSBALL HIJACKING Victim: STEVE BALDRIDGE, president, BASE Pranksters: BASE EMPLOYEES BASE employees wanted a foosball table, so when president Steve Baldridge was gone on a business trip, they bought a used table.…

Cheaper Now to Fly into Kalaupapa

There are two ways to reach Molokai’s isolated settlement of Kalaupapa. You can ride a mule or walk along the 3.2-mile trail that descends the 1,700-foot cliff along 26 switchbacks, or you can fly. Those are the only ways to…