Steve Petranik has been an editor and reporter for almost four decades and now is the editor of Hawaii Business. Before joining the magazine in 2009, he spent 18 years as an editor at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and five years at the Honolulu Advertiser. He’s reported from six countries on three continents and his stories have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times.
Virtual Interview: Quinn Vittum, Executive Director, Re-use Hawai‘i What has been your company’s latest pivot or innovation? In response to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in Hawai‘i, and to keep our staff and the community protected, we temporarily closed…
How are you coping amid COVID-19 crisis? HiHealthCare is coping with COVID-19 through increased communication among the agency, staff, doctors, case managers and our clients and their families. We are quick to respond to health and safety standards, mandates and…
What has been your company’s latest pivot or innovation? As a media company, we consider all of the things we cannot do any longer and develop ways in which we can replace those with new methods. For example, using remote…
Virtual Interview: Deborah Zysman, Executive Director, Hawai‘i Children’s Action Network How has your organization been able to continue its core mission(s)? Our mission is to build a unified voice for Hawaiʻi’s children. We’re building a movement to ensure all keiki…
How is the Hawai‘i construction industry coping with this unprecedented situation? Hawaii Business Magazine conducted an email interview with Erin Kirihara, senior VP of Rider Levett Bucknall (RLB), who is based in the firm’s Honolulu office, where she directs all…
Virtual interview: Todd Cullison, Executive Director, Hawai‘i Nature Center How has your organization been able to continue its core mission(s)? Hawaii Nature Center is continuing its mission to foster awareness, appreciation, understanding and stewardship of Hawai‘i’s environment through interactive and…
Virtual Interview: Anna Neubauer, President and CEO, Hawaiian Humane Society How has your organization been able to continue its core mission(s)? Our core mission has always been to improve the welfare of animals and to help maintain and nurture the…
How are you coping amid the COVID-19 crisis? Our primary focus during this time is continuing to provide critical financial services to our members, while protecting the health and safety of both our members and employees. We’ve done this a…
How are you coping amid the COVID-19 crisis? We are trying to stay strong. The restaurant industry has been pretty hard hit. We have over 200 locations in 15 states, all of which have had to close their dining rooms.…
How has HANO been able to continue its core mission(s)? Our mission is to unite and strengthen the nonprofit sector as a collective force to improve the quality of life in Hawai‘i. In the context of COVID-19, we continue to…
What has been your nonprofit’s latest pivot or innovation? At IHS, our purpose has always been to get people off the streets and expedited to housing. Yet in this crisis, we need those who are unsheltered to stay put. Instead…
Lanning is the SBA’s State of Hawai‘i Small Business Person of the Year for 2020 What has been your company’s latest pivot or innovation? What has been your company’s latest pivot or innovation? Our latest pivots have been a second…
We are continuing to publish stories researched and written before the COVID-19 crisis, such as this one. The BOSS Survey interviewed 433 business representatives statewide; the 808 Poll reached 473 adult members of the general public statewide. Respondents to…
What has been your nonprofit’s latest pivot or innovation? We are seeking to convert, in a compressed time frame, from on-site clinical visits to remote tele-health visits. We have trained 100 medical providers in four weeks. We have developed daily…
Hawaii Business Magazine has asked each of the county mayors how their government is supporting local businesses and how businesses are supporting the county. Hawai‘i Island Mayor Harry Kim was the first to respond to our emailed questions. Here are…
We are continuing to publish stories researched and written before the COVID-19 crisis, such as this one. The BOSS Survey interviewed 433 company representatives statewide; the 808 Poll reached 473 adult members of the general public statewide. These surveys…
What has been your company’s latest pivot or innovation? We are creatively trying to help our island go virtual! What has been your company’s latest opportunity or opportunities? From hosting virtual craft fairs to helping spread messages about free food…
How are you coping amid the COVID-19 crisis? So far, we’ve been fortunate to have things be fairly business as usual. There are many other industries that have to cope with far more than us. We have been 100% remote…
What has been your company’s latest pivot or innovation? What has been your company’s latest opportunity or opportunities? We feel fortunate to be able to continue pushing toward our mission during these challenging times and remain agile as the situation…
What has been your company's latest pivot or innovation? The foundation of our company for the last 50 years has been to “make business simple” for Hawai‘i, and we are working tirelessly to do just that in response to the…
What has been your company’s latest pivot or innovation? Zippy’s Restaurants latest pivot is our No-Contact Pickup Service, which was recently rolled out for social distancing precautions as well as the safety of our customers and staff. We piloted this…
What has been your company’s latest pivot or innovation? A big part of what we do is provide energy efficiency education and professional development training. Like many faced with adjusting delivery models during this pandemic, we have had to transition…
What has been your company's latest pivot or innovation? At Coldwell Banker we have always had one focus: helping people live exceptional lives. The COVID-19 crisis has shifted how we deliver on that promise. First and foremost is the health…
The high-tech company says it will start testing the therapy and, if successful, make it available quickly Patrick K. Sullivan, the founder and CEO of Oceanit, says the local high-tech company has developed a potential therapy for COVID-19 using an…
How are you coping amid the COVID-19 crisis? COVID-19 has changed the security posture for our company in many ways. First and foremost, we have had a major ramp-up in new applicants from 55 applicants per week to over 130…
AlohaTrace offers a simple way for people in Hawai‘i to help fight the spread of COVID-19. The online platform asks you up to six confidential and anonymous questions. I completed the survey in only 20 seconds because I have no…
Hawaii Business virtually interviewed Ron Vance, President of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals, Hawaii Region, and Chris Hause, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer and VP of Marketing, Sales, & Business Development at Kaiser Permanente. How are you coping…
How are you coping amid the COVID-19 crisis? Our mission of raising money to support University of Hawai‘i students, research and programs is more critical now than ever. Knowing how important and impactful our work is, provides fuel to our…
What has been your company’s latest pivot or innovation? There are obvious and less obvious pivots that we’ve made as a result of the COVID-19 situation. On the visible end, we transitioned to working from home the week before the…
How are you coping with the COVID-19 crisis? The RevoluSun business model is based on Smart Home Specialists meeting with clients to discuss their needs and gather information about their home energy use. As an essential services business, RevoluSun’s focus…
How are you coping amid the COVID-19 crisis? This is an unprecedented global health crisis that is changing the way we live and do business in Hawai‘i. The dramatic change in demand for the products we provide, such as jet…
Did your business continuity plan work, or were there surprises? The magnitude of this crisis, and the way it has affected every region across the globe, is a situation that I don’t think any leader could fully anticipate. Although you…
How are you coping amid the COVID-19 crisis? Ensuring the safety of our employees and our community has been our highest priority amid the COVID-19 crisis. Enhanced safety plan protocols, with an emphasis on personal hygiene and overall job-site sanitation,…
How are you maintaining your company culture? In times like this, we lean even more heavily on our Core Values, which really do define how we do things and treat each other. We have four (Respect, Service, Teamwork, and Continuous…
How are you coping amid the COVID-19 crisis? Our office remains open as we are considered an essential service, however, the majority of our employees are working remotely. Our employees are connecting to our network via VPN. We do have…
How are you coping amid the COVID-19 crisis? Pono Pacific took the approach from the outset of trying to be as informed and prepared for this situation as possible in order to make the best decisions for our team’s safety,…
How are you coping amid the COVID-19 crisis? As an organization, we came together to establish three major priorities to help us rise to this challenge. First, we are stewards within the community, so we need to be responsible and…
How are you coping amid COVID-19 crisis? As a nonprofit organization with a social enterprise model, we are in the unique situation of having to deal with the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on both sides of the spectrum. On…
How are you coping amid the COVID-19 crisis? Like many companies, we will be working remotely for the foreseeable future. While telecommuting has its challenges, we feel fortunate to be able to work from home and continue serving our clients.…
How are you coping with the COVID-19 crisis? We have switched to telework for everyone, even our part-time interns. In our electronics work, we do need access to specific hardware from time to time. Some of this can be done…
