ORIGINS: Husband and wife Andrew and Rita Fowers first met 11 years ago at Brigham Young University Hawaii in Laie, where their location inspired a company. “When I was a senior in college on the North Shore,” says Andrew Fowers,…
ROBOTICS To prepare for Kalani High School’s Robotics 3008, members of Team Magma spend as many as 30 hours a week on everything from building robots as tall as five feet to fundraising for future competitions. The team has received…
As part of Hawaii Business’ C-Suite conference series, we brought together three of Hawaii’s leading CIOs. Todd Nacapuy, chief innovation officer for the state, first talks about driving change and accommodating all kinds of users. Then, Sheh Bertram of Bank…
Tucked inside Battery Bill’s store on Dillingham Boulevard is another store that looks like an oversize walk-in closet, but is, in fact, the epicenter of one of the state’s fastest growing industries. Drone Services Hawaii LLC, open for less than two…
ORIGINS: The instruction methods used by Dan Nash, 28, and Sean Hookano-Briel, 33, to teach math at Waipahu High School drew attention from other teachers. A consulting firm they launched in 2012 created professional-development programs for educators and led to…
Q: My boss and I have very different views, and I’ve discovered he’s monitoring my Facebook posts and tweets. He came to my cubicle yesterday and said, “You’d better watch that stuff you post online.” These are my personal views and my…
Among the faculty and administrators I spoke with, there is a strong consensus that UH Hilo deserves to be recognized as an innovative research and educational center in its own right. “We’re a small but comprehensive university,” says Matthew Platz,…
Inspiration: Farmers told Vincent Kimura they needed an affordable way to protect their crops and increase their yields. Once he had an idea to address that problem, he teamed with Ryan Ozawa, Isar Mostafanezhad and Justin Hedani to create the…
Eric Gleason President, NextEra Energy Hawaii President, NextEra Energy Transmission After a career in investment banking – interrupted by a couple of years backpacking around the world with his wife – Gleason has spent the last six years in the…
"Cosmic Kelly" Ferreira is an expert on kids. “Growing up on Maui, I was the oldest in a family of five, so I was more like a second mom to them,” she recalls. “And I was always an extrovert, not…
Most of them are Millennials, first-generation digital natives strutting their stuff and chiseling new entry points into a post-recession economy. Those who achieve social-media stardom get labelled as “digital talent,” which sounds so Hollywood, but signals their digital charisma and…
"My store got blasted on Yelp. What do I do now?" You and your staff can deliver great service and products, all with a smile, yet still get a bad review online. You can’t control what people say about you,…
For weeks, the astronomers, technicians and support staff working on Mauna Kea watched the protesters. Native Hawaiians and others opposed to the massive Thirty Meter Telescope gathered near the 9,000-foot mark, their encampment near Hale Pohaku, the small campus where…
Batteries are old. In a sense, the last major development in battery technology was the invention of the lead-acid battery in 1859 by the French physicist Gaston Plante. Earlier batteries had short lives, quickly losing their charge as their electrodes…
A young Japanese couple experiences a dream Hawaii vacation. They start the day riding horses along a dusty mountain trail at Kualoa Ranch. Then they cruise down Kalakaua Avenue in a convertible, lounge on Waikiki Beach and end the day parasailing.…
Innovators and investors from around the world are gathering in Honolulu this January for the second annual East Meets West Conference. “Local entrepreneurs will be able to learn from technology companies that have conquered global markets,” says Chenoa Farnsworth, managing…
When Lawrence and Zachary Hester were booking activities for a family vacation in Hawaii, they noticed it wasn’t always a smooth process – so they took it on themselves to make a change. Their solution is FareHarbor, an online booking…
Henk Rogers, Hawaii Business' CEO of the year, does not follow conventions - he ignores or breaks them. Henk Rogers is an unusual choice for Hawaii Business magazine’s CEO of the Year. Past CEOs of the Year have led some…
In the high-tech gold rush of modern Silicon Valley, the people most qualified to succeed are the least capable of handling success.” That’s how HBO describes its buzzy TV show, “Silicon Valley,” but is this characterization true? Ryan Louie shed…
Final bioplastic product: The Miss Sissi lamp. More info: tinyur.com/hnei-bioplastic UH researcher got help from microorganisms to invent green product The Creator Jian Yu didn’t set out to find a way to re-use organic waste. When he first moved to…
We looked into the story of the island’s freshwater, including where it comes from, how good it is and whether we’re taking care of it.
QUESTION: Now that Windows 10 is out, I’m wondering: Should I upgrade or wait? Our company is small and doesn’t have a lot of resources or IT expertise. ANSWER: Since its release in July, there have been tens of millions of…
Phuong-Thao Nguyen’s work at Hawaiian Telcom will affect everyone in the state. It’s important to maintain the passion that first drew you to STEM, says Phuong-Thao Nguyen of Hawaiian Telcom. “Passion is your sense of curiosity,…
There must be blood in the water. Until last year, when Hawaiian Electric Industries announced its intent to merge with Florida energy giant NextEra, the company seemed like a permanent fixture of the local economy. Only a few zealous renewable-energy…