My Favorite Things

February 2, 2010

Jason Ubay,

Bettina Mehnert, COO of Architects Hawaii Ltd., is a well-traveled adrenaline junkie. She surfs, snowboards and runs trails, but also reads and spends time with her adopted daughter, Anna, a pet duck and a pit bull.

Photography

A third-generation architect, Mehnert says her parents collected modern art and always had “really good cameras.” She’s most comfortable with her 35mm Leica but frustrated with her Nikon D300 digital SLR (she’s not yet a digital convert).

Snowboarding

Mehnert grew up skiing in Europe but is now hooked on snowboarding. Her favorite slope is Brighton, Utah, but, with a 5-year-old in tow, she opts for Whistler, British Columbia, where she can drop Anna at the ski school.

Traveling

Don’t ask Mehnert where she’s been, but where she hasn’t been. “What’s missing are large areas of China — I want to go to Mongolia — and I do need to go to Russia. I’ve been pretty much everywhere else.” A favorite memento is a rare mini moai from Easter Island, shaped like one of the many famous large-headed statues found there.

This article appears in the February 2010 issue of Hawaii Business Magazine.