Bulletins – Hawaii Information Service

Although he was born in Honolulu, and is now working and raising a family on Oahu, Mike Torres has family roots that span the islands.

His father was born and raised in Hilo on the Big Island, eventually becoming a doctor. His mother was born on Molokai, the daughter of a plantation leader, and grew up to become a nurse. They had settled for a time on the Windward side of Oahu, but Mike had barely started school at Kailua Elementary when his family relocated to the Garden Island.

“I think my dad wanted to be a doctor for people like his father, who was a plantation guy,” Mike explains. “He wanted to help people who reminded him of his father.”

The oldest of three kids, Mike attended Waimea Canyon Elementary, then Waimea High School.

“I was not bookish, but I was not a jock,” he recalls. “I played more individual sports, like golf and bowling, but otherwise my friends and I would have fun camping or just running around in the cane fields.”

Mike excelled at golf, ranking in the top 15 high school players in state. He was also a Boy Scout, and earned the Eagle Scout rank, the highest advancement in scouting. And academically, he did well.

“I guess people would have considered me a nerd, because I hung out with the kids most likely to be called nerds,” he says. “Not to speak badly of WHS, but it wasn’t that hard to be in the top 20, and I was always in some sort of gifted and talented class.”

When the time came to start planning for college, Mike realized he admired his dad, but couldn’t do what he did for a living.

“My dad was the only internal medicine guy on the island for 20 years, so he would get calls at 2 a.m., and if he didn’t answer, the cops would come to get him,” he recalls. “I did want to be like my dad, but I figured all doctors worked that hard, and I didn’t want to work that hard.”

And although many of his high school friends set their sights on the University of Hawaii, Mike didn’t want to go to a big school, and felt that he should study on the mainland. So when he was a junior, he toured schools all the way down the west coast, deciding to attend the University of Puget Sound in Washington State.

With his classmates back home going into engineering and other technical fields, Mike first tried his hand at hard science. But while he struggled with physics, calculus, and chemistry, he experimented with other disciplines and found that he had a knack for business.

“I started gravitating to business classes, and even to economics, because eventually I had earned enough classes to qualify for a minor,” he explains. “Business was easy, it just made sense.”

Mike admits that he took a while to adjust to living on his own, at first focusing more on parties than on his books. Nonetheless, he worked his way all the way up from academic probation as a freshman to graduating with a 3.4 GPA in business administration.

College was also where Mike would meet the woman he’d eventually marry.

“I met Erin for the first time at a Hawaii club party,” he recalls. “There was a love triangle involving my roomate and her friend, so Erin would often come over with that friend, and she started hanging out with me.”

It was during winter break that she told him she liked him — a revelation that Mike admits could have been handled better.

“She called me up and said, ‘Hey I like you. Get chance or what?’” he recalls. “I was kind of in the middle of something, so I said, ‘Can we talk about this later?’”

Fortunately, they did, and by the time Mike returned to Hawaii, Erin followed him back to the islands and finished school at UH. He enrolled at Hawaii Pacific University to get his Master’s, and she continued on to law school.

“She’s awesome at arguing,” Mike explains.

While he continued his graduate studies, Mike worked odd jobs, from building his first web page for a contractor based at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai to traveling interisland to pull cables and set up networks for the state government. He wound up in retail, selling toner and blank CDs at CompUSA.

“I was definitely looking for something better, so a coworker and I walked over to Hawaii Information Service during a break,” he says. “Next thing I knew, I was interviewed right then and there, still wearing my CompUSA shirt.”

Mike was hired a couple of months later, and started in customer support. But when he got his MBA, he said he wanted to do something more, was promoted to the web team. Today, as webmaster, Mike oversees almost everything Hawaii Information Service puts online, from websites to data feeds.

“When I look at my website designs from back then, I get grossed out, frustrated that I made those,” he says. “But I constantly got better along the way, picking up PHP, object-oriented programming, doing database queries, building frameworks… I just kept finding new things to learn.”

Indeed, in his eight years with the company, Mike has had a hand in nearly all aspects of the business: working directly with customers, doing graphic design, programming, and putting his MBA to work as part of the project management team.

“The coding part is nice because it’s like a puzzle for me, even fun, as I can sit at home watching TV and write code at the same time,” he says. “But the project management part is really interesting.

Often, Mike’s role is translating concepts from “geek” to “business” and back again.

“I love that I get to see all the different levels, from my own stuff in the trenches to and the 30,000-foot view,” he says. “Usually people like me don’t get to see so many different levels of the business and the industry.”

Mike says the company has changed a lot over the last few years, and that he’s nervous but also excited by the path ahead.

“Working in customer service was important because I can understand where our members are coming from, but working with the management team built my loyalty to the team and gave me a sense of ownership of the company and its direction,” he says. “I owe a lot to HIS, I’ve learned and changed a lot, and now I can help make sure it grows and succeeds.”

But Mike says that his toughest job and most rewarding job is being a dad.

After he and Erin married in 2007, and bought their first house in Waipahu in 2009, they welcomed their first child in 2011. His name was Aiden, and two months ago, he met his younger sister, Alyssa.

“I’ve become one of those people who owns a minivan and constantly talks about his kids,” Mike says. “Having kids is as crazy as you think, and harder than you expect — way harder than you expect… but worth it.”

You can ask Mike about his favorite local golf courses (where he no longer has time to play) by emailing him at michael@hawaiiinformation.com. Make sure you didn’t miss our earlier profiles of Diana, Preston, Richard, Faith, Sam, Victor, Jerry, Gay, and Novena.

Hawaii Information is only the second company Diana Haraguchi has worked for.

Her nearly seven years of service at HIS comes after a 34 year career at Honolulu corporate giant Servco. But despite a relatively short resume, the HIS vice president for administration takes pride in having worked in nearly every aspect of business, and even today seeks out new opportunities to spread her wings.

Diana was born in Tokyo, Japan, her father sent there as a translator for military intelligence after the war. But her family returned to Hawaii when she was four months old. By the time she was four years old, her mother had left, so she credits her dad and grandmother for raising her and her two brothers.

She was the middle child, and had a very active childhood.

“In the neighborhood where we grew up, Manana Naval Vets housing in Pearl City, there was only one other girl,” she said. “So no dolls, no dresses, and we would play baseball, football, basketball… I was a total tomboy.”

Diana attended Pearl City Elementary, Highlands Intermediate, and — after moving to Waipahu — Waipahu High School.

“It was my uncle’s house, but he lived on the mainland when he bought it,” she recalls. “A three bedroom, two bath place was only $34,000.”

Diana didn’t join any official school clubs, but in the days of high school social clubs, she and some friends named their group “Just Us.” They were a studious crew that took classes together, read together and hung out in the school library almost every day.

“I was geeky, into reading mysteries and epics,” she says. “And I still keep in touch with that core group of friends today.”

Although her dad passed away when she was 17 years old, she stuck with her plan and enrolled at UH Manoa with an ambitious goal of earning a mathematics degree. But after a few semesters of racking up empty credits while she waited for required math courses to become available, she realized that she already had enough credits to get a psychology degree instead.

“I didn’t know how much longer I wanted to stay in school, so I graduated with that,” she recalls.

It was during college that she got her first, and only other, job, at Gibson’s Discount Department Store in Mapunapuna. Starting as a sales clerk, she was able to pay her way through college, and from there, Diana says her corporate journey was set.

“Working at Gibsons led me onto the path I’m on now,” she says, noting that she was quickly promoted to marketing manager, then shifted to the administrative offices as an executive assistant.

“They gave me the first computer in our division, a Zenith, and they just plopped this clunker on my desk,” she recalls. “No instructions, no training, so from then on, everything I know about computers and applications I had to learn myself.”

But Diana says that she saw that as something new and interesting rather than a challenge. Her role shifted again to retail property management and development, and she even earned her Realtors license, and in working with contracts and lenders and tenants, picked up skills that she uses every day at HIS.

As Servco CEO George Fukunaga explored new lines of business, she followed and learned along the way. Diana says, “I’m really thankful of all the opportunities that were there, for the experience that he gave me.”

And just like that, she had been working for Servco for more than three decades. During that time, she met and married her husband, a veteran carpentry foreman, moved to Pacific Palisades, and raised two children, Nickolas and Jillian.

“I’m so thankful they turned out to be good kids, no problems in school, and both have finished college,” she says with relief. “My son is more happy go lucky, while my daughter is more like me, intense and driven.”

“I’m kind of driven but I have fun too,” she adds. “I’m not as serious about certain things.”

With her children now young adults, Diana figured it was time for a change, and in May 2006, she landed at Hawaii Information Service. After working on projects that lasted years and years, she said she was looking for something simpler, more day to day.

“Of course it didn’t turn out that way,” she laughs.

Diana fell naturally into the administrative side of things, working as the executive assistant to the CEO while also focusing on contracts, bylaws, and rules. She played a part in nearly every aspect of the business, and she was glad for it.

“That first thought that I was going to come and just do one thing, that changed, and needed to change,” she says. “There’s always something that comes up, always something new to get involved with, and that’s one of the things that motivates me to stay.”

But Diana is also quite fond of the small, close-knit team she works with every day.

“It is just like a family here, and it’s so different from being at a big company,” she says. “At my last job, our company had over 1,000 employees, and so many tiers of management and procedures, you had to work your way up to senior management just to get approval to buy a $30 calculator.”

She also likes working with HIS members, who she says are very different from the business people you might find on Oahu.

“It’s refreshing to work with neighbor island folks, they’re different, they have lots of aloha, they say ‘mahalo,’ and we don’t do that as much on Oahu,” she explains. “Much less politics, more ‘what you see is what you get,’ very earnest and direct.”

In addition to her administrative acumen, Diana is also known in the office for her skills in the kitchen. She’s hailed by her coworkers as an excellent baker and cook, although she downplays her abilities.

“I’d been cooking for the family since I was 12, so in a way, I had to do it, and I wanted whatever I did to be good,” she says. “I couldn’t do it for a living, but I like doing it for people who enjoy it.”

Outside of the office, Diana’s skills extend to sewing, knitting, and quilting. She speaks fondly of her 1952 Singer sewing machine, converted from pedal power to an electric model, that she still uses today. She says she used to be able to sew a dress a week, and made all of her own clothes for years. And the walls of her home feature her quilts, lovingly framed by her husband.

She also passes the time in her garden, growing tomatoes and cucumbers and squash and string beans, even earning ‘Yard of the Month’ from her neighborhood association. And she and her husband are life-long University of Hawaii football fans.

“We’ve had our season tickets since the stadium was built, and we’ve missed very few games, from the VonAppen years to the undefeated season,” she says. “UH went to the Sugar Bowl, and we went to see them play.”

Indeed, Diana says she wouldn’t get out much at all, were it not for football.

“We went to Nevada once, when they played there,” she says. “Next time we go anywhere it’ll probably be a football thing, too.”

You can ask Diana to share the recipe to her famous white chocolate pretzel dessert by emailing her at diana@hawaiiinformation.com. Make sure you didn’t miss our earlier profiles ofPreston, Richard, Faith, Sam, Victor, Jerry, Gay, and Novena.

It may have only been a poker game, but it was the most important hand of cards that Preston Ma would ever face.

Preston, vice president of technology at Hawaii Information Service, was playing against his girlfriend, Julianna. She was the real poker fan, and she was holding an ace and king of hearts. Preston had two aces. He knew her well, and went all in, confident that she would follow suit.

She hesitated, but as expected, she also went all in. On the flop, Julianna found herself with a royal flush. It was the highest possible hand, and an improbable stroke of luck.

Her affirmative response to a message Preston had written on the cards, in a game that he’d carefully architected from the start, brought him good fortune as well. The message read, “Will you marry me?”

That was over four years ago, and today, Preston and Julianna are the proud parents of two boys. And his proven creativity and ability to design and build things has continued to serve him well as he leads the team of software developers at HIS.

Preston’s parents came to Hawaii from Asia, his dad from Hong Kong, and his mom from China. His father built a successful accounting practice, while his mother spent most of her life as a special education teacher. But Preston notes that his mother’s first job was on the pineapple production line at Dole Cannery, the same building where he works today.

They lived in Pearl City, where Preston attended Manana and Pearl City Highlands elementary school. When it came time for high school, his parents decided to enroll him at St. Louis School, an all-boys private Catholic school in Kaimuki.

He was a shy teen, but an athletic one, participating in the school’s wrestling and cross country programs. Preston excelled at science, spending two years on the R&D team. The team’s work with a mountain bike design won both state and national recognition, affording Preston a chance to travel. He and his classmates represented Hawaii at the international competition in Kentucky, then presenting at a science fair in Brazil.

The oldest of three brothers, Preston’s father had hoped he might someday take over his accounting business. But it didn’t take many accounting classes for Preston to realize that he was on a different path.

“It wasn’t for me - too boring, just memorizing stuff and following the order of things,” he recalls. “My mom suggested computers, and that was the next step.”

He had developed an affection for computers, starting with an Apple II machine that his father had bought for his business. So after graduating from high school, Preston enrolled in the Information & Computer Science Program at UH Manoa. At his mother’s suggestion, he also earned an associates degree in Computing, Electronics & Networking Technologies (CENT) at Hawaii Community College.

ICS degree in hand, he started looking for a job, and volunteered at the Life Foundation in the meantime. The non-profit group, dedicated to AIDS prevention and education, had its offices in the Gold Bond Building in Kakaako.

“HIS was in the same building, same floor, right next door, across the stairs,” Preston says. “A lot of people were looking for experience, and that was hard; but HIS was more open, willing to hire people as long as they were committed.”

As a programmer that knew both the database side and the website side of technology, Preston joined HIS in September 2003. It was his first “real” job, and it’s one that he’s now held for nearly a decade.

Six months after his poker proposal, Preston and Julianna were married, followed by a honeymoon in Paris. Nine months later, his son Kingston arrived, and about fourteen months after that, Kingston met his younger brother, Knighton. Preston acknowledges that they’re unusual names.

“It started with my dad, Peter, naming all of us with Ps… Preston, Philip and Patrick,” he explains. “I didn’t want to do Ps again, so I went with names ending with ‘ton.’”

The second name was harder to pick than the first, which was already relatively popular. Gwen Stefani’s son is named Kingston, Preston notes, adding that his older son’s preschool class actually has two of them. But for his second boy, Preston confesses to first spotting “Knighton” in the credits of a movie - albeit as someone’s last name.

“It’s kind of medieval,” he adds. “Though I don’t know what’s left if we have any more kids.”

Raising his own family has brought many changes. He has less time to go running, although he and his wife had twice done the Honolulu Marathon. He no longer participates in a Chinese lion dancing troupe, one of the ways he kept in touch with his family’s culture.

But he’s now an avid gardener, raising flowers as well as growing things like kale and lilikoi. And his wife, once on her way to a career in teaching, is now a happy homebody, focusing on raising and developing their kids.

They both have rediscovered their faith as well.

“I grew up in my family’s church, Calvary Assembly of God in the Palama area, and Julianna joined as well,” he says. “Now, if anything, her faith is stronger than mine.”

Preston says he’s even considering going on a missions trip, perhaps to China, Brazil, or India.

He also credits his mother for making him the man he is today.

“I guess you could say I was a mama’s boy, and she guided me much of my life, including encouraging me to get into computers,” he says. “She was a patient person, a strong person, and I mean physically strong: she worked with physically disabled students at Waipahu High, and often had to move them.”

Preston’s mother died in 2007 after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

“It was a hardship, losing her,” he recalls. “But it showed me that life is short, and that you always have to focus on the people that you love.”

Indeed, Preston had proposed to his wife only a few hours after they had taken his father out to dinner to mark his second wedding anniversary without her. The conversation had revolved around how Preston’s parents has met, and how they fell in love, only strengthening his resolve to be a good husband.

Preston is also proud of the family that he’s found at HIS.

“In the time I’ve been here, it’s felt more and more like a family, an ‘ohana,” he says. “We know everyone well, we’re more close to each other, and you know that everyone’s going to support everyone else, especially in the difficult times.”

While he’s moved from programming to management, he still jumps in to code now and then. And he speaks warmly of his development team.

“In a way, I grew up here, so I learned lots of new things along the way, and now they’re getting the same opportunity,” he says. “I’m proud of my team, what they’ve gone through, and what they’ve been able to do.”

Preston says that he’s learned that his job is more than making applications or websites.

“It’s not just the work we do on our computers, but the work we do on ourselves,” he concludes. “It’s not just professional growth, but all-around growth that matters.”

You can ask Preston about his favorite sci-fi movies (or suggest some) by emailing him atpreston@hawaiiinformation.com. Make sure you didn’t miss our profiles of Richard, Faith, Sam, Victor, Jerry, Gay, and Novena.

Although he grew up in California, Hawaii Information Services CEO Richard Eshleman was born in Hawaii. After school and a stint in the Navy, and a twist of fate or two, he found himself back in the islands. And today, he’s leading the company through one of the most significant steps in its evolution.

Richard was born in the Ewa Sugar Plantation Hospital, a rural O’ahu landmark long since lost. After a dock strike paralyzed Hawaii’s shipping industry and supplies got scarce, adding to the existing challenges of day-to-day life in Hawaii, his family moved to Philadelphia.

“I think we made it through one winter, then moved to California,” he recalls. “I basically grew up in San Diego, attending grade school and high school, and even today most of my friends are from that time in my life.”

After high school, he joined the Navy, and the military was just one of many forces in his life that suggested he belonged in Hawaii.

“Right out of boot camp, they said they were sending me to serve on a boat based on the East Coast, but since it happened to be in Pearl Harbor at the time, they gave me a ticket to Honolulu,” Richard says. “But when I reported in, they said my boat was in Spain or somewhere far away, and asked if I wanted to stay at Pearl Harbor instead.”

He stayed, and spent his Navy career in Pearl Harbor and the wider Pacific theater. He served on a little wooden minesweeper, and on a nuclear submarine.

“My time in the Navy was a really important part of my development,” he says. “Not only did it help me find some structure, it also made me realize that I really did want to go to college — I didn’t want to do hard manual labor for the rest of my life.”

The Ewa Plantation

Once out of the Navy, the G.I. Bill launched him into school at San Diego State University. Unsure of what to study, he started as a history major. But Richard’s father, a businessman, pointed out that there wasn’t much of a future there beyond teaching high school. So he took an accounting class.

“Turns out I did pretty well,” He says. “Math was always a strength of mine, and I guess the idea of having a place for everything seemed to fit my personality.”

So, one class short of a history degree, Richard graduated from SDSU with an accounting degree instead. Marriage and two sons followed, though he held onto his youth through surfing, tennis, dirt bike riding, and even car racing.

“I raced Formula Fords with the Sports Car Club of America, and I even had my own car,” he says. Of course, the term “car” was used loosely, as it was basically an 800 pound frame with four wheels and a 1.6 liter, 100 horsepower motor.

“It was very quick, and eventually, I was in a pretty bad wreck and totaled the car,” he recalls. “My wife was three months pregnant at the time, so the racing car and motorcycles went away.”

Professionally, he landed a gig as Director of Finance and Administration for Scantibodies Laboratory Inc., an international medical diagnostics manufacturer that he watched grow from 50 to over 300 employees. Richard went on to Daycom Systems, a San Diego-based telecom company that saw sales grow from $5 million to $30 million during his tenure as Chief Financial Officer.

Meanwhile, his oldest son moved out and relocated to Hawaii, as did his nephew. So Richard also began making regular trips to the islands. With the roller-coaster economy of the early 2000s, he decided to shop for a condo in Honolulu to stay in during his vacations.

“Basically my ‘temporary’ condo ended up being my home for ten years,” he says. Soon after he decided to move to Hawaii permanently, however, his son moved back to San Diego.

Richard’s Ducati

It was a newspaper ad that brought Richard into the Hawaii Information Services offices, back then a small space on Ala Moana Boulevard where he ended up sharing an office with five people. He earned his MBA in international finance from Hawaii Pacific University while serving as the company controller, then chief operating officer, and was appointed interim CEO in February 2010. He officially got the top post the following May.

“It has been a distinct honor to help lead this company through some of the more challenging times in our industry,” he said at the time. “I look forward to continuing our company’s long history of service and excellence.”

Richard prides himself on building the best team he can, and then letting them do what they do best.

“I don’t micromanage, I’m very hands off, and once you find the right people, I try to get out of their way and just try to support them,” he says. “I like to say I’ve adopted the Hippocratic Oath, ”do no harm.’”

During his tenure, HIS has taken big strides on a number of fronts. REsearch, the company’s home-grown MLS system, was rewritten to work with all major platforms and browsers, beating most national vendors to that milestone. Conversation began in earnest between Hawaii’s three MLSes on ways to share listing data to benefit all island Realtors. And last summer, Richard and the HIS board of directors inked a deal with CoreLogic, one of the country’s largest real estate technology companies, to switch from REsearch to the Matrix MLS system.

“Matrix’s robust platform, speed and flexibility are unmatched,” Richard said in announcing the agreement. “The combination of Matrix’s industry-leading product design, engineering, development expertise and flexibility provides HIS and our clients with the ultimate application.”

The Aloha Runners

As the company evolves, so has Richard’s appreciation for Hawaii.

“Once I moved here, I stopped doing all the things people vacation here to do,” he says. “So over the last few years I’ve again tried to be more of a tourist, dining out, catching live music, and getting active again.”

He still surfs, mostly at spots along O’ahu’s south shore. He also belongs to a local running group, “Aloha Runners,” where he keeps up with members in their 20s, running four to nine miles at a time, three days a week. And he’s also riding a motorcycle again, a Ducati, though he doesn’t ride it nearly as often as he’d like.

But perhaps Richard’s favorite way to pass the time is to read while relaxing on his condo lanai, overlooking Ala Moana Beach Park.

“I read a lot of business books, and I’ve been reading almost everything I can find on the financial crisis, like ‘Too Big to Fail’ by Andrew Ross Sorkin,” he says, firing up his iPad to check his reading list. “I’m also working on ‘One Second After’ by William Forstchen, which explores life after an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack, and Kevin Dutton’s ‘The Wisdom of Psychopaths’ — it’s actually a really good book.”

“I could always run a little more, eat a little healthier, but my life is pretty good,” he says.

You can ask Richard about his favorite south shore surf spots by emailing him atrichard@hawaiiinformation.com. Make sure you didn’t miss our profiles of Faith, Sam, Victor,Jerry, Gay, and Novena.

Faith Geronimo, the Vice President of Operations and General Manager at Hawaii Information Service, followed an unlikely path to where she is today.

But that path — from tomboy through rebellious band geek, winding through car washes, copier sales, and food service — certainly turned out to be the right one for both Faith and the company. Each step brought lessons that have enabled her to revitalize the corporate culture at a company now on the brink of great change.

“I switched to public school at Salt Lake Elementary, where I learned to swear and be obnoxious,” she laughs. “I was not a smart kid, I lacked common sense, and was constantly getting yelled at for not being able to do math.”

Faith with her grandmother and mother.

Her family relocated from Salt Lake to Hawaii Kai, sending Faith to Niu Valley Middle School and then Kaiser High School. But despite shaky grades and an awkward adolescence, she found a sanctuary in music.

“I was always more on the artistic side, and I don’t ever remember not liking or responding to music,” she recalls. Memories of singing in church in Hilo, and even performing as a little girl at old folks’ homes, helped make the Kaiser band room feel like a second home. She started with the ukulele, then moved onto drums, and ultimately rose to percussion section leader.

“Absolutely I’m a band geek,” she says proudly. “Though I was definitely the naughty, more punky band geek.”

When she started, Faith says Kaiser was the “joke band,” invited only to marching band festivals for the entertainment value. But a new band director was brought in, Brian Mizuguchi from Farrington High School, and he turned the program around.

“He was one of the top three teachers that I’ve ever had — he brought passion to our music, he honed my listening skills, and he made me realize the importance of every single part in a piece,” she says. “No part is too small, and even if you have two notes in a whole song, it’s meant to be there, so you have to get it right. It’s definitely something I’ve carried into other parts of my life.”

Faith making music with her band, “After Five.”

She also formed a band with her classmates (named ’5/80′ for the month and year in which they started), and they were good enough to get gigs around town, from McDonald’s to the Easter Seals telethon. And while she was the drummer, and picked up the guitar, she also found her voice.

After she graduated from high school, she joined the workforce, somewhat reluctantly.

“My sister has worked since she could work, but I didn’t get a job until I was 18, because my parents forced me to,” she says. “Even after I started working, my sister would write checks, pay all the bills — I was kind of hopeless.”

But she stuck with that first job, from washing cars to managing rental agents at Dollar Rent-a-Car, for seven years. And like her high school band director, Faith credits her boss with shaping some of the values she has today.

“When I got my first managerial position she asked me to work extra hours, seven days a week instead of six,” Faith says. “She told me, ‘You think title comes without having to work hard? You work the hardest of anybody here.’ I got a major part of my work ethic from her.”

She didn’t even want her next job, rushing to her interview after cruising most of the day on the North Shore, expecting only to check off another box on her unemployment card.

Faith and her friend and former boss Renee.

“I came to the interview with my hair still wet from a quick shower, and got scolded because I didn’t know how to type even though the ad said it was a requirement,” Faith recalls. “But Renee saw something in me that even I didn’t see at the time, and she hired me.”

“Renee was really all about character and leadership — she modeled the behavior she expected from you, she made sure managers went through the same things the employees did, and reached out directly to everyone who worked for her,” Faith says. “She helped me find my talents, she gave me self confidence, and she taught me how to coach.”

After a four year stint as an up-and-coming employee, Faith nonetheless leapt into a chance to try her hand as an entrepreneur. For her next act, she and a partner ran a startup coffee cart company, and in the days before Starbucks, business was pretty good… eventually.

“I had never been so broke, and yet so happy,” she recalls. “We struggled for everything, but had a lot of freedom.”

As they helped set people up with their own small businesses all over the island, Faith cherished the opportunity to share her business and management knowledge and find success in the success of her customers (including the people that eventually founded the Teddy’s Bigger Burger restaurant chain).

Her next two jobs were short but challenging. She was a shift supervisor at a restaurant at the Pacific Beach Hotel in Waikiki, and a manager at Kaka’ako Kitchen. And during that time, against all odds, she also returned to school and earned a bachelor’s degree in business.

Over the years, Faith has had the opportunity to put every lesson and skill she learned into practice at HIS, building the foundations of the company even before it was officially her job to do so. “I’m a lead from any chair kind of person,” she says.

And now, as a vice president and the lead person in charting the company’s path beyond next summer’s transition to a new MLS system, she’s even more resolute in her belief that HIS has evolved into a very different company, and as a result, can continue to succeed.

“I’ve worked for small companies and big companies, good bosses and terrible bosses, and what’s common is that people want to come to work with good people, and that’s the kind of place we’ve tried to create here at HIS,” she says. “Positive growth for a company is something that only comes when it’s happening individually, so to increase productivity and creativity and efficiency, I want to make sure that we all come to work and want to work with each other.”

The Hawaii Information Services ‘ohana.

And with fewer layers of hierarchy and fewer boundaries between departments, she’s proud of the company’s rejuvenated culture of collaboration and recognition.

“We’ve all bought into each other now — we all want each other to be happy and we want success for each other,” she says. “This culture, and this model, has had more success than anything I’ve seen in the last 11 years.”

Perhaps moreso than anyone at the company, Faith lives and breathes her work. But she also knows that her journey is far from over, and continues to invest in her personal growth. Last year, in addition to her job, she earned a Master’s degree in marriage and family therapy. That included dozens of hours in an internship program working with the severely mentally ill.

“Most of my life I wanted to be book smart, so I went on that long quest, and now I’m learning that my smarts were always there, especially in terms of creative things,” she says. “It might not be where I’m making my livelihood, but I’m passionate about music.”

Faith says she can even see writing a book or two, or teaching, in her future. And as far as the teachers and mentors that she’s met through the years, she still keeps them close.

Faith’s sister Michelle now handles accounting at HIS.

She still good friends with Renee, and several coworkers at Renee’s company have come to work for HIS, including Colleen Yasuhara, VP of Product Development. And this year, her sister Michelle joined the team to manage accounting.

“I think my sister is the most significant relationship in my life, and I’m lucky that we don’t compete with each other like siblings often do,” Faith says. “She took care of me when I didn’t know how to take care of myself, and now she’s helping to take care of the company.”

“I think it’s a myth that you can’t work with your family, or with your friends,” Faith adds. “You can, if you have honesty and good communications skills — and without those, you really can’t work with anyone.”

You can ask Faith about the custom ‘ukulele she’s having made by e-mail at faith@hawaiiinformation.com. Make sure you didn’t miss our profiles of Sam, Victor, Jerry,Gay, and Novena.