Excellence in Business and Charitable Giving - Hawaii Business Magazine
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Excellence in Business Awards
First Hawaiian Bank’s Generosity
First Hawaiian Bank’s 1,961 employees contributed 7,362 hours of their own time and $886,450 of their own money through a giving program called Kōkua Mai, with participation above 99%.
Kenn Nishihira’s Story
(Excerpt from a nomination for Kenn Nishihira)
When I looked up from reading Kenn Nishihira’s life story, he was wiping away tears. His wife, Iris, was sitting beside him.
It was September, and I was sharing the stage with Hawaii Business Magazine publisher Kent Coules at the magazine’s Excellence in Business Awards, reading the story of one of the 30-plus honorees.
The words weren’t mine. They came from his nomination, written by Bobbie Medeiros of First Hawaiian Bank.
Kenn started as a rodman in 1978, helped survey the H-3 freeway for the state, and joined the City and County of Honolulu in 1992. He earned his professional land surveyor’s license in 1996. Then, in 2000, he started KN Surveying, and for 17 years he ran it on Saturdays and Sundays while working full time for the city.
When he retired in 2017 after 30 years in public service, he took the company full-time that October with six employees. Today he oversees 19, and the firm gets steady work from builders like DR Horton and Alexander & Baldwin, along with new demand from rebuilding on Maui and Hawai‘i island.
But the line I couldn’t shake was the last one in Bobbie’s nomination:
“To showcase his great heart, Kenn’s sister-in-law passed away a few years ago and he took in her two sons, his nephews, into his home and employed them at his company. It is his hope that some day they will learn to love working the business and maybe someday take it over. That would be a great family legacy.”
Another Honoree: John Leong
Another honoree, John Leong, made a different kind of choice. After graduating from Wharton School of Business in 2000, he turned down a lucrative investment banking job to move back to Hawai‘i and start a non-profit.