Since high school, Ryan has been drawn to helping address the homelessness crisis in our state. Today he serves as Executive Director at Family Promise of Hawaiʻi, an organization dedicated to preventing and ending homelessness for families with children. Ryan shares about his family history of his grandparents fleeing their home country and starting from…
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Brandon has always been self-motivated, so his parents weren’t worried when he switched from medicine to business. He served as COO of Wahiawa General Hospital before becoming Executive Director of Aloha Harvest. He shares some career and leadership lessons, and through his stories (including self-inflicted fitness challenges like doing 45,000 push-ups in one year) we…
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Venus went to college to become a film director, but working at a summer program for kids changed her path. Today she serves as President and CEO of Hale Kipa, which specializes in working with youth and their families who often have nowhere else to turn. Venus shares how she has been shaped by challenges…
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From an early age, Rona just knew she wanted to do charity work. Today Rona serves as President and CEO of Lanakila Pacific, which operates Lanakila Meals on Wheels and Lanakila Custom Products. She shares her experiences and some lessons she’s learned through her career in social services, why she attributes a lot of her…
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Kamaka is the host of the Keep it Aloha Podcast and one of the creators of the Hawaiiverse platform. He grew up speaking Hawaiian as his first language, but didn’t appreciate his culture until after living abroad. He spent three years in Madagascar with the Peace Corps, then came home and started “The Race to…
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Ashleigh grew up wanting to honor her grandparents’ sacrifice and hard work, moving from the Philippines to Hawaiʻi to get their family out of poverty. Her plans were put on hold when she got pregnant right after high school and had to help raise her sisters, but she got her degree 7 years later and…
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Minda shares about visiting the Heart Mountain internment camp where her mother was born, and takes us through her journey from becoming a mother during her senior year of high school, going on to college, working as a chemist after the anthrax scare, then going to law school and becoming a public defender. She shares…
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