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Pledges gathered to host Asia bank meeting
Corporate fund-raisers say they have gathered business pledges of $400,000 and expect to pull in another $100,000 to help underwrite state costs to host the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank in Honolulu on May 7-11.
Meeting steering committee chairman Walter Dods said organizers also intend to raise $500,000 of in-kind contributions — donations of computer hardware, copying services and related conference materials — to meet a goal of $1 million in contributions.
Dods is president and chief executive officer for BancWest Corp., the parent company of First Hawaiian Bank, which has made the largest single contribution of $100,000. Other big contributions have come from United Airlines, which gave $50,000, and four companies that donated $25,000 each: Alexander & Baldwin, Verizon, Ford Motor Co. and the French-owned bank BNP Paribas.
Finance ministers for the bank’s 60 member nations will gather at the meeting to review the multilateral organization’s programs aimed at improving conditions in developing nations. An estimated 3,000 participants — including about 1,000 business people from the Islands — will take part in four days of seminars, receptions and ceremonies.
Pathways Group to close facility
The Pathways Group Inc. announced late yesterday that it will restructure operations and close its Honolulu sales facility as part of a plan to solidify its financial performance.
The company said it also will reduce space in its corporate office in Woodinville, Wash., and in Santa Rosa, Calif. Pathways formed a Hawaii-based subsidiary in 1997 to build a manufacturing and processing center in the Islands, and said at the time that it was committed to hiring 25 to 30 workers.
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