Posted on: Monday, July 1, 2002

Rod Ohira's People
Beauty rooted in landscaper's devotion, pride

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

Joe Saguto is the man responsible for making Hawai'i Pacific University's Hawai'i Loa campus one of the most beautiful and best-maintained campuses in the country. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

As Brooklyn native Joseph "Joe" Saguto steers his golf cart around a tight corner on the hilly Windward O'ahu campus of Hawai'i Pacific University, the disturbing sight of tire tracks across a well-maintained lawn comes into view.

For Saguto, it's a slap in the face, an insult to his pride and that of his five workers.

"I don't understand how people can do that," he says, more disappointed than upset.

A man who has devoted more than half of his 63 years to landscaping HPU's Hawai'i Loa campus, Saguto admits he's prouder of his work here than on his own yard in Kailua.

He has been involved in the planting of 2,500 trees, 50 different varieties of flowering plants and ground cover on the 150-acre campus near the intersection of the Pali and Kamehameha highways. In 1986 National Professional Grounds Maintenance recognized it as the best-maintained college campus in the United States.

Saguto's signature is everywhere, from the softball field to the re-forested area behind the eight campus buildings. As director of roads and grounds, he's even kept the campus' wastewater treatment plant operating for more than 30 years and is now working on connecting it to the city sewer system.

"The magnificence of Hawai'i Pacific University's Windward Hawai'i Loa campus is directly attributable to Joe's patience, creativity and skill," HPU vice president E. Rick Stepien said. "He took a barren, eroding plot of land and transformed it into one of the most beautiful sites in Windward O'ahu."

Saguto's favorite campus view is from the roof of the three-story Amos Starr and Juliette Montague Cooke Memorial Academic Center building.

"I look around and ask myself, 'Was it worth it?' and the answer is always yes," he said.

"He's an unsung hero because I don't know him and no one else I talked to has heard of him, either," said Ramon "Rom" Duran, a Windward O'ahu resident since 1959 and member of the Outdoor Circle. "Thousands of us drive past that site every day and appreciate the beauty. I remember when it was scrub property. The enhancement of it is an asset to the windward area."

Saguto was in Hawai'i on his honeymoon in November 1969 when he inquired about the landscaping job for the new Hawai'i Loa College campus, which became part of HPU in a 1992 merger. At the time, the Academic Center was the only building on the property. Everything around it was dirt. Making anything grow would be difficult because of the heavy water runoff from the Ko'olaus, gusting winds and poor soil.

"It was the challenge," Saguto said of the reason he accepted the $7,200-a-year job as superintendent of landscape development.

With Hawai'i Loa College holding classes for 80 students at Nu'uanu Congregational Church while its campus was being built, Saguto went to work with a staff of five part-time student workers, which was later increased to 21. Through partnerships with groups such as the Outdoor Circle, he obtained many of the existing trees and plants on campus for free.

Working with the late Robert B. Wood, a retired Army colonel who was the project engineer, Saguto said his first task was to use ground cover to stop the erosion on the slope fronting the Academic Center.

The front of the Academic Center has been an ongoing project because the soil there is high in iron oxide, Saguto said. The Ixora plants currently lining the top slope are not doing well, he noted. "The most difficult part of landscaping this campus was the front of the Academic Center," he said, "because we want to grow something there with color."

There are thousands of trees on the property, most of them Norfork pines planted by Peace Corps volunteers as eight-inch saplings around 1978. There are also 30 monkeypod trees and a good number of eucalyptus, shower, paper bark and bottlebrush trees, as well as bamboo.

The 6-foot-1, 200-pound Saguto, a former competitive weightlifter, marvels at the once foot-tall trees that now dwarf him. "It gives you a sense of accomplishment," he said.

The son of immigrants from Sicily, Saguto worked as a laborer at Freedomland, an amusement park in the Bronx, from 1960 until it closed in 1965. While working at Freedomland, he got interested in landscaping and attended Farmingdale Agricultural College on Long Island. He also took a correspondence course in landscape design before starting a small business.

Saguto began spending winters in Hawai'i in 1965. He married the former Gloria Miranda in 1969 and the couple came to Hawai'i in late November for their honeymoon.

"When we got married, I told my wife we were going to Hawai'i for three months but I had a feeling something was going to happen," Saguto said. "We were here a week and all of a sudden I'm working."

Al Wykoff, one of his weightlifting buddies at Nu'uanu YMCA, encouraged him to apply for the Hawai'i Loa job. "I told Gloria we'd try it for a year and see what happens," Saguto said. "I've been here since."

Kathy Kasten, a 27-year-old nursing student from St. Louis, recently made a videotape of the campus to send home. "The beauty is nothing like I've ever seen before," she said. "It makes you calm down and want to come to school."

Kasten's remark drew a smile from the man standing nearby, who devoted 12 hours a day, seven days a week for so many years to beautifying the campus. He doesn't say it but you know he's thinking, "Yes, it's worth it."

Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.