Two new UH regents appointed
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
Michael Hartley, co-founder of Cheap Tickets Inc., and Myron A. Yamasato, vice president for finance of Waikoloa Land Co. on the Big Island, have been named by Gov. Ben Cayetano to the Board of Regents of the University of Hawai'i.
They succeed Dr. Billy Bergin of the Big Island and Sharon R. Weiner of Honolulu.
Yamasato received his BBA at the University of Hawai'i in 1973. He worked as a public accountant for Touche Ross & Co. before joining Hawai'i Economic Development Co. In 1981, he joined the Waikoloa Land Co., a real estate developer, rising to become vice president of finance.
Hartley, who founded Cheap Tickets in Honolulu in 1986 with his wife, developed the company into a nationwide operation with 1,350 employees and $800 million in bookings by 2001, the year he sold it to Cendant Corp. for $425 million.
Cendant is a New York-based real estate, car rental and hotel conglomerate. Since selling Cheap Tickets, Hartley and his wife have formed the Hartley Foundation, to help the needy — "those who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in desperate circumstances."
The regents were briefed on a request to increase underwriting of the UH Foundation budget by about $1.5 million for more staff for the proposed $200 million, six-year fund-raising campaign. The university's share would be about 30 percent of the fund-raising budget, or around $2.5 million, said foundation president Betsy Sloane.
The regents were also asked to approve rental of space at the office building at 677 Ala Moana for at least four departments of the John A. Burns School of Medicine. Consolidating departments there would save $320,000 a year by moving them out of costlier space where they are now, according to a memo from school dean Edwin Cadman. These departments will move into the new medical school when it's completed in Kaka'ako. But, wrote Cadman, the school expects to need more space than will be available at the site, to be completed in 2005.
