The teacher who tested herself

By Katherine Nichols
Advertiser Staff Writer

Irene Motonaga never saw herself as a business owner.

SYNCADD Systems Inc. president Irene Motonaga stands in the production section of her company. In 19 years, she has built a 38-employee information technology and software development business with steadily growing annual revenue. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

"They were fearless. They did not worry about making mistakes," she said of her former pupils. "It was dare to dream. If you believe you can, you can. And I learned from them."

Not knowing exactly what she would do, Motonaga decided to take a two-year leave of absence to explore her options. In 1983, with no business training and $40,000 of her family's savings, she started a drafting service with one employee.

Nineteen years later, Motonaga's Waikiki company has turned into a 38-employee information technology and application development business with annual revenues that have increased an average of 12 percent over the last four years. Last month, the Minority Business Development Center of Honolulu recognized SYNCADD Systems Inc. as the Outstanding Minority Technology Firm of the year in the software development category.

"I think Irene does a great job of gauging the marketplace and filling a niche," said Jean Williams, project director for the Minority Business Development Center of Honolulu. "She spends time educating her customers and her staff. She's willing to invest in that education or training, which really translates into staff and customer participation."

SYNCADD uses technology based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) — a computer system that displays data according to location — to help the military, businesses and government agencies manage building space. For instance, the company can create three-dimensional renderings of each building at an installation like Fort Shafter or Schofield Barracks. The Army then can use the renderings to help plan construction and renovations, and assess everything from usage efficiency to how vulnerable certain buildings are to terrorism and streamlining emergency response. It can even calculate how much wall space exists when negotiating a paint contract.

SYNCADD has about five government clients here and in South Korea; the largest is the U.S. Army Pacific.

Motonaga created the name SYNCADD by blending the acronym for computer-aided drafting and design (CADD) with the prefix syn, which means "together." She believes that technology never operates in isolation, and can only be successful when information is shared.

"Things do go up and down," Motonaga said recently in her office filled with international gifts and trinkets overlooking the Ala Wai Canal. Operations must be lean. Employees should be "cross-trained and agile. We have to be flexible and light on our feet to respond to change."

Employees value her attitude

Encouraging people to go beyond their expertise and learn new skills has fostered loyalty and helped her young employees grow.

Delbert Fagaragan is someone Motonaga has by turns pushed and nurtured, beginning with the moment she gave the 30-year-old Radford High School and Leeward Community College graduate — who admitted he "ran around with the wrong people" in his younger years — a chance to turn his life around.

"She's a really good boss," he said. "She acts like another mother to us. ... She really takes care of us."

Fagaragan said he faced challenges when he first started with the company, not the least of which was learning a new system. But Motonaga made sure he was trained properly before he began working with unfamiliar software. In addition, she engages her employees in frequent evaluations to learn how they want to grow in their professional lives.

This is essential, because Motonaga's employees usually need extensive training before beginning work. She recruits from universities and colleges, and advertises in the newspaper. But most find her through the grapevine, as do her customers.

Though other companies in Hawai'i use GIS technology, Motonaga said, nobody else is using it to this extent. However, SYNCADD faces stiff competition from the Mainland and will no longer rely on word-of-mouth recommendations. A Web site will be launched next month with a new marketing campaign.

Trying to avoid the pitfalls of growing too fast, Motonaga wanted to develop the company's expertise, and increase its credibility and integrity with its clients, before advertising heavily.

"The people reflect the quality and characteristics of the boss," said Wayne Hamaguchi, a master planner for the army who first worked with SYNCADD on a special project for the Army's commanding general about 10 years ago. Time was limited, expectations were high, and the small company delivered beyond the Hamaguchi's hopes.

"We were really impressed with their creativity and their imagination, and the grasp they had on the technology," he said. In one part of its operation, SYNCADD has 35 million square feet of building space in its database, laser-measured and drawn in three dimensions.

Hamaguchi said he has stayed with them because Motonaga's team has adapted to new demands and provides a product that's "quantum leaps above what I've seen being produced currently."

But those leaps did not come easily.

Overcoming obstacles

Sitting behind a large, uncluttered desk, Motonaga talked about some of her frustrations and failures, and the years it took to make a profit.

Hair perfectly coiffed over sparkling eyes that deliver a confident gaze and a voice uttering crisp sentences, she seems every inch a person who could sway Mainland businessmen skeptical of her gender and ethnicity — and therefore, her abilities.

"First you've got to believe in what you're doing," she said. "You have to believe so hard that what you're doing is the right thing, the good thing, the smart thing. That gives you the energy that you need. And then you have to have resilience, because you will always have roadblocks. You will always have disappointments. But you keep going."

Growing up in Kane'ohe as Irene Hanaoka, Motonaga worked several jobs, including packing pineapple at the Dole cannery and pumping gas at her father's service station, where her mother also pumped gas and handled the cash register.

Of Japanese ancestry (her grandparents moved to Hawai'i from Japan), she attended Castle High School and Oregon State University, where she trained to become an elementary-school teacher. Thirty-six years ago, she married George Motonaga, whom she met while earning her education degree. Teaching provided intellectual stimulation and a schedule conducive to raising their three children, all of whom are now grown.

After beginning her leave of absence in the early 1980s, her husband's mechanical engineering office, Lange Motonaga Inc., was investigating possible uses of computer-aided design and drafting. She accompanied him to a training seminar in California.

She told him that she loved the technology, and encouraged him to purchase it. Motonaga said her husband's response was this: "'Well, you love it so much, why don't you? You've been looking for some kind of business to start.'"

So she did. About a year after she started the drafting service business, software vendors approached Motonaga to sell the product.

She said, "that thrust me right into sales." And beyond. She put hardware and software together, delivered it, and trained architects, engineers and government employees.

Years later, her inability to pay the bills with sales alone moved her away from hardware and into services. But it was never simple.

"I worked so hard to learn the software," she said. "The minute I learned everything, it was obsolete."

But every time an opportunity arose, she told customers that her company could provide the service they needed. And that growth continues.

Future uses of SYNCADD's programs include master planning, utilities management, tracking the impact a development might have on cultural sites, and evaluating the environmental impact of pest control treatments.

"You could use the information so many ways," said Motonaga. "We're just scratching the surface."

While she admits that today's economy has placed new hurdles in her path, she also said that "for me it's the most exciting time of all my years, only because I see potential."