Leadership Corner: Geri Marullo

Interviewed by David Butts
Advertiser Staff Writer

Title: President and CEO

Organization: Child & Family Service, Hawai'i's largest non-profit, with a staff of 850 and annual budget of $34 million

Age: 52

High school: Mercy in Riverhead, N.Y.

College: Hunter College, New York and University of Hawai'i, master's in nursing

Little known fact: Been rescued twice by the Coast Guard while kayaking.

Major challenge: Patience. Learning to wait and be calm while waiting. Understanding how other people pace themselves. Allowing people to work at their own pace.

Breakthrough job: Deputy director of the state Department of Health in 1989. "I went from managing nine people at Hawaii Nurses to managing over 1,200."

Q. What is the state of children and families in Hawai'i?

A. I think we are going backward quickly. During the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a real emphasis on prevention and early intervention for children who are at risk. We had aggressive immunization programs. We had aggressive programs to make sure poor women were in prenatal care for the first trimester. We had a school of public health that was extremely active in the community.

Now we have an ice (crystal methamphetamine) epidemic. We have a family violence epidemic. We have major public health and social service problems, and we have a crippled, in my opinion, Department of Health and Department of Human Services compared to 10 and 12 years ago.

In many categories, Hawai'i was No. 1, in the lowest infant mortality rates, in the highest immunization rates and a number of different areas. We are slipping to 15th, 16th, 20th. I think it's about the state's overall commitment to public health and prevention of illness.

If you look where many of the resources are going to now, especially in the (University of Hawai'i) School of Medicine and the new Kaka'ako medical school, cancer, medical trials, research ... all of those things are important, but they don't focus on the prevention of these diseases to keep Hawai'i healthy.

Q. Many of these are looked at as vehicles for business expansion or ways to attract companies that are doing biotechnology. Is that a mistake?

A. We are using our resources as an economic engine. That's a different strategy and approach. There is a big void then in using resources for health promotion and disease prevention for the already existing population. We've made a choice. I don't think using the School of Medicine or bringing biotech companies in and attracting research specialists is bad, but we made a choice. We didn't do both.

Q. What do you think is the right approach to cutting drug use?

A. We are using a preventive health model to ensure an economic future in the Leeward area. We are raising money to target the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders of the Leeward schools. We believe when you are in fourth grade, you still dream that you are going to be a policeman a fireman, whatever. When you are in fifth grade, you still dream. By the time you are in sixth grade, you start looking around and realize you may not get there. You start realizing, "Gee, I'm poor." And you start losing that image of yourself 10 years from now.

We want to develop a job inventory (for Leeward communities in five or 10 years). Let's look at a preferred future: being able to support yourself and your family. If you engage in that, you know that ice will crush that dream, the dream snuffer, and perhaps you'll have a better chance to give them something tangible to hold on to.

Q. And you think this is the best way to prevent drug use?

A. This is one strategy. There are a number of different strategies. Treatment strategies. Public safety strategy of locking away people. There are self-help strategies — Just Say No, DARE. But they are all focused on "the problem."

The real vulnerable area where we think most people get involved with drugs is right after they leave high school. Once they are out of a structured environment and they are unemployed and their dreams are gone, that's when we think young adults get in trouble with drugs. What we want to do is create an opportunity for children in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades to learn about what their future is going to look like. And to hook kids up with real dreams, because we know these jobs are going to be available. Do it as a communitywide effort.

Q. How prevalent is family violence in Hawai'i?

A. We are overrepresented compared to other states in issues related to family violence. A good majority of family violence is related to drug or alcohol abuse; 80 percent of those families have a substance abuse issue.

The thing we do most on a daily basis at Child & Family is teach parents to be parents. How to control your anger. How to discipline a child in a loving way. How to set limits.

Q. What motivates people who work in social services?

A. It doesn't make sense to work long, hard hours, to get paid less than people who are doing easier jobs, to put yourself in dangerous situations — working with an infectious disease or going into an iffy neighborhood. There is no logical reason why anyone would want to put themselves in that position day in and day out. I have to almost believe that the employees of Child & Family and the nurses that I've worked with over the years have some kind of biological, genetic override and just do it because they can't help themselves.

Q. About 80 percent of your funding comes from the government. Why not just let the government do it?

A. The state of Hawai'i chose to outsource their human service programs to the private sector. They did that for a number of reasons. The programs that we provide have a lot more flexibility. The state public-sector system has a lot of civil service constraints and other government restraints.

It makes me wonder sometimes when state officials say the human service nonprofits should wean themselves off of state coffers, which I find incredulous because it was the choice of the state government of Hawai'i to use the human service/social service agencies as an extension of themselves in the community.

We are much more cost-effective than state government could ever be. Hiring is quicker. We institute programs internally with our employees that we don't have to go through a year or two of review. We can reorganize without two or three years of union oversight.

Another thing is, this month we have $4.1 million in accounts receivable. We pay $70,000 to $100,000 in interest per year to banks for money we borrow to cover costs between when services are provided (a grant is approved) and when the money arrives. Can you imagine how much we are fronting the government? This interest cost is not allowed to be charged back to the state or negotiated as refundable.