Hawai'i hui in Bay Area offers expats a route home

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

It started out four years ago as a Hawai'i social group in the San Francisco Bay Area. Now Global Pau Hana has 10 fledgling chapters from London to Shanghai, and represents new hope for expatriates hoping to find good-paying jobs back in the Islands.

Dave Kozuki founded the Bay Area Pau Hana out of his home in San Jose as a way to meet new friends in a strange place and remind himself of familiar touches from home.

Kozuki, 40, moved to California four years ago to take a job with a Palo Alto telecommunications company because "I wanted the opportunity to see how an Island boy could do, working with the best and the brightest over here."

He had six friends tell their Hawai'i-born friends to meet at a restaurant in Mountain View, north of San Jose. Thirty-five people showed up.

Before long, the monthly gatherings swelled with 500 people — most of them professional 20- and 30-somethings who found familiarity in Cazimero concerts and Saturday picnics filled with local-style foods.

Keith Kamisugi, 32, formerly of Mililani, had gone to Hawai'i-based events in the San Francisco area before. But Bay Area Pau Hana threw large, regular events like no one else.

"It was really the premier meeting event series for kama'aina ex-pats, bar none," said the independent public relations consultant who once worked for governors John Waihee and Ben Cayetano.

"I would run into people I knew back in Hawai'i — from high school, college, jobs — and neither of us knew we were here," he said.

By May, Kozuki saw bigger opportunities to connect expatriates with their dreams of home.

The group had grown to 1,800 members, and former Hawai'i residents from all over the world were contacting him about starting their own chapters.

Making connections

Bay Area Pau Hana joined part of a May event in Palo Alto that included Hawai'i state representatives and a teleconference with Gov. Linda Lingle. As a result, three Bay Area companies flew to Hawai'i to inquire about setting up branch offices, said Phil Bossert, executive director and CEO of High Technology Development Corp., which is helping the Pau Hana group with its Web site.

One biotechnology company and an information technology company are still corresponding with state officials, Bossert said.

The conference also saw Bay Area Pau Hana membership jump to 2,100, and Kozuki decided to change the group's name as its mission expanded.

Global Pau Hana has since been mentioned several times by Lingle and received technical support from the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism; the Hawai'i Tourism Authority and the High Technology Development Corp.

The nonprofit group is working on its Web site — www.globalpauhana.org — and hopes to have a comprehensive database within months of hundreds of former Hawai'i residents who might like to return home someday — as well as lists of companies looking to hire them.

"From the state's standpoint, we need to attract back experienced professionals to meet the high-tech needs of the state," said Bossert. "It's a huge opportunity for us to get the word out about jobs to people interested in Hawai'i, so they can bring back their experience in biotechnology or information technology."

New, old life

Lori Young, who became Lori Timmons three months ago, has been surprised by the huge interest in Global Pau Hana.

She was one of the original members.

"We started with 20 to 30 people and it grew to several hundred," she said. "Now there are thousands on the list."

As Lori Young, Timmons was the 1997 Miss Chinatown. Three years ago, she moved to Saratoga, Calif., for a sales job with Sprint.

She and Kozuki are on the board of directors of the Hawai'i Chamber of Commerce of Northern California. But Timmons sees more potential for Global Pau Hana to bring Hawai'i's sons and daughters home.

She and her husband, Kevin, were in Honolulu yesterday for her sister's wedding and to look at property for a potential return.

"If we do move here, what are we going to do? We don't think there are many jobs here," she said.

"But Hawai'i's always part of our heart."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.