OUR HONOLULU
Toughness, generosity fill Pfeiffer's legacy
By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist
He was a deck hand who made it to the board room, a hula dancer who transformed shipping in the Pacific, a tough executive who set a standard for giving money away.
Robert J. Pfeiffer always wore loud aloha shirts that were too big. He had a low opinion of interoffice e-mail. When he wanted to talk to somebody in the Alexander & Baldwin building, he got up from behind his desk on the second floor, walked down the hall or took the stairs, and said what he had to say face to face.
Talk about tough. When Harry Weinberg and Pfeiffer tangled, it was Weinberg who came out second best. Pfeiffer was probably the only top executive in Hawai'i who labor leader Harry Bridges called a friend.
Alexander & Baldwin
When Pfeiffer died Friday in Orinda, Calif., at age 83, Hawai'i lost one of a kind. Name another high-paid executive in Honolulu who people called "Bobby."
Robert Pfeiffer was at the helm of Alexander & Baldwin for more than 12 years.
He was one of Hawai'i's most renowned business leaders, his maritime and business career spanning 58 years. He was at the helm of A&B for more than 12 years of growth and prosperity, modernization and diversification. He headed Alexander & Baldwin ocean transportation subsidiary Matson Navigation for 19 years, longer than any chief executive since founder William Matson.
I interviewed him once. He gave me an hour. Then he got up, shook hands and walked out.
God help the Matson skipper whose ship came in behind schedule. Yet, Bobby Pfeiffer hired the only female sea captain in the U.S. Merchant Marine. And she was pregnant, to boot.
If only he had told more stories about hanging around the waterfront as a boy. I think he was shy, afraid to boast about his years aboard ship because he knew that the Hawaiians he sailed with were better seamen.
"I liked Hawaiians," he said. "They were good to me. When I became an executive, I reminded myself that they helped me grow up."
Alexander & Baldwin
Pfeiffer learned his Hawaiian at Waiohinu in Ka'u on the Big Island, where the family moved the year after he was born in Suva, Fiji, on March 7, 1920. The descendant of an eight-generation line of sea captains, his grandfather shipped out of Hamburg in his own schooner to trade in the South Seas. His father was born in Fiji, and managed a plantation and operated a trading schooner there.
Although Robert Pfeiffer didn't get to go to West Point, he became an officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
From Ka'u the family came to Honolulu in 1929. "From the time I was 10, I spent every hour I could on the waterfront," he said. From age 12, he worked summers and vacations on Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company ships; his first assignment was deck hand on a harbor tug. In those days, cattle came to the slaughterhouse in Honolulu by steamer.
Pfeiffer told me he remembered chasing steers down River Street after they escaped while unloading on Pier 19. At places like Kailua, Kona and Ni'ihau, cowboys swam cattle out to the steamers anchored offshore. Sailors in boats alongside the ship put canvas slings on the cows for hoisting to the deck. The bowels of the frightened cattle often let loose onto the sailors below. "I discovered that people didn't like to sit next to me in movie theaters," Pfeiffer recalled.
He said Ni'ihau cattle were the wildest, Texas longhorns. "I wish we would have known how much Ni'ihau shells were going to be worth," he added. "We would have taken them home in gunny sacks. I cut my feet on them. We went barefoot because it was easier to pick up things with our toes."
Pfeiffer never fulfilled his ambition to go to West Point but he became an officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war, he married and went back to work for Inter-Island as chief clerk. He became vice president and general manager of Matson Terminals in 1960, beginning a steady rise to the top of Alexander & Baldwin.
Alexander & Baldwin
As a Matson executive, Pfeiffer took over a fleet of aging, war-weary cargo ships beset with rising labor costs. He immediately set off in a new direction, first trying roll-on/roll-off cargo ships to lower costs. Then he pioneered the container revolution, a new method of handling cargo that speeded up loading and unloading to a fraction of pre-war turnaround times.
Pfeiffer rivaled Mayor Neal Blaisdell with his hula prowess. He knew many mele and frequently performed at company parties.
Financial risk was not the only obstacle. Muscular waterfront labor unions resisted the loss of stevedore and longshore jobs. Pfeiffer's friendship with Bridges, the powerful leader of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union in San Francisco, helped them to reach a settlement instead of a strike. The two respected each other.
Pfeiffer faced the biggest threat to his leadership when financier Weinberg began quietly buying stock in Alexander & Baldwin, one of the most profitable companies in Hawai'i. By 1985 he owned 25 percent of A&B's shares outstanding. Weinberg put up his own slate for board of directors to be elected at the annual meeting.
Pfeiffer went on a campaign to win stockholders' votes that would have done credit to Bill Clinton, reminding them of how well he had managed the company. He must have been convincing because 60 percent of the stockholders voted for his slate and Weinberg folded his tent.
As a business executive, Pfeiffer was unique for his ability to do hula. He knew many mele and performed with gusto at company parties. The only other dignitary of his stature who danced the hula as well as Pfeiffer was former Honolulu Mayor Neal Blaisdell.
Pfeiffer was always among the highest — sometimes the highest — paid executives in Honolulu. But he also gave away the most.
In 1985, he doubled A&B's charitable giving to 2 percent of pre-tax profits and urged other firms to do the same. The list of Pfeiffer's charities is endless. His transfusions of money brought several worthy institutions out of intensive care.
Probably his pet project was the Hawaii Maritime Center, which he founded in 1982 with Henry Walker, Amfac president, CEO and chairman of the board; and former state Sen. Kenneth Brown. Pfeiffer paid for a magnificent Matson exhibit on the second floor. One of his last major gifts is being used to wetdock the historic Falls of Clyde.
While he talked about the sea, he said, "It's easy to remember names and characteristics of ships if you love them. There is nothing more important to Hawai'i than the ocean. This state more than any other deserves a maritime museum."
Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.
