LEADERSHIP CORNER
Pono Pacific restores ecosystems
Interviewed by David Butts
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Title: Partner
Company: Pono Pacific, LLC
Age: 25
High School: Punahou
College: Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, B.S. in entrepreneurial management and environmental management
Breakthrough job: Starting Pono Pacific in fall of 2000 in the basement of his mother's house. His mother is Joanna Leong, manager of Wailana Coffee House in Waikiki.
Little-known fact: His wife and business partner, Julianna Rapu Leong, is from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and came to Hawai'i when her father was hired to help create a Rapa Nui village at the Polynesian Cultural Center.
Major challenge: Getting the word out about his business and showing people that outsourcing ecosystem restoration is money-saving.
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Q: What does your company do?
A: We do ecosystem restoration. For example one of our projects is with the Navy. They have an area with endangered plants. In some cases, there are just a few hundred of the plants left in Hawai'i. The Navy hired us to restore that area, remove invasive plants and get the area re-established with native plants.
During the breeding season of the 'elepaio, a native Hawaiian forest bird, we do the predator control to prevent small predators from preying on the eggs. We do one for the state in 'Aina Haina and one for The Nature Conservancy in Kunia. We run the Youth Conservation Corps for the state in the summer. Its purpose is to get youth — high-school and college students — out into the environment. ...
Q: You started three years ago. As a business, is it succeeding?
A: I think it is. We are not millionaires and we may never be millionaires and that's fine. We put whatever we had in the bank in the business. We didn't take out any loans. It's grown. We have about 10 steady clients.
Q: The Wharton School must have been full of people who wanted to make big bucks. Why aren't you on that path?
A: We are shaping something that hasn't been done before and we are having fun doing it. We can go to work in T-shirt and shorts. Maybe my counterparts at Wharton might be making $60,000 to $90,000 at a big company, but they are also working until 9 or 10 at night. I talk to a lot of them that aren't enjoying what they are doing. I can say, here I'm enjoying what I'm doing. I'm learning so much.
Q: You say more than half your friends from the Class of 1996 at Punahou are on the Mainland. What drove them away?
A: Cost of living is cheaper. Jobs pay more, houses are cheaper. Future advancement is better. Some friends say, "Once I get enough financial security, then I'll move back to Hawai'i." It must be harder when you have a $90,000 job to move back and take a pay cut. Still, the majority of the people I talk to want to raise their families here.
Hopefully, we're producing an industry that maybe one day students, instead of going to the Mainland, will want to come back and work in this industry.
Q: What is the state of the ecosystem in Hawai'i?
A: It's not in great shape at all. Over the past 100 years there has been a lot of destruction in terms of Hawai'i's native rain forest. Hawai'i has the only native rain forest in the United States. It's also the endangered species capital. We have about three-quarters of the federally listed endangered species. Once they are gone, they are gone permanently. Try to explain that to business people. They say "What's the value of that." We have a responsibility to steward it. We can't take our land for granted, or else we are going to deplete our own resources. We get all our drinking water through the forest. If we build up concrete all over that, we won't have drinking water.
On the economic side, we won't have tourism. You are going to have to import everything, the cost of living is going to go up higher. Hawai'i will be a lot less desirable place to do business.
Q: What is the harm of a few introduced species in Hawai'i?
A: In terms of the native forests, we have introduced species such as miconia. If it gets more established here, it will keep water from being absorbed in our mountains. It also leads to erosion. There's a domino effect. It's costly. Another invasive species is the coqui frog. On the Big Island, real-estate agents must report that to buyers and it decreases the value of the land. Taking care of the environment makes sense.
You think of the type of environment you want to raise your family in. We were fortunate in that we've always had the beaches and the mountains. But if these things dissipate, all we have for our children is like every other city — Dave & Buster's, Fun Factory, computers.
Q: Should growth on O'ahu be limited?
A: We need to be careful about how much growth is occurring on O'ahu, how much we're building up. And this goes for all the other islands. They can see O'ahu, and I know a lot of them do and say, "No, I don't want it to become like that." There is a lot more to Hawai'i than Waikiki and the beaches. We have such natural beauty here that can't be found anywhere else, and its undervalued, especially on O'ahu.
We are in a drought. As we develop the 'Ewa side, Central O'ahu, eventually we are going to come to a carrying capacity where we are not going to have enough water in our Islands.
On O'ahu we are looking at a lifestyle that's changing, becoming more fast-paced, more crowded and you get road rage and all these other things that come with a growing economy. There is a way to have a sustainable economy and not have to industrialize the whole island to do that. There still can be economic growth but tailored with being good stewards of our environment as well. That begins with valuing the environment more.
Q: You're organized as a for-profit company. Have you considered becoming a nonprofit?
A: I decided against it. Everything we have done as a company, we've done on our own with God's help. We haven't had the luxury of a grant. It keeps us lean. ... We have to do things efficiently. It keeps us honest and working hard.
