Still much work to do for latest 'O'o Award winner
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
He has been a paniolo on the Big Island, a state legislator, Honolulu City Councilman, "efficiency engineer," Dole Co. manager and head of the federal Small Business Administration's Hawai'i office for the past 13 years.
It's in that last role that his supporters say he has worked to improve the lot of small businesses from Hawai'i to Saipan to the Federated States of Micronesia.
Andy Poepoe, 68, was recognized for his work with Native Hawaiian-owned small businesses.
Andy Poepoe also descends from a family with a prominent Hawaiian lineage in the Islands: His father, Abraham Poepoe, ministered in churches in Honoka'a and Waimea. His grandfather, Henry Poepoe, was kahu of Kaumakapili Church for 49 years.
In the latest incarnation of his own career, Andy Poepoe holds a special interest in Native Hawaiian small businesses and is now in the position to oversee a new and one-of-a-kind federal program that makes it easier for specific Hawaiian businesses to win Defense Department contracts in the Islands.
For his work helping Native Hawaiian businesses, the Native Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce will present Poepoe with its 'O'o Award on April 23 — along with a separate 'O'o Award for state Rep. Ezra Kanoho, D-15th (Lihu'e, Koloa).
The 'O'o Award "means you're a worker, somebody who helps the community," said Kali Watson, who was on the chamber's selection committee that picked Poepoe and Kanoho. "The 'O'o is a symbolic tool to improve the economic base of Native Hawaiians."
Poepoe will gladly accept the honor. But at the age of 68, he has no intention of viewing it as some sort of recognition for the end of a career.
"I don't have a plan to retire," Poepoe said. "I get scared thinking of going out there and not having enough to do."
He has plenty to do right now.
Under Poepoe's direction, the loan program for the SBA's Hawai'i District office has exploded from 81 loans totaling $11 million in 1991 to 331 loans worth $49 million last year.
The SBA guarantees the loans and works with local banks to convince them to approve so-called "marginal loans." This year, Poepoe has set a goal of 400 small-business loans totaling $55 million.
"While the numbers are good, we need to get even higher," Poepoe said.
The amount of SBA training also has expanded under Poepoe — from 2,275 counseling and training cases in 1991 to 20,216 last year.
Poepoe is perhaps most excited about the Native Hawaiian Organization program shepherded through Congress by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawai'i, and signed by President Bush on Sept. 30.
The program applies to companies owned by Native Hawaiian organizations that are also certified as disadvantaged enterprises known as SBA 8(a) firms. They would be eligible to win Defense Department construction contracts in Hawai'i worth more than $3 million — or valued at $5 million for all other Defense Department contracts — without the typical bidding process.
The Native Hawaiian Organization program was modeled after similar Indian and Alaskan programs. Like them, the Native Hawaiian organizations must be 8(a) firms primarily owned by a Native Hawaiian organization set up to benefit Hawaiians.
The Native Hawaiian Organization program so far has interest from a handful of companies but Poepoe believes it holds great promise for other Hawaiian-owned businesses.
"I believe that this program will become a major benefit to the Hawaiian community in terms of creating jobs, creating new Native Hawaiian-owned firms and in providing funding for Native Hawaiian social programs," Poepoe said.
Poepoe believes that everyone should be treated equally without regard to race.
But ideas such as the Native Hawaiian Organization program became reality because of generations of inequities, he said.
It's a philosophy in keeping with Poepoe's church upbringing on the Big Island and Windward side of O'ahu.
"Ethics should guide your life," Poepoe said. "Meeting high standards in life, government, in business can be established by the church or anywhere else. But that philosophy certainly helped me to develop a set of standards of treating everyone equally."
Beadie Dawson, who is the head of her own 8(a) company, the Dawson Group Inc., believes Poepoe epitomizes Hawaiian values.
"He is a wonderful spokesman," Dawson said, "a wonderful face for the SBA, because he embodies so much of what we admire in Hawaiians: their fairness, their openness, their inclusiveness and their temperament, which is a temperament that's meant for getting along."
Poepoe attended Kamehameha Schools as a boarder and spent his summers as a paniolo on the Big Island's Parker Ranch doing "all that good cowboy stuff," he said.
He earned straight A's and graduated with Kamehameha's class of 1953. At Yale University, though, Poepoe struggled academically and was nearly kicked out.
"It was tough to crank up to an Ivy League school," Poepoe said. Still, he graduated on the dean's list.
Then Poepoe embarked on a varied and interesting series of career changes:
He worked on the docks as an efficiency engineer in the days before shipping containers; joined Dole Packaged Foods Co. in 1962 to conduct engineering efficiency studies then went on to various executive positions over the next 26 years; served for 12 years in the state House — beginning in 1966 — representing the Windward side; earned an MBA from the University of Hawai'i in 1971; won election to the Honolulu City Council in 1978, then retired from the council to run Dole's Hawaiian Plantations jam and jelly operation.
It was at Hawaiian Plantations that Poepoe gained an appreciation for Hawai'i's small businesses that he carries with him today as the local head of the SBA.
"You didn't have the great big resources of a Dole Food Co.," Poepoe said. "It was basically a small business. And I learned great respect for small businesses."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.
