12 TO WATCH IN 2004
A dozen people who will shape Hawai'i's new year
This list of people to watch, compiled by members of The Advertiser staff, includes some who were chosen because of their unique circumstances and others because they represent groups confronting special challenges this year. Whether through personalities, the scope of their positions, or simply being in the right place at the right time, these people are positioned to lead, to leave their marks on the community and to inspire positive change.
The way Hawai'i looks in 2004 will be influenced by all of us, especially by the people on this page.
DR. EDWIN CADMAN
With a new medical school taking shape near the oceanfront in Kaka'ako, Dr. Edwin Cadman, dean of the John A. Burns School of Medicine, is helping to move the University of Hawai'i forward as an important presence in the state.
A low-key and affable character, Cadman has mostly avoided the political feuding that has claimed several casualties in the UH administration. He's a favorite of Gov. Linda Lingle and one of those whose behind-the-scenes community-building efforts helped persuade the Legislature to move forward with the Kaka'ako project, which will be mostly completed this year. His revamped program that emphasizes Native Hawaiian health has also won him important support.
Cadman, a top-level athlete who runs daily, has great visions of making the medical school one of the best in the country, with its own particular niche including research on health problems that plague Pacific islanders. His hope is to see the medical school not only improve the economic health of the state but also the overall physical health of its people.
Four years ago, Cadman left a prestigious position as chief of staff and senior vice president of medical affairs at Yale-New Haven Hospital to take on the challenges of the faltering medical school on the UH campus.
Since then he has overcome challenges to the school's accreditation, pushed forward to hire new people and led faculty to bring in $46.9 million in grants and contracts over the past year, with the research component showing a 700 percent increase over 1999, the year of Cadman's arrival.
STANTON ENOMOTO
As the top staff member of the Kaho'olawe Island Reserve Commission, Stanton Enomoto has a busy year ahead.
He'll be under the spotlight as the cleanup crews leave the island and the former bombing range takes on its new role as a Native Hawaiian cultural preserve. Not only will Enomoto oversee the transition to the new order, but he will be charged with ongoing strategic planning and budgeting, raising money, working with politicians and dealing with concerns regarding access to the island.
So far, he's performed his job over and beyond what has been expected of him, said Dr. Noa Emmett Aluli, commission chairman.
"He has such a professional style, a Hawaiian style. He's committed beyond belief," Aluli said.
Enomoto, a Kamehameha Schools graduate, was born and raised on Maui. He studied geology at Macalester College in Minnesota and worked for the state Department of Health before joining the commission staff eight years ago.
He started with the Kaho'olawe commission as an assistant to executive director Keoni Fairbanks and over the years performed a variety of jobs and functions, including grants writer, remediation specialist, chief negotiator with the Navy and the commission's liaison to the state Legislature and Congress.
"He's done everything," Aluli said.
Enomoto was named acting executive director after Fairbanks became ill last year.
"He listens not only to the island but to the commissioners, the staff, the Protect Kaho'olawe 'Ohana and those who have long ties to the island," Aluli said.
PAT HAMAMOTO
Savvy and even-tempered, state schools superintendent Pat Hamamoto has tried to stay above the fray in the political war over education reform.
But she opened up in November after Gov. Linda Lingle released a scathing report that claimed the state Department of Education is too bloated to effectively oversee reform.
Drawing clear lines with Lingle, Hamamoto said she opposes the governor's idea of splitting up the DOE into seven local school districts with locally elected school boards, although she said that she, like Lingle, is interested in a new weighted student formula that could get more money down to the classroom.
With reform likely to be the hot topic at the Legislature next session, Hamamoto could be caught up in the fight between Lingle, Democrats, and the state Board of Education over the direction of public education.
Hamamoto's voice likely will mirror that of the board, which hired her and can fire her. But don't be surprised if the former McKinley High School principal comes up with some clever political maneuvers. Hamamoto is smart about what fights she picks, and she is well-regarded by most Capitol insiders, teachers and parents, so she has a fairly deep well of political capital from which she can draw support.
While Lingle and the Democrats are scrapping over the need for local school boards, watch for Hamamoto to push for creating smaller schools, perhaps schools-within-schools, to boost student achievement.
BETHANY HAMILTON
2004 could be a big year for 13-year-old Bethany Hamilton in her quest to return to competitive surfing.
The road begins for the former teen surfing champ from Kaua'i at a "mellow" event Jan. 7-9 in Kona with no expectations, said Roy Hofstetter, a family friend.
Hamilton, who lost her arm in a shark attack Oct. 31, is having her surfboard redesigned to help with balancing, he said, and her plan for the coming year is to surf every day and compete once a month "in a soul-surfer way."
Hofstetter said it may be hard to believe, but the girl is making astonishing progress in the water.
"There's a certain balance she has now. It's really magical. I suspect she'll be as good or better than she once was in 60 days," he said.
Out of the water, you will be seeing lots of Bethany in 2004. Plans are in the works for both a book and a film, Hofstetter said, and she will be appearing on numerous television shows, including a tentative Jan. 14 "Oprah" and a Feb. 14 "John Walsh Show."
There will be another "20/20" appearance, and ESPN and MTV, among others, will be watching her progress. People, Sports Illustrated and Star included Hamilton in year-end features, and Teen Vogue and YM are planning stories in February.
Despite some quiet criticism that Hamilton is cashing in, Hofstetter said she's fulfilling a demand for her story and inspiring others. Her media appearances will not focus on the shark attack, he said, but on what she is doing now, including yoga, training and working as hard as she can to reinvent her surfing career.
DWAYNE 'THE ROCK' JOHNSON
He's conquered not only the wrestling ring but the box office arena with a string of action films.
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Hawai'i's rock-steady athlete-turned-actor, will be working in 2004 to establish himself as more than an action figure. Among his most important projects is the title role in "Kamehameha" for Columbia-Sony, though the picture has now been delayed until 2005 because of other commitments and because of changes to the script written by Hawai'i's Greg Poirier. "It's an honor for me to make this movie," Johnson told The Advertiser last year.
Rob Cohen has agreed to direct "Kamehameha," in what is being touted as "a Polynesian 'Braveheart.' "
Filming will be in Hawai'i and The Rock anticipates taking the challenge head-on of playing a Hawaiian ali'i, even if he has no Hawaiian blood. He's Samoan and African American.
This, after his acting credits moved up a few notches this year with "The Rundown."
His fourth film, "Walking Tall," is slated to hit theaters this year. The MGM release, a remake of a 1970s Joe Don Baker movie, deals with a small-town Tennessee sheriff intent on eliminating rampant crime and corruption. The part enabled The Rock to strut his acting stuff.
Further, he is committed to star in Universal's "Spy Hunter," based on a video game, in which he's thick into action/drama, a la James Bond, playing a former pilot who battles assassins and spies in a vehicle called the G-6155 Interceptor. This, too, is a 2005 project.
SUZANNE JONES
Suzanne Jones faces a monumental task: changing the way O'ahu thinks about trash.
Jones, the city's recycling coordinator, will be attacking the island's waste issue on two fronts: trying to develop an acceptable and economical curbside recycling program for Honolulu residents and spearheading an effort to stem illegal dumping and littering.
Last spring, Mayor Jeremy Harris galvanized the community with a proposed curbside recycling program that would have replaced one trash collection each week with alternating pickups of green waste or mixed recyclables, such as newspaper, glass, plastic and aluminum. While residents fretted about health risks involved in keeping trash around for a week, the City Council balked at the prospect of charging people $8 a month if they chose an option of maintaining twice weekly trash collection.
With no council approval, the administration backtracked and in November initiated a four-month pilot recycling program in Mililani to prove it can work.
Jones, the city's recycling coordinator, has been put in charge of the Mililani pilot, taking feedback from participants with the goal of fine-tuning it into a program that could be rolled out island-wide as soon as July, if the council approves it. One thing Jones will be looking for is whether Mililani residents will be able to reduce their household trash enough through recycling to eliminate one trash collection a week.
On top of that, Jones was recently asked to head a public-private coalition working on breaking the cycle of illegal dumping and littering.
DEE JAY MAILER
It's nice work, if you can do it. Kamehameha Schools trustees believe that Dee Jay Mailer can stand the heat in the pressure-cooker job of chief executive officer.
Kamehameha Schools, whose multi-billion-dollar trust has always placed it in the realm of local interest, has come under especially intense scrutiny for the past five years. During the court-ordered overhaul of its leadership in 1999 and its more recent courtroom battles over its admission preference for Native Hawaiian students, being at or near the Kamehameha helm has been risky business.
Mailer, the former head of Kaiser Permanente medical plan in Hawai'i who later took a job running a United Nations-supported health trust based in Switzerland, will move into her Kawaiaha'o Plaza office Jan. 19.
As the court challenge of the schools' Hawaiian-preference policy moves to the next level on appeal, Mailer has decided that her best tactic would be concentrating on raising the profile of Kamehameha as an agent for change.
She has promised to move quickly toward rolling out new programs and new partnerships with organizations that could raise the educational level of more Hawaiians than can be admitted to the three campuses, and improve things for non-Hawaiians as a collateral benefit.
Among the collaborations she favors: teaming up with other public and private institutions on shared social problems that schools face.
"There's a ton of energy required to do what the schools need to do," she said. "It's a shame that the energy has been pulled into a different direction."
THE VERY REV. DR. ANN McELLIGOTT
The Very Rev. Dr. Ann McElligott, dean at St. Andrew's Cathedral in downtown Honolulu, expects 2004 to be an interesting year.
While the cathedral's main roof isn't leaking like a sieve anymore, the diocese is grappling with falling numbers. And then there's that little thing about a possible split in the Episcopal denomination.
"Within the Episcopal Church in United States, a very long 30-year process has gone on, discerning the way we understand sexuality," said McElligott, who came to Hawai'i in September 2002. "After a long and careful deliberation, those who represent us in our federalist system made a choice in approving the consecration of Gene Robinson."
While she wasn't one of the Hawai'i delegates who cast the vote to affirm Rev. Canon Gene V. Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop, she said she would have. "No question," McElligott said.
And don't think she's letting the roof fall in: They've paid back about $200,000 of the $500,000 borrowed for fixes to the cathedral, all the while, kicking off a program of "adult formation," in which 10 people stood up in church one recent Sunday to become members — something congregant John Condrey found amazing.
"It was as close to an altar call as you'll see" in an Episcopalian church, said the past junior warden at the cathedral, who finds in McElligott the right person to lead St. Andrew's into what is sure to be a tumultuous year: "She's not afraid of taking a position."
VICKI OLSON
Vicki Olson was an Army commander's wife and family support organizer during her husband's deployments to Iraq in 1990, Somalia in 1993, Kuwait in 1995, and subsequently, Macedonia and Kosovo.
Commanders' wives generally are relied upon to provide support back home, but Olson has a particular enthusiasm for the job.
This year she has to help maintain stability for the families of more than 8,000 Schofield Barracks soldiers deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan.
As the Family Readiness Group "leader" for the 25th Infantry Division (Light), she'll be keeping the peace at home while her husband, division commander Maj. Gen. Eric T. Olson, does so in Afghanistan.
About 4,800 soldiers are leaving for yearlong tours in Iraq beginning later this month, followed by 3,500 soldiers deploying to Afghanistan in March and April.
Olson is from New York. She is a teacher who was certified to referee men's and women's college basketball. She also likes to design cross-stitch patterns. She has become something of an authority on Army family issues. In 1997, she testified before the House National Security Committee's military personnel and military readiness subcommittees.
As part of her readiness campaign for the deployments, Olson wrote a piece for the Hawai'i Army Weekly in which she said: "You are going through something that most spouses cannot even imagine. But you need not go through this alone. Look around you and you will see others just like you. Incredibly talented, resilient women and men, who every day live this fascinating and challenging life."
NATE SMITH
As president of Oceanic Time Warner Cable, 51-year-old Nate Smith already has one of the most influential roles in Hawai'i.
Smith oversees much of what Hawai'i residents watch on cable television and how they access the Internet. This year, the executive who pushed to make Oceanic a leader in technology plans to extend the company's reach further by launching cable-based telephone and new interactive TV services, including shopping via remote control.
A TV-based shopping mall and food court will make Hawai'i among the first markets in the nation to roll out such services.
Smith believes that new services and locally originated programming will help differentiate cable from its competition. That rivalry is not just with satellite services but soon with telephone companies. Under Smith's direction, Oceanic will begin offering voice-over-Internet calling this year.
The impetus to adopt new technologies comes from Smith's personal interests and drive, but it's also made possible by the state's size and location, which allow for greater freedom to experiment.
"We can sort of tinker around with things, and sort of evolve them before they would ever go out to the Mainland," Smith said. Oceanic has about 388,000 cable customers, roughly one-third of whom access the Internet via the Road Runner service. Among Oceanic's recent changes was the conversion of Channel OC16 to 24-hour programming featuring all-local content and a sports package for digital customers that includes NBA TV, The Tennis Channel and FUEL, an extreme sports channel.
KIM WILLOUGHBY
Not many athletes have a choice of being a member of an Olympic team or continuing to play a sport professionally.
Many of the ones who do have come out of the University of Hawai'i women's volleyball program.
Kim Willoughby is the latest and perhaps the most dynamic.
The 6-foot senior hitter completed her UH career with a handful of school records and as the national Player of the Year.
This month, Willoughby could take her game to the Olympic level by joining the national team, which includes former Wahine Olympians Robyn Ah Mow-Santos and Heather Bown.
Or Willoughby could go straight to play professionally overseas.
Either way, this "genetic masterpiece," as she has been described by teammate Lily Kahumoku, bears watching.
Her schedule in 2004 could include the Olympics Aug. 13-29, in Athens, Greece, receiving her sociology degree in December, and pursuing a professional career.
"It's going to be up to her where she wants to go in the sport, whether to go professional or join the Olympic team, or both," coach Dave Shoji said.
The Napoleonville, La., native, with an anything-but-easy upbringing also has become a role model off the court for kids here and in her hometown.
"Every time she walked in the gym in high school, the kids just ran to her," said Sandy Fussell, her high school coach. "I never once saw her turn a young child away. She just has this knack with them; it's a gift. I hope she uses it to teach young children."
LUCIEN WONG
With its $1.7 billion, 10-year Army contract to renovate 7,700 Army homes on O'ahu and a similar $300 million Air Force deal, Actus Lend Lease LLC will have considerable sway over the long-term future of Hawai'i's construction industry.
As the company's regional vice president, Lucien Wong, 59, will be among those deciding which of 500 or so local companies will get a piece of that sizeable deal.
Wong said 85 percent to 90 percent of the subcontracting work on the Army and Air Force projects should stay in Hawai'i. But he faces some skepticism among local contractors and workers who wonder about the amount of work they'll get and the level of wages that will be paid.
Wong also must deal with the perception that all of the federal contract money will be spent in a few years; instead, the money will be distributed over 10 years.
"There are going to be jobs created, there's no doubt about it," Wong said. But "it's better to spread it out over a longer period of time."
Napa, Calif.-based Actus Lend Lease drew Wong out of semi-retirement in 2002 to take charge of the company's military construction on O'ahu. He previously worked on two of Hawai'i's largest master-planned communities, Hawai'i Kai for Kaiser Development Co., and Mililani for Castle & Cooke.
Construction on the Army projects could begin as early as mid-2004. Work to renovate, replace and manage 1,356 housing units at Hickam Air Force Base likely will start in April.
