Blind vendor sets sights at top

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

James "Ted" Chinn feels a responsibility to the 38 other blind vendors in Hawai'i.

James "Ted" Chinn operates a cafeteria for the military at the Kunia Regional Security Operations Center. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

Chinn can't reveal how many plates of food he and his crew of 37 dish out four times a day, from breakfast to midnight. But he can say the five-year contract is worth $6.1 million.

And it comes with a sense of duty.

"I have to set a good example," Chinn said yesterday. "I just have to do the best job I can."

He knows most of the other blind vendors generate little profit, working mostly out of one-person stands in government buildings on every major island.

Six of the vendors earn so little that they live below the national poverty line, according to Stephen Teeter of the state Department of Human Services' Ho'opono branch, which provides training to clients who are legally blind.

Teeter calls Chinn's rise from the Ho'opono program in 1986 a success story. But even with a contract worth millions, Chinn "works on the slimmest of margins," Teeter said. "His prices are so low — part of the Navy requirements. But he runs a quality operation. You can eat off of the floors."

Meals are subsidized by the military. For $3.25, sailors, soldiers, airmen and Marines working in the Kunia Regional Security Operation Center get two servings of beef, fish or chicken; vegetables, rice or potatoes; soup and access to a full salad bar.

A few times a year, Chinn and his crew serve steak and lobster or steak and crab for the same $3.25.

Chinn digs even further into his profits by paying for a trip to Las Vegas for the employee of the year.

"He doesn't have to do those things, but he does," Teeter said.

Even if she hadn't won last year's Thanksgiving trip to Las Vegas, records keeper Rebecca Gonzales said she would believe Chinn is the best boss she has ever had.

"He's a very understanding person," Gonzales said. "He doesn't get excited. He treats everyone fairly. Mr. Chinn is wonderful."

Chinn, 73, grew up in the McCully area and graduated from 'Iolani School in 1948. He had some night blindness as a teen, but that didn't stop him from enrolling at the University of Hawai'i or being drafted into the Army in 1953.

After earning a master's degree in plant genetics at the University of California at Davis, Chinn returned to UH for a doctorate and went on to form a landscape design business, Aloha Landscape Co.

In his 50s, Chinn developed problems with peripheral vision. By the time he was 55, he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa and could see only straight ahead, with a corrected vision of 20/40.

Legally blind and dependent on the use of a cane, Chinn enrolled in the state Ho'opono program to find a different way to earn a living.

"I didn't want to be a burden on anyone," Chinn said in his typically soft voice. "I wanted to be as self-sufficient as possible."

The program taught him to run a vending stand, and he operated at the USS Arizona Memorial Visitor's Center for the next year and a half. For the next 10 years, he ran a one-person snack bar at the Diamond Head Health Center in Kaimuki, where he did every job from grill cook to dish washer to janitor.

Ho'opono selected Chinn to bid for the Navy contract in Kunia, reserved for the visually impaired. The process took two years, and when Chinn finally got the contract in 1998, he had two weeks to take over from the previous operator.

He rehired all the old staff and reopened Dec. 1, 1998. Chinn emphasized training in safety and sanitation and adjusted the menu a bit.

Now he's thinking about retiring when the current contract expires in 2008, and hopes one of the other blind vendors in Hawai'i will be ready to take over the operation.

"It gives them a chance to expand their outlook on business," he said, "and to try their hand at managing a business."

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