Posted on: Monday, July 12, 2004
LEADERSHIP CORNER
Hawaiian Islanders owner has all pieces in place for success
Interviewed by Catherine E. Toth
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Name: Kimberly W. Dey Age: 32 Title: Owner and operator
Organization: Hawaiian Islanders arenafootball2 team (Dey also owns The Funny Farm, a 5-acre stable in Waimanalo.)
High school: Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences, Santa Monica, Calif.
College: Bachelor of Arts degree in communication from University of California, Los Angeles Breakthrough job: Serving as vice president and grant administrator for Hawai'i and the Pacific Rim of the Charles B. Wang Foundation, a private charitable organization benefiting children and promoting cross-cultural awareness. The foundation was created by her father, Charles B. Wang, who also owns the New York Islanders professional hockey team. Little-known fact: Dey has been an avid sport horse competitor since age 10.
Major challenge: Starting a new business without previous experience.
• • • Q. How did you go from a communications major to competitive show-jumper to arena football team owner?
A. "Nothing that I did prior to having this football team prepared me for having this football team. Maybe on the philosophical level, but my riding prepared me more than any job."
Q. What has been your biggest challenge in your role as team owner?
A. Starting any business is a challenge. When it's a sports team, that adds more of a challenge. When it's in Hawai'i, that's even more challenging. The number of pro teams and events that have come and gone left a bad taste in mouths here. We're fighting through other people's histories.
Q. Hawai'i hasn't had a successful professional team. The Professional Indoor Football League and the Tsunami professional soccer team both didn't make it. Why do you think the Hawaiian Islanders will?
A. I think in the past all the pieces weren't in place ... whether the ownership group didn't have the financial fortitude to wait it out or the coaching was wrong or it wasn't the right sport. So I think if the Islanders don't make it, nobody would try it again, nobody would bring a professional team here. Because we have all the right pieces. We have the right people in the front office, the right coaching staff, the right financial wherewithal building from year one to year five.
Q. Has it been difficult being a female team owner in a male-dominated sport?
A. Honestly, I haven't noticed. I've always been female, so I have nothing to compare it to. (Laughs.) I mean, sometimes I'll look up in a meeting and realize I'm sitting in a room full of men. But it doesn't really affect me.
Q. How did your years of riding competitively help you run a football team?
A. To win the titles I've won, to live in Hawai'i and have all my horses in Texas, to have no real competition here, to spend all my time traveling — all of those things were challenges I had to overcome. I kept sight of my goal, to win a world championship. It would be a first for someone from Hawai'i, first Asian (American). Each day I would get up and ask myself, 'Am I doing everything I can today to win the world championship?' I mean, I don't get up each morning and ask myself what I'm doing to win the national (arena football) championship. I got no control over those 21 guys. It's not like I could go out there and play. But the sport is similar.
Q. With no background in sports marketing, why did you decide to own an arena football team?
A. It was my dad who convinced me. He had just bought the New York Dragons and he thought it would be fun to have an arena football team in Hawai'i so we could play each other.
Q. But the NY Dragons play in the Arena Football League, which is different from the arenafootball2 league the Hawaiian Islanders play in, right?
A. That's the roadblock. We don't have an arena to accommodate an AFL team in Hawai'i. We have the demographics and population to support it, but we don't have an arena.
Q. Is that a long-term goal, to become an AFL team?
A. I would love to, but until we can make an af2 team wildly successful, I'm not dumping money into building a new arena.
Q. It seems, though, that the Hawaiian Islanders have been successful. Attendance, season ticket sales and sponsorship have all gone up in three years. How did that happen?
A. Two reasons: Cal Lee (former Saint Louis coach) and my husband (general manager Chris Dey). Cal is legendary, and my husband, honestly, he's the one who thinks up all the ideas and all the new elements to our game and team ... He was the one who said we have to have Cal as our coach. I had no idea who he was. Now that I know him, he's a great guy. I love Cal.
We're definitely going in the right direction. My long-term goal, I would really like to see people scalping tickets in the parking lot. The first scalper I see, I'm going to run up and hug the guy. And I'd like to see people arguing about who's playing, the coaching calls. I think we have good fire, but I want fans to call radio (talk shows). Then you know your fans are really engrossed in what's going on.
Q. So are you a football fan?
A. I grew up watching (pro) football with my dad, but I was so little, I didn't understand why they were all yelling and jumping in a pile. But since watching arena football, I think the NFL is boring. They can score only 7 points in the whole game.
