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The Honolulu Advertiser

Updated at 2:20 p.m., Monday, February 5, 2007

First Hawaiian Bank exec will join Kamehameha board

By Rick Daysog
Advertiser Staff Writer

The state Probate Court today appointed First Hawaiian Bank executive Corbett Kalama as a trustee of the $7.7 billion Kamehameha Schools.

Kalama replaces Constance Lau, who announced that she would step down from the trust's five-member board after she was named chief executive officer of Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc.

Kalama is an executive vice president at First Hawaiian and is responsible for the bank's O'ahu region, where he manages about 500 employees and $3.8 billion in business and individual assets.

Kalama, whose appointment takes effect April 1, will serve the remainder of Lau's five-year term, which expires on June 30, 2008. Kalama can be reappointed for a maximum of two five-year terms.

He joins trustees Diane Plotts, retired Adm. Robert Kihune, Hawaiian navigator Nainoa Thompson, and attorney J. Douglas Ing. Ing was reappointed to a five-term on Friday.

For the year ending June 30, 2005, the estate paid its trustees about $100,000 each, while then-board chairwoman Plotts earned $110,500, according to Probate Court records.

Probate Judge Colleen Hirai picked Kalama from a list of three finalists recommended by a court-appointed trustee screening committee. The finalists included local attorney Allen Hoe and former Honolulu city budget director Ivan Lui-Kwan.

Established by the 1883 will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the Kamehameha Schools is a charitable trust that educates children of native Hawaiian ancestry. The estate is the state's largest private landowners and is one of the nation's wealthiest charities.

Kalama, who is part Hawaiian, has been a First Hawaiian Bank employee since 1982. He is a trustee of the University of Hawai'i Foundation and has served as trustee for the Queen Liliuokalani Children's Center.

Prior to joining First Hawaiian, Corbett was a teacher at Kailua High School and three of his four children graduated from Kamehameha.

Reach Rick Daysog at 525-8064 or rdaysog@honoluluadvertiser.com