Editor's note: This interview was conducted before the Superferry's arrival on Saturday.

Q. What drew you to the Hawai'i Superferry?

A. The first was the opportunity to do something new. I've been with Hawaiian (Airlines) for about six years and Continental Airlines before that, and in both cases I was working on a turnaround, trying to fix what was there. It seemed like a great opportunity to come in and instead of fixing old problems, actually create something from the ground up. The other aspect is it's such a great marketing challenge, getting to build a brand, when you go from no revenue to tens of millions of dollars in revenue in the first year and trying to get all of the infrastructure in place for that.

Q. The Superferry hasn't had its first passenger trip, but has been in the news a lot. Is it difficult to market a company or idea that hasn't really gotten off the ground?

A. They say that there's no such thing as bad P.R. It's all worked out really well for us, and the amount of attention we've gotten has just been phenomenal. The big challenge from the marketing side has really been to define what the product is going to be because we don't actually physically have something here. We just finished recording our first TV ads, and we don't have the ship here yet so we had to do a graphic style for that and every step along the way, what you traditionally have for some of your marketing tools just isn't there. But it's been a lot of fun because it's basically a clean slate. You get to build a new brand, you get to roll it out the way you want, which has been great.

Q. Have you had to do something out of the ordinary to market the Superferry?

A. There's been a few things. Because of my airline background I was used to being part the global distribution system. A lot of what I do here is run our Web site and all the ways that we're going to connect to the different people that will be selling our product. So there's been some neat challenges because we're not part of the global distribution system, and it's more a positioning us or selling us like an activity rather than an airline seat because we're much more than just a simple transportation product.

Q. Any surprises so far?

A. I was only about the 13th employee, but the groundwork had been laid really well here, so I think we had a really good expectation of what was going to happen. Everyday you stumble onto something that we hadn't really thought about, but we've got the right infrastructure here to handle it all.

Q. How large a staff do you have?

A. As of (this) week it will be four people. We run all of the marketing, advertising, the Web site, and we're in the process of launching a frequent traveler program. The staff will be growing.

Q. Once the ferry is here, will that change your marketing approach?

A. It's going to be fabulous to have her in our waters. We've got a lot of public events that we're working on so we'll be able to get a lot of people on board the ship, which will help a lot. When you go out and talk to people about ferries, most people here are thinking like the Seattle commuter ferries and those types of things. This is a dramatically different product. This is much more like a cruise ship. We've got an arcade, we've got a kids' play area, a gift shop, restaurants, leather seats, all of those types of things, so I think getting people on board is going to be a huge help. It will make my job a lot easier.

Q. What's your marketing budget?

A. I can't give specific numbers, but we are going to be spending over $1 million to launch this year, simply because of the challenge of helping to define for people what this is and how they need to use it.

Q. When will you begin marketing the second ferry?

A. There's a few phases to what we're doing. Initially we're focused on the local market. That's what our company is about. There's a lot of work that we need to do on the business side of it to help people realize what the possibilities are with this because we do see a huge demand from the commercial side of our business, and then also the residents, getting them used to traveling with their cars. Once we get through that phase then we will spend a little bit of time targeting some of the visitor market, getting word out about how exciting it is to see Hawai'i by water. In 2009, what a lot of people here are anticipating is when we go to the island of Hawai'i. That's when they'll have the ports ready for us and we'll have the second ship by that time.

Q. How will the Superferry differ from the Seaflite interisland ferry that failed?

A. This is a much different thing than Seaflite. Seaflite was basically a science experiment by Boeing, and anytime you have something new there are a lot of bugs to be worked out. I worked with a few of the people here that had been involved with Seaflite and I didn't realize what a success it had been even with all of the operational problems. They still had a phenomenal amount of demand. What's different about us is the ships that we're using have been used around the world for about 15 years. Ours happens to be the first built in the United States, and we're extremely confident that this is going to work well here. This is a much bigger ship. We take vehicles and Seaflite didn't. Once we start operating, people will see what our reliability record is, and I think they'll pretty quickly forget the Seaflite experience.

Q. How will your marketing approach change once the Superferry starts sailing?

A. Down the road, we'll get back to more of a traditional marketing job, which I think will be enjoyable with a product like this because there are such huge opportunities to partner with people. There's a lot we're looking to do on the charity side. There are a lot of ways we can improve life for people within the Islands, and what we really want to focus on is getting people to see more of the Islands and helping commerce move within the Islands.

Reach Curtis Lum at culum@honoluluadvertiser.com.