After seven years as CEO of Enterprise Honolulu, Mike Fitzgerald is leaving Hawai'i.

Enterprise Honolulu, formerly O'ahu's Economic Development Board, is a nonprofit organized to grow and diversify our business infrastructure and economy.

Mike came to Hawai'i to invigorate that growth, with impressive credentials from Florida, Washington and Montana. He came on assurances that the business community would well support him. He came bristling with ideas and energy, a consummate wordsmith determined to leave his mark.

Did he get that support? Did he achieve his expectations?

WHY IS HE LEAVING?

He says he's done what he was brought here to do. He's shown us economic diversification, focusing on technology. Now, the factions (he calls them "kuleanas" — business, government, education, unions and "enviros") must "reach consensus" on what they want to do.

He says without that consensus Hawai'i is "stalled" and "self-marooned." Hawai'i has the capacity and resources. "If only the kuleanas could come together, we could be a model of prosperity, environmental protection and social equity."

Mike's not sure of his next step. He'll take a road trip to reacquaint himself with life on the Mainland, and rediscover his "beginner's" mind. Zenmaster Suzuki said "in the 'beginner's mind' there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few."

WHAT'S NEXT

Mike's tenure went from the mixers at Studebakers to the bright-eyed kids returning from the Mainland, Dobelle's ambitious plans at Manoa, the "healing islands" at Kaka'ako, and so many startups. Over time, that energy dissipated, culminating this year in Superferry and the death of 221.

Under Mike, Enterprise Honolulu has made many contributions — help for 600 companies, 6,000 jobs and $1.6 billion of investment, unstinting support for 221, the 30mm Telescope, UARC, the Regional Bio Safety Lab, the Clean Energy Initiative, Superferry, and other such progressive initiatives.

He leaves a great team behind. Pono Shim will succeed him as CEO. Pono, who has been EH's VP and kahu for the past year, is the son of labor lawyer Alvin Shim, one of Hawai'i's greatest consensus builders. Robbie Alm of HECO, another great consensus builder, will be chair of the EH board.

PENDING ISSUES

EH vigorously supported HB 1271 (the $1 barrel tax) and the preservation of 221 in the 2009 session. Now, upon Mike's departure, he would ask Linda Lingle to support them, too.

He says these policies will allow us to "invent a future where we can achieve self-determined, self-directed economic prosperity." They will advance diversification and "turn our biggest problems, imported oil and food, into two of our biggest opportunities." Mike's parting advice is for us to "seize this moment." The recession has changed everything. EDBs everywhere are being called upon to diversify our industries and retrain our workforces. For Hawai'i, time is running out.

END OF AN ERA

Mike has been a symbol of talent, professionalism and national expertise. He's also been a symbol of frustration in unrealized hopes for a broad-based shift in Hawai'i's economy. As he's been going through this seven-year waiting period, so have we — a generation unfulfilled.

We can take his departure as inevitable and accede to permanent paralysis, or we can take it as a call to action on goals we may have forgotten. In any event, it's a reminder of how important it is to take and treasure wisdom from the "outside." If we could only recapture the progress we have left behind.

We'll miss you, Mike, and we think you'll miss us. It's an impossible goodbye — we'll have no choice but to measure whatever happens by the progress you worked for while you were here. Aloha 'oe, Mike. May the road rise up to meet you, and your beginner's mind, and may the trades be always at your back.