 This is State Tech Hawaii. Community Matters here. Aloha. How are you doing? Gordo the Tech Star here. Welcome to another exciting and thrilling off-the-scale episode of the Batchi Talk. Off-the-scale. Off-the-scale. New taglines every week. So I've got my buddy, Rick's the Fundmeister here. Hey Gordo. Nice to see you, sir. And we've got Sam Oku. Sam Oku and I go back a long way. Aloha. Aloha. Nice to see you, buddy. Aloha. Great to be here. I think I met you when you were doing a lot of work with Special Olympics. Yes, Special Olympics. You were so much involved with Special Olympics. Now you're the Acting Athletic Director at White Pacific University. We worked together in government for a while. Then we got smart. And then we got smart. So like all three of us got out. So grab a chair, pull up a live-ation, pull up a chair, grab a live-ation, or whatever. Let's sit and join us. We're going to talk about HPU, White Pacific University, alumni. Yes. He went to, what is it? I went to a different university. Yeah, what was it called again? Some place in California. Yeah, it was. The University of California. At Berkeley. At Berkeley, that's right. Oh, excuse me. The Golden Bears. Yeah. Are you a theta? My mother was a theta. My sister was a theta. I myself was not. Okay, just checking. Anyway, we're going to talk about White Pacific University. We're going to talk about the show that we did a couple of weeks ago. This idea we have about this intercollegiate or intrastate baseball weekend. Right. Especially after Hawaii winning the Little League World Series. I mean, we are a baseball town. Oh, yeah. There's just no question about it. No question. And what we can do in there. But first, let's get a little background on yourself. Like, where did you grow up? Where did you go to school? Well, I'm a local boy, born and raised here, living Coneole. And I graduated from Damien Memorial High School. Ooh. Yeah. I ended up going off to the University of Hawaii. Played football there under the Dick Tome Regime. Wow. As the defensive guy. Hey, they won this past weekend. They won. Oh, exciting. Exciting. So I moved over to HPU in 2013 after I left the city. And here I am today, you know, overseeing the athletic program. Right. And you got, there's a lot going on. I mean, you guys have done, I think it was one of the best things you ever did was taking over Aloha Tower. Yes. And turning that, it was a high risk, big investment. High risk, big investment. But I think it was extremely visionary. I think in the long run, when the rail comes through, it's going to pay off even more. Yes. So let's talk a little bit about HPU. I mean, I'm an alumni. I went there and got my degrees from there. How's it looking this year? How's it, you just started? Yeah. We just started our school year on Monday. We have our students and parents who were here last week during the kind of the hurricane season, which nothing really happened. But our students started this week. We have a lot of exciting things going on right now, especially at Aloha Tower. We just opened up our new student dining facility, which is called Pier 9 by Sam Choi, which is in the old Don Holes space. Oh, right down there on the ground floor. Right on the ground floor. Yeah. And Sam Choi partnered with us. He's going to be creating the menu. But it's actually going to, it's not just for our students, but next month in September, it'll be open up to the public to enjoy his menu items and cuisine. Wow. So yeah, we're going to welcome everybody and we're excited. The students are currently using the facility for their meal plan. Right. And so the president and I went down there the other day to kind of test out the food, what they had ready. And excellent. Excellent. Well, Sam Choi has got Sam Choi involved. This is kind of cool because again, you're revitalizing the Aloha Tower, which languished forever. Oh, ever. And now you've got, now this is an innovative idea. Yes. Very innovative. And, you know, it's, you know, it's a part of kind of providing that community that kind of mix of the public with our students engaged in a downtown campus, especially on the waterfront. And so Spaghetti Factory is there. Right. Just opened up, which is huge for us. Yeah. And in Garden Beers, you're tried and true is still there forever there. And on the second floor, we have our dorms. And then we just completed on the third floor. We actually, my office used to be another set of 75 more beds for our students. Wow. We're over 300 beds. That's over 300 beds. Yep. Yep. So a residential campus that has classrooms and, you know, everything there. And it has class. I will, I have to say as I walk through there, because I'm a frequent of many of the establishments over there, which would be the new one I will be going to as well. But, you know, it's just, the whole place is just getting a whole air of class again. Coming back to what it originally I thought was going to be. It's taken us some time. You know, we first took over Low Tower in 2014. Yeah. So it took a lot of planning, a lot of partnerships to, you know, work together to bring, you know, we're trying to get critical mass down there as we, you know, as we move forward. But we're pretty much, I would say about 90% full with as far as tenants and, you know, spaces. So the tenants and the spaces in the Lord? Spaces utilized, yeah. I thought about opening up a little. Keto wine and coffee. Sampling. Sampling. Retire and just sit in there. Well, now, will that work? I mean, with the, with the new, what restaurant down there, Buffet and all, will that work with, so students will, I mean, they'll go there and eat there. Right. But will they also utilize that as part of the training in the education from HPU as well? Yes. So, you know, I think the one at first, one of the important parts of having those restaurants there is a lot of our current restaurant tenants use our students to work. Exactly. There you go. It's a job to help pay for bills or their schooling. Right. So that's the first thing. And no bus or transportation to get there. No. You'll walk. Walk right downstairs. Yeah. Yeah. So that's great. A lot of our students in the College of Business are learning firsthand about how to run, you know, a business like a restaurant. Right. So I think it's, it's, it's great. At the same setting, you have the harbors, which is, you know, bringing in our active. You got the Coast Guard coming in. You got cruise ships coming in. The College of Business wants to engage with the cruise ship industry, teach our students about the industry itself. Right. I mean, it all goes hand in hand. It's a great learning environment. You got the ocean. We have Oceanic Institute. We have a great marine science program, which is. I've been on your boat. It's awesome. A marine science program is the number one program that all of the students want to get into now. And so, I mean, it's just a perfect symbiotic relationship. Yeah. It really, it really is. That's perfect. You know, I only, oh, to be 18 again. Just to be able to have this kind of an opportunity to be able to do that. Not like stuffed away in some classroom somewhere, but some active classroom with all the things happening on around. Yeah. So that's cool. So now you're the acting athletic director now. So you got a lot of stuff happening in the athletic side. And so we have this idea we'll talk about in the second half of the show. But what's happening in the athletics? What are we looking forward to this year? So this year, our season is just starting. Women's volleyball just started. They had a big meat volleyball tournament in Hilo this past weekend. They only got to get through one set of games. A little wet. Yeah. A little wet. Cross country is starting. Men's and women's cross country. And our men's and women's soccer is starting this week. So there's matches or there's matches on Friday and then Saturday is cross country and soccer. So I think you're playing like Holy Cross or something is coming. Holy names. No. It's my wife in Oakland, California. Holy names. My wife went there her freshman year. No way. Yeah. We're going to go there. They're coming in. Holy names is coming in. And their new coach, volleyball coach, I know his mother really well. Oh my gosh. Small world. When he was conceived, I remember when that was coming up. And now he's got a couple of master's degrees from Holy Name. And he's their new volleyball coach. And he's going to be coming in for this game. So it's kind of a cool thing. Is this his first year? Yeah, first year. Oh my gosh. This is chicken stew. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Local families kind of all coming together and neat like that. That's terrific. Oh, your wife. Yes, she did. Oh my goodness. She did. We'll be there. I'm sorry, she probably won't be rooting for HPU. That's okay. Actually, she may root for both because that's kind of the way she is. So where are you playing the games? The Holy Names game is going to be in Oakland. Oh. She probably won't. Darn. No, not televised. But you know, Cross Country is out in Coo Coo Coo on Saturday. And our soccer games will be out in White Peele. In White Peele? Yeah. So you have a lot of great stuff that goes on from the athlete stuff. All the different academic programs and the technology programs that I was involved with. It's fascinating. So, okay. So with all of this, we're going to take a break in a few minutes, but what's kind of the biggest challenges you're up with now? What's your enrollment like? So how many local, that was my question. How many local students are going to HPU and have the total number of students going? So this recruitment class that we brought in for the local students, we increased it 60% this year. So, you know, you're talking about, you know, from 40 to like 100 some odd more local students. We made a very intentional effort this year, this past year of recruiting more local students. So we're very happy with bringing back our local students and bringing that up to where it needs to be. Our total enrollment for undergraduates is hovering at about 3,500. Okay. The breakdown international is about 30%. Mainland is hovering at about 45%. And then the rest is local. See, this is another good thing. I enjoyed it so much when I went there and I was an adult student, but everybody was from all over the place. All different work backgrounds and grew up in different cultures and had different perspectives than just the American way of doing things and so on, which made it such a great way to learn from a global perspective. And that's the comment we get back from a lot of our alumni when we go and have, you know, visit our alum. And that is the number one thing. They talk about the diversity in the classroom, about the different perspectives. And they say by far, HPU has been the most diverse university. Yeah, because you just sit in there and you just don't realize that in Korea or Japan or Switzerland or Denmark or wherever all your students are coming from that, well, those businesses are set up, established and are run in these ways. Yes. As opposed to what we're just like here. Yeah. So it's kind of, it's a very cool thing. And our athletic department, our athletes are also so diverse. Yes, right. You know, we got a lot of baseball, softball at our local. Basketball. Basketball. We got some of the tallest basketball players I've ever seen in my life. I didn't realize that Europeans got that tall. They got tall. And they got long arm spans. Yeah. Yeah, but I see them, you know, I see them downtown right at Starbucks or, you know, walking around and down and enjoy having a conversation with them and so on. And they're very highly competitive. Oh, very. Yeah. Very competitive. And they, they, they, they have the win in them. They want to win. They definitely do. Definitely do. All right. This is cool. So anyway, we're going to, we're going to take a break. Yes. And pay a couple of bills. Then we'll come back and we'll talk about this concept that we threw up like a ball a couple of weeks ago about this intercollegiate, intra-state baseball tournament. Baseball. All right. So Gorda Teksar, Rick Defundmeister, Sam Moku from HPU. If you didn't order to figure that out, and we'll be back in about a minute. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Match day is no ordinary day. The pitch, hallowed ground for players and supporters alike. Excitement builds. Game plans are made with responsibility in mind. Celebrations are underway. Ready for kickoff. MLS clubs and our supporters rise to the challenge. We make responsible decisions while we cheer on our heroes and toast their success. Elevate your match day experience. If you drink, never drive. My show. It's on Tuesdays at one o'clock and it's out of the comfort zone. And I'll be your host, R.E.B. Kelly. See you there. I mean, look, UH basketball. Aloha. How you doing? We're getting into that. Oh, yeah. Gorda Teksar, welcome back to Emochi Talk. I've got Rickson Moku and we're going to discuss this concept that we're having about an intercollegiate. You came up with the term last time we were on the show. Intercollegiate baseball event. I'm going to call it a baseball event rather than just baseball game or some weekend, you know, pre or post a season where we can bring the universities together. And the thought that we've been discussing is when I like, you know, University of Hawaii, Hawaii Pacific University, University of Hilo. Hilo. But then I went, what about one school from the mainland? So I just kind of like, okay, grab a holy name. No, not holy. I was thinking, you know, maybe we get the little league, you know, we'll get the little league girls just to come in and do whatever. But I, you know, we had mentioned that there's, you know, we lost the Pro Bowl. You know, there's not much, there's not much that goes on. We have the, you know, we have obviously high school football and things that happen in that space. But that brings the community together with kind of a fun rivalries, tongue in cheek kind of thing that we could do this. So I think, I think it would be, would be fun. So you're actually one of the ones that's kind of been pushing this a little bit. So what have you, what have you got so far? And I'll tell you what I've got so far. And so, you know, it's, it's incumbent upon me to kind of meet with Dave Matlin. You know, we got to discuss the whole thing. Yeah. And Dave, I think, we haven't met yet, but you know, I'm pushing hard. But I think amongst the HPU and even with the UH Hilo, especially if UH Hilo comes in strong, I mean, I think we could put this together. You know, we will have to look at some of the NC 2A rules that kind of guide us in this area. But I think it's, it is possible because we, we've already competed, HPU has competed against Manoa in basketball. In basketball, in basketball. So there's got to be ways in volleyball. You guys used to play in volleyball. And I think it's, it's great because you have, you know, the local kids on all of the teams, right? And then you got parents who a lot of them live here on the island or will fly in, you know, if they live on the big island. And then, you know, you kind of mentioned it, you know, you got the UH Hilo group, you got the Shyamala, I mean, the Sharks group, the HPU group, and then you got the Manoa group. Oh, and then you get one venue and, you know, probably never met, any, you know, never met each other before, and they're just like having fun. And having, and having as a weekend, I thought it was a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, kind of a Round Robin kind of thing. My thought was like, but you bring the the women's softball teams in, right? So there, you'll have a team out there that will be a mix of males and females that are, that with the, with a baseball theme for a, for a, and we can get to come back, who knows, coaches, have coaches play, whatever, whatever that will, that will make NC2A comfortable with it, that this cannot be used as a measurement stick for anything, and use it as a way to raise money for the universities. My thought is like, you know, the monies that get raised would go to the individual universities, their athletic departments, or wherever, scholarship funds, or wherever. But to turn it into an annual event, they get sponsors, wine airlines. Especially for the neighbor island folks, if the wine heirs can help out on that. We get a team from the West Coast who's interested in coming and being part of this event. And I think, you know, if we get it started, it becomes a tradition. All of the local people can gather around and enjoy seeing their son, or even, you know, their daughter, you know, in some event, all together with all the Hawai'i schools. And then they get to meet each other, like you said earlier, they get to meet each other, they get to, and if we get, you know, depending on how we can plan this thing and get it together, my minds are like, well, if we could be pre-major league baseball season, and we get some of the locals like Colton Wong, who's a very strong contributor to things that happen in this state, who would be willing to, you know, be part of what was happening here before football season. I know it's not, but, you know, the local markets, Marriota, you know, all the different players that we could get, oh, that was a nice point, all the different players we could get that could come out and also be part of that event. Yes. Right? Yeah. And, you know, it takes many to put this together, and so, you know, with your help and, you know, this program and starting the, getting the discussion going, I think is real. If you can get Marcus Marriota, you know, then you can probably get Island Insurance. Yeah. But see, we're just thinking how we just think this through, right? Shane Victorino. Shane Victorino. He's retired. He's retired. See, so, yeah, so we've got a number of retired athletes as well. And so, I mean, and again, my goal is I want a community event that everybody just rallies around, right? Just rallies around. And it's a family community event, right? Yeah. You've got, you know, the kids, the little league baseball teams are going to come out, you know, the families are going to come out, the alumni's are going to come out. Oh, and I can just imagine the stories on TV or whatever, the soundbites. Oh, yeah, the soundbites. Me doing the soundbites, U-H, right? I went HPU, not U-H. Yeah. And so, and David Lazar and I go back a long way, both IT guys, and he's now the president of the school. I saw him on Wednesday. You plugged it. You plugged it. He's like, you went NCAA, NCAA. I went, Dave, we'll work it out. We'll work it out. Yeah. But there must be a way around it because, you know, there's the Christmas tournament with the U-H and the basketball, you know, those sorts of things. This is a little bit closer to home. The scheduling will be probably the really key part of where the game is placed. Yeah. I would like that lesson or commie because that location is by far one of the nicest here. It accommodates 4,000-plus people or whatever. Parking. Parking is great. If it was decided to televise any of these, none O'Lello or Think Tech, or whatever, ooh, there's the Think Tech Sports Channel. Oh, I like that. Hey, I like that. Oh, wait. You and I talk about this for HPU and the Think Tech Sports Channel. Oh, I've been wanting to change this theme of this show for a while. But yeah, if we were able to do something like that, and again, people will be coming out and just, I think, really having a great time. Food competition, too, I thought. Yes. Every university probably has their very unique type of food that they would like to introduce into it. Right. So I think that would be a great idea. Yeah, you can see the Murakawi Stadium, right? We could have a, I'm just making it up, like a chili cook-off or something, whatever, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But just make that part of what was going on for this whole weekend event. Friday would have, nights would have this thing. And then Saturday would do these things. Then Sunday would be this day as we close out the event and so on. Get the culinary schools in there a little, you know. This, this, this'll, this'll. Competition of the schools. Put a whole carnival off to the side and make, you know, this movement. There might be a carnival next door. You never know. You never know. You keep on adding, yeah. No, no, no, wait. I can see E. Karen Fernandez going, hey, wait a minute. We got something we might want to be part of. Right, right. And turning it to the, a real local family style event. Do we even do the farm fair anymore? Yes, the farm fair is at the stadium. It's at the stadium. Okay. Once a year. Once a year. Obviously I've been going a lot. You know, and I really believe, you know, this is kind of the time where all the universities are at, you know, all three of us. And even Shyamana eventually should, we should have something that brings us all together on the island. I mean, everybody's doing their own thing. You know, I mean, yes, UH is the big brother. And then, you know, you got the Division II schools, but let's bring everybody together once a year. It's co-operative. Yeah, yeah. Co-operative. It is, right? Yeah. It really is. You know, everybody's competing for the students. Yeah. That's obvious. But we still are this local community. Yeah. And so if the ILH and the OIA can come back together. Yeah. Why can't the universities do the same thing? Do the same thing again. Yeah. Yeah. For all of us. It'd be just a good trip. But I think, you know, I think the great thing about this is that it's both the public schools and the private schools coming together. Yes. And so that could also be something that goes down to the, you know, the high schools as well, the private and the public coming together because there's a lot of competition between those guys. Yeah. Definitely. Tons. Yeah. I can see tours of the various campuses or different events that could go on, the rallies that would happen with the students. And I can just see just a ton of fun happening with all these things. So we're right here. Right here. This group right here. We're the ones that's getting started. We're the ones that are trying to get this thing started. And so those of you that are watching this show and we're going to keep pushing this out and get more people behind it. Yeah. We're going to get a rallying cry. Critical mass. Critical mass. Yeah. To get this thing done. But we might need a sign-waving campaign. And you're only saying that because we're experiencing like the pre-November sign-waving campaign. Yeah. Let me write. Maybe November 3rd? I could say that. November 3rd. Put it on the ballot. Yeah. HPUUH. And then they're going like, what the heck is this? There's no law against us doing a sign-waving campaign for something like this. We can. Yeah. Right? There isn't. Yeah. We have to come up with a tagline. Like we want this, right? So everybody starts chanting it. Exactly. Well, speaking of taglines, this is your new shirt, right? This is our new logo shirt. Okay. The logo shirt was created by Zig Zane. He came in and spent almost six, eight months to put this creation of his mana'o into this logo. It's pretty cool shirt. And it's kind of based off of Maoka to Makai from the Nuuanu Pali mountains all the way to where we are located at Lo'ata, where the water runs out into the harbor. Right. Right. So it has the significance. There's our Hawaiian values, which represent these three lines that or the three line in two, three, aloha ponokuliana. The individual kind of design here that he replicated is actually a leaf called the lama leaf. Okay. Which is the lama leaf, the lama tree was used back in the ancient Hawaiian days of an enlightenment or learning area where the native Hawaiians used to gather under the lama trees. So he used the veins of the leaf to kind of create this pattern. Wow. Yeah. It's cool. And I just got this today. So I'm really happy for this. And the diamonds right here in the middle, this is the teacher, the kumu, and this is the student. Wow. Yep. Yep. And there's more meanings to it, but I don't want to do it disjusticed. It's on a legal pad. It goes for this long. Yeah. It's actually in the back of your shirt. It's in the back of the shirt. Yeah. If I had this earlier, I would have taken it and put it on as a picture and had it up as a slide, but we'll work on that. So Zig is actually creating us some aloha shirts. Oh, awesome. He's making us some aloha shirts. And for the males, and then for the females, he's making a beautiful scarf. So we're starting to replicate it. Along Fort Street Mall, you'll see some of our banners with the logo. At Aloha Tower, we have the logo. When's the aloha shirt coming out? Soon. Is it got green in it? I'll let you know. He's got some awesome designs. Yeah, let me know because definitely we're down for the aloha shirt. Definitely down for the aloha shirt. Yeah, the student instead of me wearing my HPU with my little crest on the side now, I've got a little bit more styling. I have a sharky. Somewhere in storage, I have a shark. Do you need another one? One of my students gave it to me. Oh, the sharky? Yeah. Oh, I got a sharky. Someone gave it to me when I was teaching at HPU. So not only was I a student at HPU, I taught at HPU. That's right. You didn't pay much, but that was all right. Again, I had so much fun because I had all this mix of students from across the country. And that's how brave HPU is. We took a chance on Gwane. He did a great job. Yeah, a number of years too. Anyway, so Sam, this has been great having you on the show. Thank you very much. I'd like to really get into an HPU update. Okay. But also, let's talk about this HPU sports broadcasting idea on the web. So are you doing broadcasting live on the web? So we can stream. We have a streaming, I'm not sure who we're using, but I can definitely connect you with our media guy. Then maybe we can start from there and see how we can... Let's talk about this. I can see you and I as the announcers. No, definitely. That'd be awesome. And we'll bring you guest announcers. There you go. Bring in Kanoa first. Bring in Kanoa. Bring in Kanoa would be awesome. Anyway, we haven't signed it yet, but every one of our guests gets an autographed solo cup. Thank you. So I've got to grab one of the Sharpies. Nothing like the Red Cup. Yeah, that's exactly what they're doing. So don't be selling this on eBay either of them. Anyway, thanks a lot, man. It's been terrific having you here. Thank you, Gordo. We'll be back. Good to see you. Thank you. This intercollegiate athletic event. Yes. Hopefully we'll get one off the ground within one or two years. All right. That's how long it takes here. And like we say at the end of every show, and I never queued you up on this, but that's okay. One, two, three. How are you doing?