 Hi, I'm Rusty Komori and this is Beyond the Lines. We are broadcasting live from the beautiful Think Tech Hawaii TV studio in the Pioneer Plaza in downtown Honolulu. This show is based on my book which is also titled Beyond the Lines and it's about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence and finding greatness. Today's special guest is a medical doctor, a former Hawaii state representative and state senator and current lieutenant governor. He is Josh Green and today we are going beyond politics. Josh, awesome having you here today. Thanks Rusty, I appreciate it. You've been so busy doing so many things over the last few months and we have a lot to talk about. You bet. But I know that you were born in New York and you grew up in Pennsylvania. Right. How was it growing up there? It was great. It was one of those childhoods where you can walk to school, you have your dogs running without a leash. Everyone knew everybody. You played German spotlight at night in the summertime, stay out late. It was a really nurturing environment and I love Pennsylvania. So great place to grow up. Real kind of idyllic. Yeah and you told me as we were talking earlier that you played tennis. I did. I was a decent tennis player, probably not at quite the level of your elite guys over at Puno over the years but I won a championship in 87 in my area in western Pennsylvania and just loved the game. I had, you know, had experiences on the court which taught me a lot, taught me a lot about perseverance. I was not a big guy but I never let a ball get past me so I could draw out a match as long as it was necessary to win. So you're one of those tough competitors that really grind out the points. Yeah, I'd never let a ball go so every single point I would take it to its max and it gives you an opportunity to study your opponent. There's a lot of Sun Tzu in tennis as you, I'm sure, no, I mean you write about these things and it's such a psychological game that if you can persevere just like in life you can succeed. So I use tennis partially as a metaphor not unlike what you've preached but it was a great sport because I played doubles, I had a great mixed doubles partner and I'm determined. I'm kind of a never quit type guy. Yeah, that's awesome. I love hearing that and what college did you end up going to? I went to Swarthmore College which again, fantastic experience, liberal arts education, it got me ready for the world, got me ready for medical school, a great tennis program beyond my, that was it for me. We won the national championship there in, I believe it was 92 in my senior year but I wasn't on that team. I was just there rooting for my buddies. And it was a great experience where I got to know what I would want to do going forward in life. During that time I traveled the world with mentors, I had an opportunity to do research in India. I was on a train one day and I saw people suffering and I knew that I wanted to go back only if I could give something back and that's when I decided to be a doctor. So it was those experiences in Philadelphia at Swarthmore that really shaped me. Yeah, so when did you end up coming to Hawaii? I came to Hawaii in 2000, in July of 2000 and that was kind of a unique story. During medical school which was Penn State, I got a scholarship to pay back all my loans as long as I went and worked in an area that was underserved. And there were places all across the country where there was no doctor in the Deep South, all the way up in Maine. But there was also recruitment for rural Hawaii, single still. And on my scholarship they interviewed me and they said, you know, you're the kind of guy that we thought would fit comfortably in a multicultural community. You really want to give back. So going and working in the countryside where there was a lot of poverty seemed to, well, suit me and suit what the needs were. So I got recruited and I became the doctor for Ka'u on the big island. Wow. Yeah. That's great. Now, you have a wife and two kids, tell me about them. They're wonderful. My wife's name is Jamie, Jamie Ushiroda, before she became Jamie Green. My little girl grew up in Kaneohe, went to Eolani School and then went to Brown University before coming back for law school. So she's a lawyer and has a passion for taking care of kids, family law, that kind of thing. And just super supportive. Jamie is awesome. Then my little ones, Maya is 12, just about to start seventh grade and Sam is eight. And he's kind of our colorful, God jester, lovable guy. So, Josh, what values are you trying to instill with your children? Well, we're an interesting mixed family. So I'm half Jewish and half Russian Orthodox and my wife is Mormon. So we have a lot of spirituality in our family, although from different perspectives. So it's kind of a wacky mix, creates quite a lot of chaos in a healthy way. We try to show them that caring for people is what's most important. I always tell my kids, I want them to be kind to people and that's all that matters to me. If they're kind to people, they're going to be fine. Then people will respect them, they'll be able to give back to society. I think we've been very lucky as a family to, you know, work hard. I still work as a doc and I did all these years even when I was a senator and a rep. So we have enough means for ourselves to be able to volunteer a lot. And I want them to be those kind of kids. They already are. This is probably what's been lacking in some parts of the world right now and I think we see a lot of people in conflict. I don't want that for my kids. But to be completely candid, my wife is raising these kids more than me and she's a great mom. Well, that's good to hear though, I know how busy you are and you touched on it earlier about when you went to India and why you wanted to become a doctor. So really, why did you become a doctor? Well, when I was in India, I was on a train traveling from Madras all the way to Delhi. And I bought a train ticket for 15 rupees, which is like a dollar. Okay. And I was in the third class car and I was trying to find myself like a lot of people are. I was 19 years old and I saw some unbelievable suffering. I saw people coming onto the train, selling food just to survive. And one guy came on the train and he had a withered arm and both of his lower limbs were not properly formed and it was shocking to a guy like me who had never been exposed to much tragedy or much hardship, just a little bit, you know, in the United States. And I just thought, you know, there's got to be more. And I wanted to pick a discipline that I would be okay at. I'm pretty expressive and I can listen well to people. And so being a primary care doctor made a lot of sense to me. And I came back from that experience for several months away and it shaped my future because it led to things that we may touch on like, well, the National Health Corps, but also working in medical mission hospitals in Africa. All those experiences came from some of those early childhood experiences. And I just thought it was a good discipline at least to build from. Obviously, I have a whole nother career now in public service, though it's that foundation of medicine, which I usually lean on. That's very admirable. I want to know, so why did you become, why did you go for the House of Representatives in 2004? Well, that was a kind of a strange set of events. I was the family doctor in Ka'u, had been for a couple of years. I was working in the emergency department because I'm also an ER doc. I just like that. I like to be able to solve a problem quickly. It's, you know, kind of my character, my fiber and being. And so I was in the ER on several occasions taking care of people. And during the course of a six-week period in Ka'u, I saw two tragic events. I saw a one-year-old baby that little toddler dropped from a second floor, Lenai, when his young parents were neglecting him and he passed away. And then, and they had some drug problems and it was heartbreaking. And then another one-year-old who was supposed to be watched by his parents, but they were out of it on drugs. And the grandfather didn't know and he drove over the kid's head with a car. And, you know, basically thanks to the graces of God or whatever, that kid survived. The nurses really saved him and I played a small part. But to have those two one-year-olds come in, when there was chaos in the family, and I saw all that, I'm sitting there in the clinic thinking, I'd like to do more on some level. And I thought we needed more drug treatment for people on the neighbor islands. We needed more trauma services. We needed some way to fortify families a little bit better because these are people suffering addiction and then their kids were suffering. So I decided to run for office and I just went door to door walking in my scrubs all across, in this case, Kona, which is where I ran, because I was already living up there and back and forth to Ka'u. And people just connected with me. And they see, when people see me in my scrubs, I think a lot of people will tell you they don't connect me to a political party. They don't think of me as an ideologue that can't listen to them. They think of me more as a doctor. And in the course of that, I was also running a free clinic for the Salvation Army in Kona. I met a ton of people and they just saw that it transcended politics. And I was lucky enough to win and then begin to work on those things like putting a trauma system in place, getting access to a lot more resources for community health centers or drug treatment. So I didn't think I would win that first race, but I guess it resonated with people and I worked really hard at it. And I can see why people connect with you. I mean, you're very genuine. You're very authentic. And then you became a state senator from 2008 to 2018. And I want to ask you, Josh, you were there on the big island when we had the volcano, the destruction. And you saw it firsthand. Oh, yeah. Tell me about that. Well, that was unbelievable because I was there when we had the big earthquake. I was actually on call in Pahala. The quake was shaking our hospital. I was standing there in my underwear in the call room as the hospital shook. And then when the lava explosion occurred, when the eruption occurred, I was over here and I flew back immediately and went and volunteered. I put a knapsack on with some bandages and got over there. And it was amazing to see because first people were displaced. And I don't just mean displaced from their homes. They were like displaced from their medications and their dog. And one person, his spouse, who had schizophrenia, wandered off. And we couldn't find her. So it was an amazing human crisis and, of course, infrastructure crisis for the guys on big island. And they were already living a little on the edge because in Pahala, a lot of people live off the grid and they've made a choice to separate a little bit from society for their own personal health. So now that was all disrupted. And again, I would just go fill people's medications and try to help them. One lady lost her oxygen tank. She was like 90 years old. We had to make sure that got fixed. All sorts of interesting challenges. But meanwhile, the firefighters would take us into the village and you'd be walking around as the lava flowed and like a propane tank would explode. Or a house would get engulfed by flames and then be gone 15 minutes later. And you could just see how fleeting life could be and how people's lives are completely turned upside down. I mean, if any of us lose our home, all of our pictures of our loved ones, maybe some part of our life savings, it's incredible. So I saw that firsthand and it was great to be there with Mayor Kim. He was a trooper. I diagnosed him with a pneumonia while he was there. And that guy was fighting a major pneumonia and there for the people and just putting it all on the line. So our firefighters put it on the line. A lot of people stepped up as volunteers. It was incredible how much generosity we saw. And then I was just there kind of witnessing it because I think people in that part of the human condition, whether it's in a crisis like that or when I'm in the ER and I see people in their most vulnerable moments, it gives me some idea how I might be able to govern or lead when I'm putting on the other hat of Lieutenant Governor. Yeah. So now let's talk about Lieutenant Governor. You and Governor E. Gay seem to have a fantastic working relationship and you guys are great together. Can you tell me about that? Yeah, I really like Governor. He is a very soft-spoken gentleman. He's not political in the way people think, which is frankly a blessing. The first night after the primary, I went straight over to the headquarters and kind of gave him a hug. We had served together. People sometimes forget for more than five years as senators. And we worked together a lot. He sometimes killed my bills, which was okay. All was forgiven because he's been a good boss. And I'm not used to having a boss except for Jamie at home. It's very unusual for me. But I asked him if I could be a full participant in what he needs to do to take care of people in Hawaii. And he said yes. He asked what I would like to do. And I said I'd like to take on chronic homelessness because in my mind that's our biggest challenging crisis in our state. And it has so many other implications if we don't take care of that problem. He said yes. He really embraced me as a person. He knew me as a doc. Half the time I'm usually walking around in my scrubs anyway. He sees me in that way. And so he's been very receptive. We're very different people. He's a very analytical, thoughtful engineer. I'm gonna kind of fly by the seat of your pants doctor. But our ethnicities are a little different. He has a great respect for family as do I. But he's from Okinawa and his roots. I'm from Eastern Europe. That's where my roots are. But a lot of the similarities there for what our goals are and kind of our ethos are the same. And so it's been a great partnership. I really, really like his family very much. Don is a great person. He's a leader behind the scenes. And he sees that in my wife too. So it's a great partnership. And I just hope that in these next three and a half years people see that we can actually help a lot of people in our way. We are not a very political couple. We don't spend much time on politics. I'm trying to do practical programs that care for people. And that's what he does all the time. Yeah. I had governor on my show last year. And he's such a great character. And so do you. And you guys are really, you guys care about everyone in Hawaii. And you guys really are trying to make the best decisions possible for everyone here in Hawaii. I know that. Now Josh, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to continue going beyond politics. Great. You are watching Beyond the Lines on ThinkTech Hawaii with my special guest, Lieutenant Governor Josh Green. We will be back in a quick minute. Hey, loha. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on ThinkTech Hawaii, live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your co-workers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We want to teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because Security Matters. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Gwen Harris, the host here at ThinkTech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of the supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you'd go to thinktechhawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Thanks so much. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on ThinkTech Hawaii. My special guest today is a medical doctor and current Lieutenant Governor for the state of Hawaii. He is Josh Green, and today we are going beyond politics. Josh, my book Beyond the Lines, you definitely go beyond the lines. I mean, it's about leadership. It's about creating a culture of excellence. Why are you successful as a leader? It's probably persistence. I think more than anything, I learned at an early age, if you never give up and you never quit, you do end up having successes. The definitions of successes are varied, of course, right? In politics, one of them is just whether you stick with it and connect with enough people and make sure that you're genuine. People respond to that. For me, I was able to literally go outside the lines of traditional politics as a physician, which is way perceived. I'm perceived more often than not. I'm able to connect with people in a different way. I think if you actually tracked me all the way back to my childhood, you'd see that perseverance and kind of a ton of drive helped me. Those are my defining qualities, which my team and my family and my kids and my parents would all quickly tell you that's why I do okay. I like that. I like hearing that. And I also talk about purpose in my book. What do you feel your purpose is in life? My purpose is several fold, but my main purpose is to make sure people who are having the most difficult time in life, usually with very fundamental needs, whether it's access to health care or housing or just kind of basic survival that we care for them. It's why I went into family medicine and emergency medicine to help people through their crises. And I think it's high time that we move there as a culture. One of the best things about Hawaii is our values, right? Our values of Ohana and Aloha. And those are ways for people to express in large symbolic terms that we care for people. Every culture has some of that, but a lot of cultures have had to dissipate and people become disconnected from their culture and their communities. We're trying to go the other way in Hawaii, which is reconnect to communities. Make sure that everyone is connected. And I think if I have any legacy or hope for a legacy, it's to show people that how connected we are. When I take on chronic homelessness, I make a point of saying the very individual who's suffering today who is homeless, maybe has a health crisis, may need an ambulance, cost a thousand bucks to help pick him or her up, take them to the hospital, spend 2000 in the ER. They don't have housing. They go back to the street. If we don't take better care of that individual who's suffering, we won't have resources to take care of the many thousands of kids that need public school education, or we won't have resources to have a proper ER or community health center system. And so we're all connected like crazy. And you can take it to another level. If we don't take care of the individual who's got schizophrenia and is addicted and may become violent in the streets, we see the tragedies that can arise from that too. So I preach interconnectedness now, and I'd like to see our legacy of helping people help all people. So when I work on this issue of chronic homelessness, I'm trying to tell people that this is about all of our communities getting healthier. And people are starting to see that with some of the programs that we're rolling out. Yeah. And you totally have empathy for everyone here in Hawaii. And Ground Zero, you said, is of homelessness. Is it in Chinatown? It is. The truth is, in walking door to door for a year, statewide and meeting people, but often being here in the urban core, I saw it firsthand. And again, I'm in my scrubs and talking to people I'm fairly easy to talk to, but I was able to see their suffering. And people have drifted into Chinatown in the urban core when they're struggling with being unsheltered homeless. A lot of them have become methamphetamine addicted and they're trying to break that cycle. But their lives, their personal lives are totally disrupted. Their lives are disrupting the rest of the community. And then it's so difficult for the police to wrap their minds around it, or the community health workers to wrap their minds around it, or the mayor's team, great challenges. So we're doing things that will create a health institute, but it's also a homeless institute at the same time. Just very few people are consuming a ton of resources. So by getting them healthcare through the form of housing, we decrease their costs by a ton. That opens up new opportunities to do programs. And so all here at Ground Zero is where you can see a lot of this problem. I think you're going to see major improvements over the course of the next 18 months because we're going to help the people who are mentally ill. We're going to help the individuals who are drug addicted. We're going to put people into some housing that's suitable for them so that they can begin to heal. And as they begin to heal, the community of Chinatown begins to heal. And as Chinatown begins to heal, all of Oahu can heal and we can deal with Waimanalo, Waianae, Kakaako. So it's a part of a larger plan. I did this kind of work on the Big Island, also with a larger plan in mind and we were able to deliver. And now to do it statewide, it's just an honor. So I love doing the work. No, that makes sense and you're making good progress with that. Now we talked about some of the challenges, but what has been your biggest challenge in your own life that you have to overcome? Well, I had a unique circumstance. I don't talk about too often, but when I was born in 1970, I didn't respond to external cues like I was supposed to. And my parents started to notice that I just wasn't meeting my milestones and I wasn't engaged. And they started taking me to get assessed. And at first, I was developmentally disabled is what the people thought. And so they checked me out and they thought that I had profound intellectual disability or mental retardation because I didn't respond at all to anything. They then quickly discovered that I was deaf. And once the diagnosis for deafness had been confirmed, underwent a bunch of surgeries and was able to gradually have my hearing restored. But it was already a couple years into life by the time I could hear. So I didn't speak. I hadn't responded. A lot of your development is very slow to come if you can only have external cues through your eyes and touch. And so I had to catch up a lot. And fortunately, I had just incredible parents and uncles and aunts that would take care of me. They put me into really in-depth education programs like Montessori school programs early on so I could only begin to develop my hearing and my language skills but also all those social skills I didn't have. And so I wonder many times if that isn't what all of our focus should be, this early childhood development because if you don't notice early on a kid has got challenges, it can run their whole life down. And it's something I'm passionate about. But it was a big challenge for my family. I was their first child. But to have your child be deaf and not be able to speak for a couple years scares the parents terribly. And I was just lucky enough to have a lot of support to catch up. Oh, that's major adversity that you overcame. Wow. So Josh, who is someone that mentored you or someone that really impacted you to be the person that you are today? Well, I had a lot of role models for sure. One person that comes to mind is Dr. Reed. He was a gentleman who asked me to come and train as a physician in his program in Pittsburgh. And the reason I think of him is because he got very sick during my residency. He developed pancreatic cancer and died. But he had this great spirit. He was one of those original old school physicians that did everything. He saw in me at the time, when I was in my mid-20s and trying to find a meaning in medicine, he saw in me the right kind of, I guess, personality to be a family physician and to engage with people. And I always think back to Dr. Reed when I think of how I developed as a physician which helped me develop ultimately as a public servant. So he's one of the people that I just love to remember. I do have other role models, but he's one of the greats. And I watched him, when I watched him die, I realized that life had to be lived fully because he died late in the 60s. He didn't have a long life, but he gave so much back to people. So I kind of think of that as I'm headed towards 50 next year. I think this is, you know, this is a time to try to influence in a positive way as many people as possible now. Yeah. In my book, I also talk about achieving and sustaining success and that great leaders ultimately build other great leaders. And that's what Dr. Reed did right here because you're a great leader. Thanks. And we're lucky to have you as Lieutenant Governor. Josh, what inspires you? I'm inspired by extraordinary moments a lot of time. I love, I'll tell you the truth, I love sport. I love to see people persevere. I'm inspired when people give back in ways that you never imagined they could when you see someone go out and change the trajectory of a major problem, like to look and see the homeless crisis or healthcare in a new light. I get inspired by people like that, like Dr. Burwick did at the national level. I really like outliers. Not just the competitive creature in me to see something new and record breakers, but I like to see people break the mold. And so when they do, it's an inspiration to me. So it can be an athlete, it can be obviously an inspirational speaker, it's often somebody in the healthcare field. To be frank, it's not usually political people. Actually, that's a different discipline altogether. But I like to be inspired by some young people too. Cognizant of how many young people make a big impact even if they are, say, sick and inspire people to value life more. You see a lot of that in the internet now and it's pretty good. Yeah, the key is to make a difference, make a positive impact to make the world a better place and make the world a better place with people around you. Josh, before we wrap, I want to ask you one more thing. If we fast forward some decades from now when you ultimately retire, what do you want to be remembered for? I'd like to be remembered as the person who made sure that everyone in our country had an equal chance to succeed and actually even go beyond our own borders globally because right now there's such a disparity between a lot of people who are suffering and a very few number of people that are succeeding greatly in our world. There should be no homelessness. There should be no question that everyone has access to healthcare. This could be a legacy that we have for mankind. I think it's possible and even in our tiny little corner of the world here in Hawaii where we have the highest per capita number of people who are homeless, we can lead the way. We can prove that that can be done. It harkens back to my experience in India, in the National Health Corps and Medical Mission Hospitals in Africa and now this job as Lieutenant Governor. So I'd like to have a model of housing and healthcare for everyone that we can honor in the future. Well, Josh, I think for sure you're well on your way to having that become your legacy and I wanted to thank you for your time on the show today and if I'm looking into the future, I can see you being our governor. I mean, you are a great man with great character. Well, thanks. We'll see how I do at this job and if it goes well, I'm back to this in three years. Thank you, Josh. Thank you very much. He's a man of great character, for sure, and our future definitely looks bright with him. And thank you for joining us on Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my book is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all Costco stores in Hawaii. I hope that Lieutenant Governor Josh and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.