 Aloha, this is Carol Mon Lee on Think Tech Hawaii's series, Leadership in Hawaii. And I want to welcome my first guest on this series for me, William Tanaka, the William is the president of first Hawaii title, a full service escrow and title company. And Will was also a law student when I was at the law school many years ago. So, welcome. Thank you. And I have, you know, you to thank for for allowing me into UH Richardson Law School. Hardly. Well, I'm going to call you Will, because that's what we always called you. Yeah. So, tell us, you've had an interesting path to the front office at first title. And you started out as a lawyer, as we just said. So, when did you graduate from law school? When did you graduate from Richardson? Yeah, so it was the class of 2006. Great class, you know, amazing friends. And after that I clerked for Judge Randall Lee for one year. And I hadn't, that was amazing. Is that civil court? Civil, yeah. And he was one of my big mentors. How did he mentor you? You know, he always emphasized, you know, learning and teaching and just about integrity. Always doing the right thing. So, he's always, you know, on my right shoulder. I see. When I have to make a big decision. That's great. Yeah. And then from there. And then from there I had an opportunity to go to good sir Anderson Quinn and Stifle. Which is one of the largest firms in the state. Right, right. So I did commercial, real estate and insurance litigation. Aha. So that's where your insurance in real estate. Right, right. Did you do any work like that before you went to law school or during law school? No, I worked for an investment company before law school in San Francisco. So this was, you know, your first gig in the law, yeah. And how long were you at Good Stone? For five years. And then when I was a fifth year associate, I had the opportunity to go in the house to be a general counsel of Fidelity National Title. Okay. So now that's a big leap for people who are interested in law. To leave law practice, which is the typical, I graduated from law school. I want to be in a law firm. I want to be a courtroom lawyer. Yeah. But you jumped to the corporate side. Was that a difficult decision? I would say, you know, it took me a couple of months to adjust. I would say, you know, the biggest difference is always having great mentors, great bosses, great leadership. So I had that with Judge Lee. I had that at GoodSill. I mean, they have an amazing training program. And my three bosses, you know, Carol Aplan, Ed Safran, Reggie Wall, just amazing. So it was a better suite to leave the law firm, to go into in-house, and it just opened my eyes towards more business aspect of it. I see. So you said before law school, you were doing work in, what was it, finance? Finance, yeah. So did you have a lot of business background then? Some, maybe for about four years or so. Oh, that's pretty considerable. We're working after, yeah. Because law school is only three. Right. So the balance between business and law, and then with some real estate legal work, you are really poised to go into first, what is it? Hawaii title. Hawaii title. I see. And you were, what was your role there? Oh, you mean my current position? No. And you're, no, sorry. Oh, fidelity, sorry. Fidelity, yes. So I was the VP and general counsel. I see. Fidelity national title. And how big is fidelity? So it's a big company, it's a big national company. So it was a... In their local office then, you were here for this? Exactly, yeah, for Hawaii. And for me to have two different presidents to work for. Meaning the local president and the main one president. Well, the two local presidents, one each for two and a half years. And that gave me great perspective and different way of doing things. So I learned a lot from both of them and trying to infuse my own, my culture and my own ideas for first Hawaii title. Okay, so now you were general counsel, so that meant was most of your work in law related and first fidelity? Yeah, law related, but at the same time, you have to make a lot of business decisions. So it's not just the legal aspect of it. In title insurance and escrow, you have to be willing to sometimes take the risk, take the difficult decision to see if you can make it work for the client. So you have to kind of balance the legal aspect of it with the insurability in business. And that's where I learned a lot of that. So maybe that was a good time since both fidelity and your current company, the same kind of business. Sure. We explained a little bit about what is escrow and title insurance. Well, so yeah, so most people don't really understand title insurance because you have current insurance. For example, you pay annual premiums to cover for some damage or loss for an event that happens sometime in the future. So title insurance is probably one of the most unique types of title insurance because it covers for financial loss for an event that happened in the past. In the past. There's a better future. Yeah. So a couple years ago, there was a big mortgage fraud where these people, fraudulent people had illegally released mortgages of record. So is this in Hawaii? In Hawaii, yeah. What does that mean, releasing mortgages of record? Oh, so for example, when you have a mortgage on your, I mean, when you buy a house, you borrow money and the bank will take a mortgage on it. So usually, it takes a good 15 to 30 years to pay it off. And in these situations, the industry was hit. So what happened was these fraudsters, they put on the property, they fraudulently released the mortgages of record. So when there's a buyer and when the escrow company says, hey, it's insured, it's free and clear, then obviously it was fraud. It's a good thing that these people had title insurance to cover them. So it's an annual, I mean, it's a one-time premium that you pay, unlike car insurance, homeowners insurance, and it covers you as long as you own your home. I see. So your companies then are basically insurance companies, but protecting title. Exactly. Yeah. And on the escrow end, we are the neutral third party. We facilitate, we work with both the buyer and the seller and their agents and we facilitate the closing. I see. So, I mean, it's an amazing industry. And why do you say that? Do you handle both real estate, residential and commercial properties? Yeah, exactly, residential, commercial, refinances, resells, developments. So it's, when I say it's an amazing, it's, there's so many myriad of possibilities and opportunities. I see. Yeah. So in terms of your first job then, Fidelity, how were you moving toward the business side? I mean, did you feel comfortable that you were kind of ending up going to be heading toward more of the business end of the career rather than back to a lawyer? Yeah. For me, it's, I had a, even though I was a general counsel, I had more of a hybrid position where, you know, I would do a lot of presentations, meeting with clients. So I really enjoy getting out there. So did people train you to do that or is that something you picked up on your own? I think part of it, I mean, it's always, you know, a team effort. So some of it just kind of happened organically, you know, someone would say, hey, can you do a presentation on this, this topic? Can you do a presentation on these title topics? And it just kind of morphed into, you know, presentations and meetings and... About supervising people. Were you in a position at that point to supervise people? Not directly. So when I became the president of First Hawaii Title, it was, yeah, it was all new. To be honest with you, yeah. Yeah. Well, let's talk about First Hawaii Titles. Sure. Then you moved over to First Hawaii Title and became president. Right. And when was that? June of last year, 2016. Oh, just a year. Just a year. I just made the one year. Congratulations. I survived. Thank you. So tell us about supervision. How big is First Hawaii Title? So, yeah, we have 34 employees. We have an office. I think we have a picture of Will and the office, some of the staff. There we go. There they are. Yeah. Hello, staff. So we're showing a picture of about... We don't have all 35 though. Right, right, right. Wonderful picture of employees very happily smiling. Yeah. So we actually have the owners of our company, my boss, the national president, right in the middle, Chris Miller. So First Title is a part of a bigger organization. Bigger organization, that's correct. Yeah. But the Hawaii office has 34 people. 34 people. We have a downtown office at the city financial tower. We're going to be moving into the ground floor space. So it's going to be a fantastic ground floor visibility and hopefully we should be moving in by the end of the year. And how long has First Title been around? Since 1985. Since 1985 and in comparison to some of the other title companies which many of us have known. Yeah. How did they rank? I think we're in the middle in terms of the length of time we've been doing business in Hawaii. And how do you measure your size? My size either by market share. And what's your market share? So we're about six and a half percent now. Is it growing? So we're in the small, it's definitely growing, yeah. Does the small, the size that you consider that a benefit or? Oh, absolutely. And why is that? Yeah. So we have our downtown office. We just opened up Kahalo Mall in December of last year. And for me, I have a huge vision. And what's your vision? Yeah, huge vision. So everything we do, we want to make people better. We want to internally out. So we work 40 hours a week together at least. So if you're not going to work, if you're not having fun, I mean, yeah, I mean, there's going to be, we're going to do some hard things sometimes. It's not easy. Sometimes you've got to go through the grind, especially during the month end. But for the most... Month end. Month end. And year end too, right? And year end, yeah, when people just want to close before the end of the month. And if you're not enjoying it, if you're not passionate about it, then what's the point? And if you're here, wherever this may be, what's this for you in terms of your personal growth, your career development? And that's what we ask our employees. So how do you then... What do you do to do that? First, to understand what their desires are and how do you get there? So for me, the most important thing for me is what I call internal recruiting, employee... You could call it employee happiness, employee retention, but you have to make sure that you have an awesome culture, that the people are in there are just hungry. And how do you describe the culture besides being hungry? You got to be ultimate team players. The all team players. So when you pay... Ultimate team players. Yeah, I say ultimate team players because if someone needs help or if someone's out sick or they have a vacation, then you got to make sure you have coverage. Does everybody cross-trained? We're getting to that point. Yeah. I mean, we've definitely gone through some growing pain, some growth. Definitely not perfect. Have you grown since you were started a year ago? Yeah, so we started off with about 23, 24 employees, so we added about 10 employees over the past year. Yeah, it's pretty good. 2% growth. Yeah, yeah. So we didn't want to grow too fast, so we do want to eventually open more offices. At the same time, we want to make sure that everything internally is working. But of course you have to track the real estate industry on the outside, right? Exactly, yeah. And the real estate industry as the market is growing, residential and commercial. Is that the case? Yeah, yeah. While he's under growth? It is. I think it'll always be, yeah. And for me, when we were talking about the vision, so in terms of vision down the line, I want to be known as the best customer service company, not just the best escrow company or the best title company, I want to be known as the best... Oh, wow. And if you use first of all your title, consistently excellent. And that's where I want to get to. Right. So... Yeah, definitely not easy. At this point, after a year, I've never been more passionate. At the same time, it's never been more challenging. Right. It's like... And what are some of the challenges briefly before we go to break? Sure. I think some of the challenges is the cultural shift during my first year. Between your president and you? Yeah. And then just for our team members to see my vision for the company and everything I'm doing, it's not for me personally. If it wasn't for our team, then we wouldn't be here. Right. Okay. We're definitely gradually getting there. Okay. Well, great. We're going to go to a short break. This is Carol Mon Lee on Leadership in Hawaii with my guest president, William Tanaka from First Hawaii Title, and we'll be right back. My name is Raya Salter, and I'm the host of Power Up Hawaii, which you can see live from 1 to 130 every Tuesday at thinktechkawaii.com and then later on YouTube. I am an energy attorney, clean energy advocate and community outreach specialist, and on Power Up Hawaii, we come together to talk about how can Hawaii walk towards a clean, renewable, and just energy future. To do that, we talk to stakeholders all over the spectrum, from clean energy technology folks to community groups to politicians to regulators to the utility. So please join us Tuesdays at 1 o'clock for Power Up Hawaii. Welcome back. This is Carol Mon Lee with my guest, William Tanaka Will, from the president of First Hawaii Title. So welcome back. Thank you. We're talking about your new role, you've been president for a year, but I want to dig a little bit deeper into your work style. So for instance, how do you communicate with your staff? Do you email one-on-one, like written memos? How do you communicate? Month one, when I started June of last year, I made sure that the first couple of weeks, I mean I met with each individual one-on-one. I think one-on-one is so important. And just over the past year, my leadership style has evolved. So I definitely meet with our leadership team, you know, once or twice a month. And how big is your leadership team? It consists of myself and three other managers. And in terms of individual meetings, I think, I mean, pretty much like every morning I'll make my rounds. Build the temperature of our company, making sure that everything's good. Do you walk to their desk or their offices? You know, it depends. Sometimes I'll just say good morning. Sometimes I'll just stop by and say, you know, how are you doing? Can you tell the temperature by hear that? Yeah. So for instance, what's been some of the surprises? I think I would say some of the surprises is, you know, when someone's out, for example, it causes them sick. And that's expected sometimes, right? So then that means that someone else have to help cover their desk at the same time, still manning their own transactions. There's a little stress. A little bit of stress. You can feel the stress. So that time then, yeah, hey, you guys want some coffee, you know, some lunch? I mean, just give them some support, give them some love as much as possible. And yeah, so I mean, there's always going to be some challenges. And of course, because we have our second branch in Kahala, you know, I'll make sure to visit them at least twice a week. So we'll have monthly meetings. And I don't like to have long meetings. My meetings, my monthly, my big meetings are almost always 10 minutes or less. That's really short. So I try to put a lot of my my points in an email, if it's really important, they'll address it. I see. And usually I'll bring up one, you know, teaching moment or motivation or some type of, you know, educational matters. So are your meetings in a conference room? Conference room, yeah, yeah. And are there offices or do they each have a desk? Open, you know, open space versus cubicles? Yeah, it's a mix. Some people have, you know, inside closed offices. Some people are in cubicles. And then we just had a breakfast meeting a couple of weeks ago at Square Barrels. So what happened, I mean, we just got the entire team. And, you know, from seven o'clock to nine o'clock. And for a lot of them, it's really hard to, you know, they have kids. They have, you know, family. They have, you know, come in, some people take the bus and, you know, my stuff, for example, so to get to round up everyone, it's not like, hey, send an email mandatory, you know, you have to be there. That's that, you know, my style. I just, you know, a couple of weeks ago or prior to that event, I just go up to them and say, you know, we have a breakfast conference coming up. You know, we have a keynote speaker. It's going to be really exciting. And I know that, you know, you have some kids and you might just make an arrangement just for that day. And everyone was all in. Great. Yeah. So sometimes, you know, certain things, if it's really important, I would just say one by one. So have you had style issues that didn't work? And what can we learn from that or what can you learn from that? I think, you know, as I mentioned, like my leadership style has evolved. Evolved over the year, right? So it is collaborative at the same time, you know, sometimes I just make decisions. I got to be decisive. So that has evolved, especially in the beginning, because, you know, a lot of the people there, they have the institutional knowledge. So I like to pick their brain. A lot of the ideas have come from our employees. A lot of ideas, you know, whether it's our barbecue family fund outing at Alamon Beach Park that's coming up in two weeks or the 5k run that we're going to be doing. Well, so yes. So I find that, you know, being trained as a lawyer too, that I'm often in the mode of gathering data. And when do I stop? Yeah, yeah. And when can I make a decision? Do you find that an issue? Yeah. So I would say, you know, when I was in House Legal Counsel, I probably did more of that in the beginning because I didn't really understand the industry, how business work. So now that, you know, just taking everything, I've been able to become more decisive. At the same time, you don't have to be perfect. Right. Nothing's ever going to be perfect. So sometimes you're just going to make a call, make it work. And in the end, everything's fixable. So. So we're talking about skills then. And as far as your technical skills, so you have a lot background, finance background, real estate background, how about technology in terms of computers and how effective and how advanced now have you been able to upgrade their technology? So I would say that there's always going to be, you know, especially the younger staff, they're a lot more savvy. A lot more. I mean, they're just fast. I mean, they could just pick it up like that. So, you know, I mean, if they're better than you or certain things, you want them to do it. So what are the, is there any cutting technology that you're adopting now for SQUI title that may not have been around a year or five years ago? Yeah, so we are, I mean, you know, we try to promote technology driven platforms, and we're always looking at new technology. So we're beta testing something new right now to implement in 2018. And what will that do for clients? Oh, so it's going to be meaning a lot more efficient efficiency internally. So we could concentrate a lot more on customer service outward. I see. Yeah. So help the back office. Yeah, if you could, you know, really help the back office and then cut down on employees, though. No, I think, in fact, if you could make it even more efficient and we could probably just ramp up more employees and open more offices. And so what's your goal long term opening off? How many more you have Kahala and you have downtown? Downtown, looking on the west side. Neighbor islands over the course of, you know, next several years, I realized that initially I was going to move much faster. I thought I was going to open more offices by the end of 2017. I think just having two branch offices. And, you know, I realized, OK, I don't want to grow too fast. We have to get the inner workings. We have to get the efficiency. The right people in the right bus on the right seat. So how do you train your team? Yeah. How do you how do you make sure you get the best level of service from them and education and experience? So a lot of it is, for example, our title, our chief title officer, you know, it's the leadership team for their specific roles. They know more than me. They do their thing a lot better than me. I mean, that's why I want those type of people in those positions, because if I knew better or did things better, I probably had the wrong people. So I know I have the right people in the departments. So yeah, a lot of times it's just empowering them, giving them leadership. A lot of times, you know, there'll be some brainstorming back and forth. But in the end, most times, yeah, I'll just say, hey, take the reins. Is that how you mentor to do you find that you turned out, you said you received mentorship from Judge Lee. So how do you turn around and mentor the people around you? I think, yeah, a lot of it is, I would say, you know, if I've talked to some recent grads, and a lot of it is their competence. Graduate from college or college or law school or younger associates, I would say most of it is, you know, it's kind of ingrained that you have to, you know, go through a certain path. You have to do a certain way, whether, you know, through your uncles and aunties or through your parents. And sometimes you just have to take that leap, not knowing what's going to be on the other side, right? Because if you think, so that, you know, if you think about it too much, then all the doubts start building up. And pretty much like 99 percent, it's you. It's no one else but you. Yeah. Well, we just have a few more minutes that I want to talk a little bit more about work-life balance. Okay. So let's see, I know we have a picture of your family because you're not just Wilton Aka, you're Wilton Aka with the lovely family with your wife. There they are. Yes. Who are we seeing here? We have a picture of five people. Five people. So that's my beautiful wife, Robin. Robin. Hi, Robin. A matter of years ago. Yeah. And my awesome kids. So rumbunctious, you know. Yes. Awesome and rumbunctious. And the girls are turning seven today. So happy birthday, Avery and Tatum. So that's Tatum in the glasses. Avery with a streak in her hair. And Travis is five. Okay, that's great. So do you spend a lot of time with your family? Are you able to in this kind of a job? Usually on the weekends, I would say that the so-called balance hasn't been there. So I really appreciate, especially my wife, Robin, for really being a rock. Right. So that's the kind of the downside of being the president in a leadership position where your time is kind of, yeah, in between. And how about friends? I know that in law school, you had some very close friends that let's see, I think they have one picture of some good buddies. Oh, yeah, those are my best friends from law school, Jeff Lau and Rich Ting. Hey, Jeff and Rich. My old buddies, too. There they are. I used to see them. And so you have, you try to make time for your community. Your, do you have community activities beyond what you do with your persuasion title? Yeah, we just did a beach cleanup recently. Oh, that's great. You know, try to raise funds. 5K runs. And what happens to the money for the 5K? It goes to a charity. I see. And how do you designate charities? So, yeah, that's an evolving process, too, because there's so many people who want to donate to their own charity of choice. So it's part of the team kind of agreeing and processing how that works. Yeah. Well, well, that time would buy really fast, right? It did. We have only one more minute left, and I'm going to give you the opportunity to make some closing remarks and look into camera. Closing remarks, OK. Yeah. So I think this is for anyone, you know, who's kind of just, you know, just going through their career path right now. For me, my biggest fear in life is never reaching my ultimate potential. Whatever that may be, I have no idea what that's going to be. And back in college, you know, my model was risk it and no regret. Risk and no regret. Risk it and no regret. Risk it and no regret. So sometimes, you know, there's going to be times where there's personal work or just, you know, I mean, any other aspects of life and sometimes when you're just waiting a decision, I mean, you just just just go for it. Go for it. Just go for it. OK. And, you know, without thinking too much about the repercussions or what may happen, what may not. If you think about it too much. So, you know, I have a band right here that says I can, I will. So that's starting to go in your mind. You just say, I can, I will. Great. So and then you two can reach the front office. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Will. Thank you, Carol. Really appreciate it. Thank you. OK, so this has been Think Tech Hawaii. Carol Monly with my guest, William Tanaka, president of first Hawaii title on Think Tech Hawaii. And thank you to our floor manager, Robert McLean and our production engineer, Ray Sangalong. And we'll see you next time, Aloha.