 I'm Rusty Komori, and this is Beyond the Lines on ThinkTech Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. This show is based on my books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game, and it's about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence. My special guest today is the director of Kahala and owner of Bar Leather Apron, Leather Soul, and Bar Mazé. He is Tom Park, and today we are going Beyond Small Businesses. Hey Tom, welcome to Beyond the Lines. How's it Rusty? Thanks for having me. Tom, I am very proud to be a Kahala brand ambassador. I love your Kahala shirts as you can see, and Tom, I want to ask you, why is Kahala so popular? Well, I hope it's becoming popular. We've been around since 1936. We're the original manufacturer of Loha shirts, so we have a rich history. We have a heritage and history that goes for many years. We have original art that dates back to the 30s and 40s, and we're made right here in Hawaii. We're locally owned and operated, and we're just great company. You have such a history, like you said. How do you keep and make everything look so cool and relevant while still honoring the history of Kahala? Well, I'm trying Rusty. I'm trying. As I said, we do have a lot of original art that dates back from the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and such, and we're always looking back to our archives and pulling original art that we've used in the past and updating it for today's looks. Actually, a great example is this shirt that I'm wearing right now. The art on it is from the 40s, but we redigilized it. We changed the colors. We changed the scale, and I have it on a recycled polyester stretch fabric that's kind of like a dry fit material, so it's really cool and lightweight and moisture wicking. It's just really comfortable and modern. It's kind of the best of the old and the new in one. Tom, you've built a great team of employees. Your team members are fantastic. When you first came in as the director of Kahala during that first year, how much did you grow the brand during that first year, and what were some specific things that you did? Well, Kahala's been a pretty steady company all these years, and I was fortunate to come in at a time when things were, it was an exciting time. We're coming out of COVID. I was able to implement some new marketing initiatives, and I ended up growing the company about 50% my first year. My main focus was really the marketing and also keeping the products relevant to today's consumers. I was able to work on some collaborations with some major brands through some of my relationships with Leather Soul. It's an exciting time for Kahala. Last year was great, and this year is going to be even better. Well, I got to say your Kahala employees, they better appreciate you as the leader because every business that you've done, you've achieved major success. Tom, I want to ask you about your co-owner Justin Park. You both are the co-owners of Bar Leather Apron, which is a two-time James Beard nominee, and you guys got honored as the 42nd best bar in North America. I mean, that is incredible. Why do you and Justin work so well together? I truly believe in surrounding yourself with great people, and Justin Park is truly one of the best bartenders in the world. He's won many international awards. He's represented the US in international competitions. He's just got so much talent. I was fortunate enough to meet Justin. He was a customer of mine at Leather Soul. He was buying shoes for his wedding, and we became friends talking about whiskey and whatnot. I had him come and do some events at my store for some local VIPs, and it was a hit. Back then, cocktails were still gaining popularity, and my friends and customers drank his cocktails and were blown away. They haven't tried an old-fashioned before. It was just an instant hit, and we just became friends, and we were just talking one day, like, hey, I can make cocktails. You can handle the business side. You always have the customer base. We should just open a bar together. That was back in 2015-ish, I think, and yeah, we traveled the world and went to some of the best bars and got some ideas, and we opened the BLA back in January 2016. Well, Bar Leather Apron is absolutely beautiful, and I mean, you guys have really set the standard here, and you both are also co-owners of one of my favorite restaurants in Hawaii, Bar Maze. I mean, you have such a great team of employees there, and you guys literally strive for that superior discipline details that I talk about in my books. Why is Bar Maze so popular and so successful right now? Again, it's just the people. Like I said, I like to surround myself with the best people. We are fortunate enough to be introduced to Chef Key, who was a chef at a Michelin star restaurant in California, and he came down, and we met, and we instantly hit it off, and he liked what we were doing and our vision, and it was just a great partnership, and we're just trying to do what we want to do, basically, if that makes any sense. We're not trying to appease anybody, we're trying to put out what we believe is the best, and our concept is matching pairing cocktails with food, and you see a lot of tasting menus of wine and food, but we wanted to do something different and unique, and especially because we have Justin making the cocktails. We wanted to do a pairing with cocktails and food, so that's what we're doing, and it's going pretty well, and I'm glad to hear that it's your favorite restaurant. Well, Tom, like you said, Chef Key is absolutely brilliant. Now, what are some of your favorite dishes at Bar Maze from Chef Key? Oh, man, you know, he's so talented and everything tastes amazing. I would have to say scallops. He does like a seared scallop dish with this butter sauce, and you can get caviar and put it on top, and then we have this special bread from the bread shop in Kamaki, and you just take that bread and just dip it in the sauce, put some caviar on it, oh man, it's so good. I totally agree with you. The scallops and the caviar option, I'm getting excited right now, Tom. Now, Tom, you are also the owner of Leather Soul. Can you explain to our viewers what Leather Soul is and why it became such a successful business? Yeah, so I was always into shoes, Rusty. I don't know if you remember when I was playing tennis, I always had to get the newest Andre Agassi Nike shoes, but in college, I actually worked part-time at a high-end men's dress shoes store, and I started to kind of appreciate dress shoes, not just sneakers, and I enjoyed selling the shoes, and I enjoyed learning about the shoes and whatnot, and I told myself one day in the back of my head, I'd like to open my own shoe store one day, and it was kind of one of those pipe dreams, and after college, I worked in finance and worked in some sales, and then my grandmother, who I was very close with, passed away, and before she did, she told me to follow my dreams and be happy, and it sounds kind of a generic thing, it out loud, but it's really truthful, and when you hear somebody saying that, you take it to heart. So I quit my job, took out some loans, I got some credit card debt, and then I opened Leather Soul back in 2004 as a one-man operation in the Topa Center downtown, and I kind of did things out of the box. It was just me in the store, and I was doing some collaborations with the shoe brands, making my own exclusive designs, I was kind of, the internet was kind of not what it is today, and blogging was kind of starting to come out, and online forums, so I was on there kind of talking about shoes, and kind of being the expert on these shoes, and I built kind of a following online that way, and then I had the Japanese customers who were coming to Hawaii, it's something that, you know, we have fortunate for us, we have that market here in Hawaii, so I focused my efforts towards the Japanese, and I just hustled and grew the business, and at one point I had three stores, one store in Beverly Hills, two stores in Hawaii, and yeah, it was a great ride, but it wasn't without its ups and downs for sure. Tom, I mean that's incredible how you had that popular store in Beverly Hills, who were some of the famous celebrities that wore your shoes? You know, I wasn't there often, but we did have some celebrities like Will Smith, Arnold Schwarzenegger, we had some NBA players and athletes, and yeah, it was fun, you know, we were right in Beverly Hills, we had a real deal drive address, so we had a lot of people in the entertainment industry, and it was fun. Wow, you got to feel so proud about that, I mean, that's incredible, and Tom, I mean, as a business owner, you've achieved some of the highest highs in business. Now, besides COVID, what would you say was the lowest point you experienced in business? Oh, it was actually in 2014, and you know, I don't talk about this much. I don't like to talk about the hardships, but in 2014, the perfect storm kind of hit. We had some issues with the supply chain, we had some leather shortages, which led to inventory shortages, the yen went from 80-something to the dollar to 120 to the dollar, and then my Beverly Hills stores went out of business basically, you know, the manager that was running it kind of wasn't doing a good job and kind of let it go, and so all these things happened all at the same time, and man, it was rough, it was my lowest low, I almost went bankrupt back then, and you know, fortunately for me, through some of my friendships and relationships, I was introduced to a very successful local businessman who came in and kind of helped me to kind of analyze my business and what I was doing wrong, and kind of helped me reform my business and be a lot more conservative and smart with my business, and it took about two years to kind of clean everything up and get back on track and just scrapped my way back, you know, it wasn't easy, but I was able to scrap my way back. Like I said, I closed the store in California, focused on Hawaii and just kind of went back to basics, and you know, after two years of scrapping, I was able to kind of stabilize my business, but yeah, I mean 2014, it was rough, it was tough. Tom, I often find that sometimes people are very undisciplined during times of success. Were you undisciplined when you were really experiencing a lot of success? Yeah, for sure, you know, I started my business in 2004, I was 26 years old, I was young with no experience, and I grew my business, you know, I doubled my business every year and I became very successful, and you know, I spent privilously, and you know, I overstaffed, you know, and I wasn't smart with the business, and I was buying too much inventory, I was doing a lot of things that I shouldn't have, so for sure it's easy to kind of be frivolous and not smart, I guess, and luckily for me, I was able to learn from my mistakes and kind of turn things around. Well Tom, I know that you're an inspiration to so many business owners and entrepreneurs because you've experienced so many things, and thank you for sharing about that major challenge that you experienced in 2014, and Tom, you have both of my books and actually you were one of the first to get my first book when it first came out, and what are some things that you liked about the books that stood out to you? You know, I actually lived through your book, right, because a lot of the stories in your book were some of my friends and some of my teammates and whatnot, so it was so much fun to read these stories and these behind the scenes stories, but no, I mean obviously about resilience, right? I always say like once you know that you can get back from something, you can do it again, so you know, I've been through that tough time, 2014, 2015, you know, things are going great, and then COVID hit, but you know, I've been through it before and I bought my way back, so I knew I could do it again, so you know, resilience was something that's very important to me, but actually the one story that really sticks out is the story of Mikey McKinnon, you know, I played against him in the Juniors, he was obviously much better than me and younger than me, I actually played more with his older brother, Robbie, but just to hear that story of the state championship final, him losing six love, six love, and then you know, you're going on the court and asking him how he's feeling and the first thing that he says is how's his team doing, and I just thought that was so cool because you know, I have a proud Ilani grad and the one team spirit is so important to me in my life and in my businesses, so just that was just amazing. I like that you brought up resiliency and the Mikey McKinnon story, and Tom, yeah, I mean you're someone that is all about that superior culture of excellence, and that's what you strive for, that's your standard in your businesses. Can you share with me what that culture entails? You know, tennis is an individual sport, but you know, with high school tennis and college tennis, you get to be part of a team, and you know, just for me, relationships are so important without relationships like I wouldn't be wearing today, and I'm always, I'm a firm believer that you treat people the way that you want to be treated, you do right for people, and when you need help, they'll do right for you, so you know, I always try and keep my relationships very dear and near to my heart, do what I can for people, whether you know, if they're my teammates, or my employees, or you know, my kids on the tennis team, you know, you want to do the best for them, when they need help, help them, do what you can to support them, because one day you're going to need help, you're going to need their support, and if you are good to them, they're going to be good to you, so you know, relationships are something that are really important to me, I learned that early on, before Leather Soul when I was working in finance, as a person who I kind of considered to be one of my mentors taught me that, and you know, to this day, I just try and do what I can for people, because it's just good to help people and be good to people. I completely agree with you, Tom, and Tom, you have a beautiful family, and I know every member of your family, your daughter, Maddie, your son, Jaden, and your wife, Laurie, I mean, what is, what's the biggest thing you admire about your wife, Laurie? We're opposite, so you know, without Laurie being the kind of the rock, I mean, I couldn't do what I'm doing now, you know, when I was, when we were just married, and I said I was going to open my shoe store, she was the one with the solid accounting job, and supported me when I was doing crazy things, so you know, I'm so blessed, and I appreciate what she does, and it's not easy to be a wife of a small business owner, that's for sure. Well, I know Tom, I've known you for so many years, and yeah, you're very lucky to have Laurie, I mean, she is, she is your rock for sure, and I coach your son, Jaden, in private tennis lessons for some years now, and you know, Tom, he's going to be trying out for the Yolani Boys varsity team, you were on the Yolani Boys varsity team, you were a solid player, you went on to play for the University of Hawaii men's tennis team, what do you feel is the toughest part about playing tennis? Well, first of all, I didn't really play for UH, I sat on the bench and I watched the starters play, let's put it that way, but no, tennis, you know, tennis is such a difficult sport, because it's so mental, you know, I'd like to say it's 80% mental, 20% physical, you're on the court and you're just battling against your opponent, and just all these thoughts are going through your mind and sometimes it's hard to kind of control your emotions and whatnot, so, you know, I love that my son's playing tennis because it teaches him that mental game, and then I also love that he plays basketball and football, because he gets to kind of, you know, experience the team atmosphere and how everybody has a role, so, you know, tennis is just such a mental struggle, but I think it's great, I think everybody should play individual sport and a team sport to kind of learn both sides. Well, Jayden is definitely a boy with great character, and that's all because of you and Laurie, I mean, you guys are his first coaches as parents, and Tom, you're also the head coach for the Eolani Boys JV tennis team and the assistant coach for the Eolani Boys Varsity tennis team. What is it about coaching that you love so much? You know, some of my best experiences were through tennis, playing tennis at Eolani, playing tennis at UH, all the tournaments I played in the juniors, you know, I still have so many friends from tennis, I still play tennis every week on Sundays with all my tennis buddies, so tennis is obviously a very important part of my life, and I've learned so much from tennis, and I just, I really enjoy working with the kids and seeing them improve and seeing them experience that, and it's something that, you know, I started a few years back thinking that, you know, I was going to coach my son Jayden, but then he actually took a break from tennis, I think I was coaching him a little too hard, so that's about the time that I handed him off to you, but, you know, I continue to teach and coach at Eolani, and, you know, it's just so fulfilling when the boys just like you, and listen to you, and appreciate you, and, you know, I've been through it all, so hopefully I can kind of share some of my knowledge, and hopefully some of the boys that I coach continue to play tennis, and one day I can play with them, you know, when they're 40 years old and I'm 70 years old, so that's kind of what I'm looking forward to. Well, Tom, you're definitely making a positive impact in business and in sports, and I don't know how you find time to do everything that you do with your businesses and to take time coaching the Eolani teams, but in terms of leadership, what do you feel are some things that the greatest leaders do? You know, I think passion is very important. I think if you're passionate about something and you can share your passion with your employees and your teammates, they'll kind of get passionate about it too, and they'll get on your team, and they'll be all excited to help you, so, you know, going back to my point about relationships, you know, I'm very fortunate that I have great teams in every business, Leather Soul, Bar Leathery, Ben Bar Mazze, and Kahala. I have great support, great people around me, and without them, I couldn't do what I'm doing, and you know, like I said, it's just treating people right and appreciating them and getting the best people around you. It makes it a lot easier. Tom, I love that you brought up passion, and I want to ask you about the importance of communication, because, I mean, obviously, to be successful, you got to communicate very well, and you do. So, tell me, I mean, for me as a leader, I always said that I don't give good feedback or bad feedback. I give honest feedback. What are your thoughts about communication? It's definitely important to be in constant communication with people and letting them know how you feel. You know, I definitely try and tiptoe when things are bad, but I try and turn it into a learning opportunity, and again, you know, it's getting more and more difficult for me even, because I have so many businesses that I kind of manage, but, you know, just being in contact with each one, I touch each one every day, you know, I'm at Leather Soul every morning, then I go to Kahala, then I'm talking with my partner, Justin, and just kind of keeping keeping engaged with everything as much as possible. It is getting harder, and I think I'm pretty much maxed out right now, but luckily, like I said, I have a great team around me that I can lean on, so I'm very fortunate. Now, Tom, I want to ask you about risk, because people that are successful in business, they're willing to take calculated risks to be better. They're never complacent, and obviously, with your businesses, Bar Leather Apron, Bar Maze, Kahala, Leather Soul, you're taking calculated risks. Tell me about that. Definitely. You have to take risks. You know, as I get older, I have to take much more calculated risks, but risks are, you can't succeed without taking some risks. You know, like I said, people around me supporting me, and one thing that I like to do is take quick action. So, if I have an idea, I like to jump on it, and that's kind of what I did my whole career. If there's an opportunity, you jump on it and take that risk, because before you know it, somebody took that opportunity. So, yeah, I've had to kind of tone it down here at Kahala, because, you know, being on this side, on the brand side, it takes a lot longer to make a lower shirt than you might think. So, you know, I have all these ideas. I have all these great, you know, products that I want to do, but it takes literally a year to make. So, I've had to learn to kind of step back and kind of learn the process and be more patient. But now I'm taking bigger risks, because a new product might not come out for a year. So, yeah, it's been interesting and fun, and I really enjoy it. So, Tom, right there, you said the process is about a year for an Aloha shirt. Why is that? What goes on during that process? You know, there's so much involved, right? It starts with the arts, and we have a great team of artists here in the office that are constantly drawing arts and coming up with new ideas. So, that process takes a while, and then we have to go back and forth with the factory that creates the fabric in Japan. And once that fabric is approved, then we need to order the fabric. It needs to be made, and that takes a lot of time, and then that fabric needs to be shipped to Hawaii, coordinated with all our sewers, and then all the marketing efforts for the prints. And it's just a lot more goes into it than you would think. So, it's generally about a year to get a new shirt to the consumer. Wow. Tom, I want to ask you one more question before we wrap up. What's a valuable lesson you learned in life so far? Never give up. It's kind of generic, but be resilient. And once you come back from failure, you know you can do it again, right? So, just keep on chugging. You're so right about that. I mean, after your experience in 2014, basically hitting rock bottom, and then COVID happening, I mean, you're just like, I'm going to get through this, right? COVID didn't seem as bad, but it's still tough, but I know I can get back, and then we are coming back right now, and things are looking good. Well, Tom, you are a very highly respected leader in our community, and I want to thank you for taking time to be on the show today. No, thank you, Rusty. I appreciate it, and I'll see you on the courts. Definitely. Thanks, Tom. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on ThinkTech Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com, and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that Tom and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence, and to find your greatness, and help others find theirs. Aloha. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.