 I'm Rusty Komori and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, 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 president and CEO of our Hawaii Chamber of Commerce and a candidate for Lieutenant Governor. She is Sherri Minore McNamara and today we are going beyond leadership. Hey, Sherri, welcome to Beyond the Lines. Aloha, good to see you and thank you for having me. Sherri, you are, you're such a successful person. You've been doing so many things to help so many businesses but I want to first start off by asking you if you can tell me a bit about your background growing up. Sure, so not too many people know that I was born in Tokyo but pretty much raised in Hilo on my life until I turned 18 and went away for college. I went to public school, Hilo Union, Waike Intermediate, Waike High School. I had so much fun during those days, played on the tennis team, probably not as good as you but played on the tennis team, was captain of my tennis team, did one year of cheerleading and was very involved in student government and then after that, after I went away to college at UCLA, stayed on the continent for eight years, Japan for two years and finally made my way back home but I would achieve you who I am today based on my upbringing. My mom was born and raised in Japan, moved to Hawaii not knowing any English, not having any friends and years later after raising three kids, actually during raising three kids, she started her own small business, a travel agency and 40 years later she still has that small business in Hilo. My dad was born in on Hawaii Island and his grandparents immigrated from the, his parents rather my grandparents immigrated from the Philippines and brought their two children over at that time. My grandpa was a laborer and six, five kids later raised their kids in small town called Pahola and my grandpa was unfortunately laid off but he saved enough money to buy a papaya farm and that papaya farm had everything from tangerines, oranges, macadamids and theorems, bananas, breadfruit, you name it. I remember growing up spending summers there and of course grandpa and grandma would put us to work with brother and I, we would catch a helion bus from Hilo to Pahola where my grandpa would pick us up in this green Datsun truck, I can still picture it in town and bring us to their farm again putting us to work and we raised our allowance that way but what my grandpa and grandma also did was tender to that farm to put food on the table for the family, sell that to the community but also what really taught me about giving back, about community were their values of really helping one another so when their neighbors were not doing so well they would bring the fruits and vegetables to their, or even pig meat because they raised pigs too to their neighbors or even to the community just to give away because they knew how important it was to support their community because there have been beneficiaries of being able to move to the United States and earn and live that American dream similar to my mom so again a lot of my upbringing has shaped me to who I am today and I'm certainly proud and humbled by that fact. Well Sherry, you're a woman of great character and you're a local girl, played tennis, I mean that's amazing. It was a lot of fun those days, I was a better doubles player though rather than singles, but I don't know what about you? Well you know it's good to know how to play doubles, I like singles and doubles and Sherry you know I know you very well now for some years now and can you share about what jobs you've had before becoming president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce here in Hawaii? Sure so I would say I had a lot of fun jobs but they're very short term because at that stage in my life I didn't know what I wanted to do. There's always that singular path where someone knows that exactly what they want to do and they go for it. For me it was about exploring to find out what's out there and to make that connection and I didn't make that connection until I returned but some of the fun jobs I had I worked for Elton John, yes a musician, I worked for Sony Pictures Entertainment, I worked for Estee Lauder in the PR department, I did a couple of summer jobs with the President of the United States, President Clinton as well as for Senator Daniel Ocaca and then finally my last job before moving back home was moving to Japan working for the Sony Open or Sony Corporation I should say but they hired me to work on the Sony Open so it was between 1998 and 2000 and those two years while I lived in Japan I was able to come back home on a regular basis at least to Honolulu and that's when I recognized after two years it was time to move back move back to Hawaii and really stay here moving forward and that was in 2000 and when I came back I didn't have a job so that's when I decided okay you know I think I'll go back to school so I went to law school first year decided okay I'm not gonna be alert this is not my thing but I already put one year in and decided to stick it through and then it was my third year and I said well if I'm not gonna go to into law what if I go to business school and see what's like there so I added another year so it was a four-year program where I got my master's in business administration and my law degree same time but Rusty was doing that time I had a couple of jobs so I went to law school in the morning worked two jobs and then in the evening went to business school one was for the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl and the other was actually working at the state capitol as a committee clerk and as a law administrative aid or legal not legal legislative aid rather and it was doing that time where I saw how the policy making process and how it impacted people and that's when I decided okay this is an area I want to start my career in and so that's when I set my resumes to all these different law firms who have government affairs vision but no one responded except for one and that one said well I don't have a position my one have coffee with you and talk sorry because I see you have all these experiences I just want to hear your story and so we met and then lo and behold a week later she said hey there's a job at the Chamber of Commerce opening up and I had no idea what the Chamber of Commerce was all about so I did some research and I saw that the mission was to support business and because my mom owns a small business in Hilo I immediately connected to that and 16 years later I am still at the Chamber of Commerce eight years as president and CEO well Sherry what I love is you know you're so well-rounded you have so many different experiences and I'm friends with your husband John McNamara and I want to ask you about him because you guys make such a great team together what what what trait do you admire most about John? He's a dog lover like me no just joking you know we just got a puppy her name is Bubbles and I keep telling him she's so independent and feisty and just active and he said well he is taking after his mommy so our other dog Kuma John he's very low-key laid back just go with the flow and that kind of describes John he's very you know go with the flow and very supportive he he he accepts my my I guess aspirations and supports me along the way and I know there's more than one but that's what I love about him is that he's just been so supportive along the way and we've been together since 2004 married in 2007 so going on 15 years but he's just a patient supportive wonderful guy and funny too. I agree I mean he he is everything that you said I mean and he's super funny he loves loves your dogs and and now that you're on this journey for you know the campaign for lieutenant governor tell me why Sherry why are you running for lieutenant governor? Yeah Rusty you know the past couple of years have been obviously so challenging and devastating for our families for our local and small businesses and at the chamber we've seen firsthand the past couple of years the the devastating impact COVID had on our local business community and I just felt that during that time there wasn't enough that was being done and whether it's a lack of communication lack of resources a lack of connection to the community and overall when we look at the cost of living cost of doing business and affordable housing nothing has gotten better and so I look at it as a way as a fresh start for Hawaii having new leaders at the table and that's why I decided to make the run for lieutenant governor but I could easily stay here at the chamber and continue my position here and continue to support our local businesses I just felt that it was my responsibility to broaden my scope and give back to help Hawaii get back on a path towards economic recovery so that's why I decided to run for lieutenant governor is to have that first start for Hawaii bring in new leadership bring in new and bold ideas and new direction for our state so that it becomes a much healthier and more resilient state for our future. I like that you said about fresh ideas and what advantages do you feel you have being a non-politician? Yeah you said I'm not a career politician in fact this is my first time running but you know as you know anytime you run a business you don't want to have it status quo and be comfortable with the same ideas same decision makers same everything we always need new perspectives and that's where I come in without having that political baggage as you may and just coming in with a fresh perspective into discussing some really challenging issues so that's one the other one bringing in that business experience we need to come up with common sense solutions and that's what as the chamber we've been doing is coming up with common sense solutions to get our economy back on track working with different stakeholders on a local state and federal levels so I've been able to establish strengthen those relationships so I want to leverage those relationships into bringing it to the table and coming up with common sense and sustainable solutions and three as I said I mentioned earlier I'm from Hilo so I bring in that neighbor island perspective and a lot of times and I've seen it firsthand where a lot of the policies are very eccentric and we need to ensure that the voices across the islands from the northern tip of Kauai of Hanoi down to the southern tip of Kauai island of Naalehu and across every community in between that their voices are heard and brought to the table so that we can move forward as a more unified and balanced state well I like that you said common sense because we can't take common sense for granted nowadays and Sherry I want to ask you so you mentioned about some issues what what are some specific issues you want to improve? It's my focus and because of my experience is economic recovery because as we come out of this pandemic we need to ensure that we're not going to go back to where we were we realize how reliant we were on tourism and although we need to continue to support our number one industry how can we do better how can we manage better how can we ensure though that experience continues to be the best that Hawaii is known for but beyond that is how can we ensure that we can get back and become more resilient and those are kind of questions we need to ask so how can you connect tourism to our other existing industry from our manufacturing industry to energy to natural environment and we have so many wonderful industries and businesses doing great things so how can we interconnect all these industries better we also need to expand our job opportunities because as you saw again 200 000 plus jobs are lost overnight and we cannot let that happen because that impacted so many families and so many families putting food on a table so how can we ensure that those who lost a job can get other types of jobs that are well paying and more sustainable for them so helping with the re-skilling and so those are two areas I believe I can bring to the table based on my experience and that will be critical to build back that are in a much more resilient and strong way and I will continue to support our local and small businesses because they are the heartbeat of our economy they are the the livelihood of our communities especially our mom and pop restaurants stores businesses they are the ones that keep it going with finding the jobs and really supporting the community as a whole and so that will be my commitment as well to continue to be the voice of small businesses I like I like hearing that you know those specific examples that you said in those areas and Sherry I mean you you're there firsthand with these businesses why why did some businesses not succeed during the pandemic and why did others succeed I mean it's almost like the ones that didn't almost had like a victim mindset where the ones that succeeded had a victor mindset where they were just trying to find a way to adapt and adjust and find a way to to win and survive what are your thoughts yeah you said it you hit the no on the head what we've seen for the businesses that we're able to keep their doors open not with us challenges because many of these businesses use their personal savings took out loans amongst other ways to ensure that the doors could stay open and the jobs kept but many of them the ones that continue to stay open we're able to pivot I know when we during the pandemic thanks to the governor he supported our Hawaii business pivot program and that was a program where it provided financial support to businesses who did pivot it we're able to adjust and not keep the same business model and the way they operated because as we know during pandemic we saw many restaurants go online they started selling groceries who would have thought right we saw some manufacturers selling other the competitors products in their store on the line and so another one I think he didn't love went directly pivoted online 100% and did not decide to shut down their brick and mortars but it's a way the business pivoted quickly that they were able to survive during the pandemic and another thing I observe is a lot of a sense of collaboration and community and I say that again over and over because that's what we saw it was about forget this individual mindsets about what can we do to support the community so many businesses work together and I think we talked earlier about Maui Brewery Company Kaloa Rum they were impacted obviously by their by the pandemic but they knew they had to step up to keep the doors open but also give back to the community in that time sanitizers were in demand so they quickly pivoted to not only sell rum during that time but also to sell make sanitizer and sell them or give it away so again since that sense of community I think and that kept the doors open Murphy's Bar and Grow is another perfect example it was about them to give back even though they were struggling itself so circling back it was those that were able to pivot and this Hoy Business Pivot program enabled them to cover some costs that were not budgeted. No I like hearing those insights from you and Sherry you had an opportunity to meet with former Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and when you met with him what kind of impressions did you get from him what did you learn from that experience? You didn't get to talk long but it was obvious that he loved Hawaii he's down to earth and he really wanted to establish the relationship and strengthen the relationship between Hawaii and Japan so funny story this is gosh a couple of years ago we took a business group some members Japan and one of the visits was with Prime Minister Abe it was at his residence so it was with his cabinet it was with our members and Speaker Saiki would also led that delegation his delegation were there at the same time and we got invited to visit with the Prime Minister it wasn't until we actually sat down someone whispered in my ear um be prepared you're gonna have to say a few words and I'm like oh my gosh what am I going to say if I know I'll be prepared but talk about just trying to think of the right things to say selecting the right words and you only had five minutes to think of something I my back was sweating so profusely because I was so nervous and speaking to the Prime Minister but you know what I just had I quickly pivot it was all about Hawaii and all I did was talk about Hawaii uh and again emphasizing important relationship between Japan and Hawaii blah blah blah anyway yeah that was I think the most exciting but yet frightening moment well sherry sherry I I know you're a pressure player and I know you rise to the occasion and it sounded like you rose to the occasion right then and there again and and I and I share you have both of my books I want to ask you what are some things that stood out to you in the books yeah yeah I so this is the one I'm going to reference to but there's a couple of um communication because communication is so critical uh from nonverbal as well as uh verbal and I like the way you laid it out you know um it's about how the words you use right it then how the the number of words you use to I get it when you mention oh 30 minutes you're listening to someone but you have no idea what they're saying we can listen to someone for five minutes and the impact of the words they use it can make all the difference right uh and communication leads to trust and um um I guess relationships because it's all about how you communicate and then the other what I also emphasize is a nonverbal aspect of it though because a lot of times when you talk to someone you want to look them in the eye but when you see the eyes wandering elsewhere you don't feel as connected and I think that's referencing your book too right how you connect with someone and a lot has to do with the communication and the nonverbal so that I've I agree with everything you have laid out in that chapter but the other one is mindset uh and more and more I feel that is so critical to how you perform I'll give an example and we talked about earlier but the marathon oh wow it was so this I ran a marathon this past December it was my fifth marathon but I haven't done one in 10 years uh and I will admit I did not train for it I do exercise every day so I do run uh do the bicycle and do weight training but I did not train for it so in the first eight miles the first three miles you're just on a high yeah I'm going to do this I'm going to do this the mindset was so positive right you got the energy you got the fireworks going um and then going on to the eighth 12 miles like okay now I'm starting to ache but no just got to do it that keep pushing forward because your body can still take it fast forward to about the last five miles you can see sort of the horizon of where the end is but your body completely shuts down and there are moments like okay I think I just got to sit I I called John can you pick me up on the 20th mile but I you know I said no I signed up for this I see so many volunteers here helping waking up early helping I see people cheering the marathon runners on I see those that are in pain but continue to persevere and push forward so putting all those factors in my mindset is what got me to the finish line not without pain not without challenges but it's having that can do mindset that positive mindset really makes a huge difference and when you have that I mean that could be in your career that could be personal but it seems so simple I mean it's one word mindset but it can be transformative well I'm so happy that you mentioned mindset and communication from the books and because those are so huge and and you know as leaders that's what we're trying to instill in in our team in our people and I'm impressed that you you ran the Honolulu marathon Sherry and Sherry I want to ask you you know when you reflect back on your life so far what's the best advice you ever received the best advice and is just believing in myself you know I growing up I think everyone goes through it but self-confidence issues and just through the challenges sometimes you are questioned or challenged by some of the obstacles but just believing yourself and I say I felt I have this book that I got from my 10th grade teacher and I still have it 30 plus years later and she want to know in there and if I may just take a 30 seconds to read what she said and dedicated this specific poem to me but says sometimes the world seems cold these are moments when you try your best and even that isn't good enough you yearn for the best life has to offer but you wonder if it will ever appear but you have to keep believing you have to remember that things will get better that you will find strength and you have to believe in yourself the way I believe in you and it's for me it's very powerful because there are moments that I didn't I will admit but when you reinforce to yourself that you need to believe in yourself because once you believe in yourself then you can do better with confidence and that's what I believe about our state we have to believe in our state in our people because we can do better and so I go back to my 10th grade English teacher gave me this and you know when I found it I just it just resonated it just resonated with me and it was just that aha moment. No I love hearing that I mean that's great advice I mean just you know believing in yourself because you know doubt is a confidence killer and Sherry I want to ask you you know what's what's the best or what's the biggest adversity or challenge that you dealt with in your life and how did you overcome it? Well I will say the past couple years it was seeing how impacted our local small businesses um I got and I I get kind of emotional about because you know I get during that time I've seen the pressure it had on our team to ensure that we could support our members during a critical and most one of the darkest times I think anyone has faced not a day went by where we didn't get an email text phone call many from businesses who are well established institutions but they're pretty much on their last string of survival and at times I felt just the hands were tied right there's not there's only certain things we could do as a chamber um but it was just that helplessness that felt I it's hard to describe because just felt it um and just seeing how it's impacting everyone their employees their families and that's why we stepped up our efforts we said you know we're gonna have to continue to advocate become louder really stay firm to ensure that the government provided the resources necessary to support our local businesses to support our working families uh so we're pretty loud and I will say that it got the attention and unfortunately the governor did support some of our programs that we proposed to him one of them was the Hawaii restaurant card program we came up with the program actually actually one of our board members he and I were just sitting around and felt helpless but he said you know we're not getting any answers let's just come up with ideas and it was around a coffee table and we squirreled it out and we came up with the concept was aloha butts but it turned out to be the hawaii restaurant card program and we're so proud of that because it helps stabilize entire restaurant industry as well as entire supply chains from the farmers the ranchers the distributors but also save 2000 plus jobs put food on the table had some families lost their jobs to be able to go to restaurants uh then favorite mom and pop restaurant or to a restaurant that they couldn't afford before but this glimmer of hope wow I got this during the darkest times that that was um a feel a highlight of what advocacy can do um but my question I think the last couple of years were absolutely the most challenging of of I think my career and this overall no that's that's for sure and and sherry you know I right there I mean you just showed how much you care about what you're doing that's really why you're such a great leader and I want to thank you for taking time to join me on the show today so thank you for the opportunity opportunity always good talking story with you rusty thank you sherry and thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii for more information please visit Rusty Komori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble I hope that sherry and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs aloha thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on Vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linkedin and donate to us at think.kawaii.com mahalo