 This is Beyond the Lines. I'm Rusty Komori. We broadcast live on Mondays at 10 a.m. from the Think Tech Hawaii TV studio in the Pioneer Plaza in downtown Honolulu. This TV show is based on my book, also titled Beyond the Lines, which is about achieving and sustaining success, leadership, striving for excellence, and finding greatness. My guest today exemplifies all of this. He is Dr. Glenn Maderos, president of St. Louis School. But in his early years, he achieved international stardom traveling the world performing his number one hit song, Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You. We will be going in-depth with him to find out why he is successful and how he is positively impacting countless students at St. Louis School. Today, we are going beyond education. Dr. Glenn Maderos, great having you here today. Thank you for having me here. You sing three of my all-time favorite songs on my all-time list, Watching Over You, Only Won't Leave Me Alone, and of course, Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You. You know you're dating yourself. But to this day, I still like, I love those songs. Most people don't know the other two songs, but no, that's nice to hear. They need to go in-depth and listen to that whole CD. It's a great CD. Thank you. Thank you so much. Now, you grew up on Kaua'i. Yes, I did. Can you tell me about your growing up? Well, I grew up on the island of Kaua'i and until this very day, I feel so blessed that I've had the chance to grow up on a small little town and learn so much. Family is number one there. And I grew up around a great family, wonderful parents. And it was a great experience for me growing up there. What did you do in your youth? Did you just hang out at Hamura Simon all day? What did you do? What kind of things? Well, I did what most people do, actually. Life is simple there. So I'd grow up, go to school, that was a big part of our lives and everyone's life there. Go to the beach on the weekends, go to church, play sports. So life was simple and I think that was important for me. It helped me to ground me. And Kaua'i is special in particular for my family. My mother grew up on the plantation on Kaua'i and McBride plantation. And so I remember in my younger years, going to the plantations and experiencing, listening to kachi-kachi music and all the wonderful food at the potlucks. And so I was born and raised at a time where I could still learn a little bit about Old Hawai'i then. So what did your parents do? My father was a tour guide, actually. And so it was wonderful. Sometimes he'd take me on his tour bus and I'd get to meet people from all over the world. And he loved to sing on the bus and share stories. It was a history buff like me. My mother would stay at home. My mom and dad wanted to have someone at home to watch over the kids. And she's an amazing mother and I'm very lucky because of that. So she watched us very closely. When did you first realize that you had an incredible talent for singing? I always remember singing. Really? I don't know when. But my mother is a really great singer and she never performed publicly. But she would sing at home all the time. We'd have a record player on and we'd just sing. She loved Elvis. So we grew up singing a lot of Elvis and we'd sing together. And that side of the family, my mother's side of the family, there are a lot of really talented singers and dancers. I can't dance, but some of my family members can. I think your mom and my mom would get along great because my mom is a huge Elvis fan as well. Oh, great. Great. Now, brown bags to stardom in high school. You entered brown bags to stardom in ninth grade and you won kawaii. And in the statewide competition, you didn't place. What happened in this brown bags to stardom thing? Well, it was a good experience for me because I'm naturally a very kind of shy person. So people that know me well understand that. And it took a lot for me to start entering contests. But I was lucky enough to have a couple of teachers growing up in elementary school that really encouraged me to get out there, which is one of the reasons why I actually eventually chose to become an educator because of them. But I entered in the ninth grade. I was lucky enough to win the competition kawaii high school and then the island of Oahu, I mean the island of kawaii. And then on Oahu, I didn't place in the top three and I was very discouraged. I thought I must have done something wrong. Maybe I didn't choose the right song. I think I was confident because I had won several contests on kawaii. But at the same time, I needed that experience of losing, of not being able to win all the time. And the next year, I went back and won the same contest again on kawaii. Got to Oahu. And the second time I got there, I said, you know, I'm going to go here. I'm just going to experience it. Whatever happens, happens. Last time I went, I met a lot of great people. And I'm just going to look forward to the positive aspects of it. And then I ended up winning. So but it was a good lesson for me to just keep putting yourself out there. And eventually something will happen because a lot of it is subjective in nature. It just depends on the judges that are there and whether they like the type of singing you do or music you're singing. That's good that you were resilient and you bounce back and winning it as a 10th grader. That's amazing. And then you went on to sell millions of CDs. So to date, over 7 million CDs. So how did all of this happen? Oh, good question. A lot of times it's luck. But you have to be prepared when that luck comes about. So I had worked really hard on trying to get myself out there. And eventually, after winning Brownbacks to Stardom, just one thing led to another. Program director at I-94 J Stone had a friend in Arizona said, why don't you give this song some play, some rotation. He played in Arizona. Just so happens that there was a record executive vacationing in Arizona. Heard it, listened to it, found that it was number one on request there. Signed me to his independent recording label. And next thing you know, the song was becoming popular in the United States. It didn't really have the push of a major recording label. And so it became popular on the West Coast and then the East Coast. It eventually topped at about number 11 in the United States. But once I was signed to MCA Records and Polygon Records, and they were able to do a general push on the record, the song went to number one in almost every country it was released. It was amazing to be able to see that. Nothing's going to change my love for you, like you said, became number one in over 20 countries. Yes, yes. That's amazing. And then you became, you had a collaboration with Bobby Brown. Yes. How did that happen? Well, I mean, there's an interesting story behind that. My career had been doing well in Europe, not so much in the United States. And I had been working hard at MCA Records with record executives to see, okay, what kind of record should we do? I wanted to continue on the approach that I was taking, which is somewhat like a Richard Marks-type sound. But the record company had said, no, grunge music was just starting to become popular and hip hop. And they kind of wanted to move away from artists that were doing pop music. And so basically, they kind of actually kind of forced me into the hip hop thing. And although I love listening to hip hop music, they basically said, you know, Glenn, you either do this or you don't have a recording deal. Wow. And so I ended up moving forward with it. And I was a huge fan of Bobby. And he was in between Records at the time and MCA Records thought that once we started recording the hip hop tunes, one in particular, they liked a lot. And they felt that if they had Bobby rap on it, that it'd be more likely that it'd become a hit. And that was true. It ended up becoming number one. Yeah. That song, She Ain't Worth It, and in that video, you said you can't dance. I saw you dancing in that video. You had some moves in that video. So people need to see you dancing in that video. I wouldn't call that dancing. I still have my students today to this very day saying, oh, my God, Dr. Medes, you shouldn't be dancing like that. Now, being world famous and traveling the world singing, what did you like and not like about doing that? For me in particular, what I did not like was the fact that I was a very family-orientated person. It was difficult to be away from home. I missed my family and my friends. It was tough. In that particular time, just to make a phone call could easily cost $200, $300 for about a 10-minute phone call. It was so expensive. So you didn't have the technology there to keep in touch with your families. Didn't speak the language in most places that I went to. That was tough. The positive aspect of it was that I got to learn about a lot of different cultures, a lot of the stereotypes, a lot of the assumptions that I had about me as an American or me living in Hawaii and what the rest of the world was like. Things became a lot clearer to me when I started traveling. So my whole idea of perspective kind of changed during that process. I heard you are a great father and husband. You're a great family man. Can you tell me a little bit more about your family? Well, I had great role models. My parents, my father worked six days a week, but on the one day a week when he was off on Sundays, his family was it. That's all he would do. I mean, just spend the whole day with us, go to church, play sports, go to the beach. And so that's a real clear message to us that family is number one. God is important. They're going to church. And then having fun, too, being going to different sports and following football or big football fans, growing up. My mother was always there for us. She would always try to warn us against what not to do. And I try to do the same thing. And luckily for me, it's a partnership with my wife. I've been married for 21 years now. Congratulations. Thank you. And my wife is truly amazing. She's helped to make me a better person. And I feel truly blessed to be a part of this duo, Mom and Dad, just trying our best to raise our kids. You obviously have a passion for singing and songwriting. And your kids, what are your kids' names? Well, my son's name is Kord, C-H-O-R-D, and my daughter's name is Lyric. And a lot of people think that was my idea, but it was my wife's idea. To their credit, they've taken it pretty well. People will ask them, what was your name again? But they both, ironically, they love music. My son plays the bass, and he enjoys that. And my daughter likes to sing. And so luckily for both of them, they've been able to kind of carry on that gift. And so I'm really proud of them. But I'm most proud of them because of the people that they become. I'm so proud of him for graduating from St. Louis School and accomplishing the things he has done in school. And my daughter at Punahou School is doing a great job there. Awesome. Now, beyond singing and songwriting, what else do you have a passion for? Well, singing and songwriting is big. But for me, there are a couple of things. I do really enjoy playing tennis, ironically. That's great there. That's great. I could use some lessons so maybe we could talk about that. But I love playing tennis. I play it almost every weekend. And it's just one of those things that I can just do for hours on end. And I just love it. I don't ever feel like I'm exercising when I'm playing tennis. It's just so much fun. I spend time with my family. I love football. I'm an incredibly huge football fan. I'm a 49ers fan. And so I play a lot of fantasy football with my friends. And I'll spend a lot of time watching football with my son. Well, you must be happy that the 49ers have Garoppolo now. Thank you, God. Thank you, yes. Now, how did teaching come about? How did your love for teaching evolve? Well, my love for teaching evolved actually when I started school. I always held teachers very high. I've always respected them. And it wasn't about the third grade when the teacher came to me and made a huge difference in my life. His name is Arnold Meister. He was my music teacher in elementary school. And he did something very simple. He noticed that I had a talent in singing. And he said, Glenn, you need to nurture this. You need to get out. And you need to put it out there. You need to share this gift that you have. And I was very, very nervous in front of crowds of people. I had a difficult time talking to people. And he encouraged me to get out there. And the feeling that I got from it really helped me overall. It helped me to gain confidence so that I could do other things better. And so immediately I said, I want to be like him. I want to be a teacher. I want to make a difference in other people's lives. And I never thought that the singing would actually take off, knowing that I was from Kauai and so far away from LA and New York. And I had to put that on hold until the music career started fading a little bit. Before joining St. Louis, what schools did you teach at? So I started as a public school teacher at Milani Middle School. And I learned a lot there. And then I moved on to St. Joseph's School in Waipahu. I taught music there and to pre-K to eighth grade. And then I moved to out of the Pacific Academy. And I taught elementary school there. And then I moved to Marino School, where I was a high school teacher and then an administrator. After that, I actually, once I achieved my doctorate degree, I moved to Shyamalan University and worked there for a year as a professor. And then found out about the opportunity at St. Louis School. Awesome. Glenn, we're going to take a quick break. Okay. And when we come back, I want to really talk to you about the amazing things that you're doing at St. Louis School. Okay. Thank you. You are watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Kauai with my guest Dr. Glenn Maderos. We will be back in one minute. Hey, Stan Energyman here on Think Tech Kauai. And they won't let me do political commentary. So I'm stuck doing energy stuff. But I really like energy stuff. So I'm going to keep on doing it. So join me every Friday on Stan Energyman at lunchtime, at noon, on my lunch hour. We're going to talk about everything energy, especially if it begins with the word hydrogen. We're going to definitely be talking about it. We'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner, how we can make the world a better place, just basically save the planet. Even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore. We got it nailed down here. So we'll see you on Friday at noon with Stan Energyman. Well, huh. Hi, I'm Dave Stevens, the host of Cyber Underground every Friday here at 1pm on ThinkTechKauai.com. And then every episode is uploaded to the Cyber Underground, that library of shows that you can see of mine on YouTube.com. And I hope you'll join us here every Friday. We have some topical discussions about why security matters and what could scare the absolute bejesus out of you. If you just try to watch my show all the way through. Hope to see you next time on Cyber Underground. Stay safe. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on ThinkTechKauai. If you are just joining us, my guest today is Dr. Glenn Maderos, president of St. Louis School. Glenn, it's great having you here today. Thank you. In 2015, you became head of school principal for St. Louis School. And then in 2017, you became president of St. Louis School. Tell me about why you love St. Louis and the students so much. Well, it's a special place. As soon as I stepped in, I didn't honestly, I came in as an outsider. There were over 100 people that interviewed for the position of head of school. And I did not, I thought to myself, this would be a good experience for me to try and interview for the position, not thinking that I would actually attain it. So I came in as an outsider, and I have just been blown away by the people at St. Louis School. Some of the most amazing people I've ever met. And if you talk about leadership, so many great leaders have come from St. Louis School and I've had the opportunity to work with them on a daily basis. So it's helped me to grow. As far as the students are concerned, those students are so special. Being in an all boys environment at school kind of brings out a different side to the students. And you get to know them at a different level. And it's been a great experience so far. Well, you are a great leader and a person's beliefs are very important, extremely important. What are your principles and values? That's a tough question. I think that continues to grow for me each and every day. I don't think of myself as a great leader. I think of myself as someone who is continuing to learn. Each and every day. And I hope to become a great leader someday. As far as my leadership is concerned, I think intention is very important. What is your intention? And my intention has always been, I want to be in a position where I can help. And one of the reasons why I chose to try for the position at St. Louis School is because I know that many Catholic schools right now are suffering. And I wanted to be a part of a Catholic school, a part of a team that helps to turn it around so that we can make people aware of the wonderful things that are happening at the school and in Catholic education in general. Well, in my book, I talk about leadership and the difference between leaders and bosses and what makes great leaders. And great leaders are always learning. They're always evolving. You check off all those boxes in terms of being a great leader. And that's why I know you're a great leader already. I've been seeing things from the outside what you're doing with St. Louis, and it's incredible. It's exciting things. St. Damien, what is St. Damien's connection to St. Louis School? Well, a lot of people don't know that St. Damien actually attended St. Louis School. St. Louis School started in 1846. It was called the Huimano College on the windward side of the island. And St. Damien actually attended school, graduated from Huimano College and went on to do the incredible things that he did. He went on to, of course, inspire people like Mohatma Gandhi, who then inspired Martin Luther King. And there are many examples of St. Louis graduates that have gone on to do well. And I think part of it is because of just what Catholic education does provide people. It talks not just about people being leaders, but being servant leaders, people that go out there to make a difference in the community, to be out there for others. And I think that's important. At St. Louis School, we want them to learn about science, of course, but what will you do with that knowledge once you attain that knowledge? What will you do with that next discovery that you do? Will you do something to help society or to hurt society or just to make some type of to gather power or to make money? So I think that's what really makes Catholic education special. I had no idea about that St. Damian connection and St. Louis. I think that's absolutely fantastic. Amazing. I had no idea. Yes, and not a lot of people know about that, actually. Now, let's shift gears to football. I know a lot about St. Louis football and their dominance there. Now, St. Louis football, I mean, they're the reigning champs and they have incredible success through Coach Cal Lee and Coach Ron Lee. It's amazing. Now, how do you get your other sports teams up to that level? Oh, that's a good point that you make. We've had success over the years in different sports. At one point, I think in the 50s or so, we were pretty dominant in basketball. And we've done well. I think we won the state championship in 14, 15 in baseball. But when you talk about dominance, yes, in football, that's been the one thing that year after year, we've had that tradition of that. I'm very proud of that. And we want to continue that because, and thanks to Coach Cal and Ron and Cal, they've been able to perpetuate that. As far as the other sports, I think part of it is facilities. So we're working on a brand new athletic center, a trained athletic center. And we should start building that in another two months. It looks like we're going to, of course, we're getting through the whole permit process and all of that. But I think providing more practice time for basketball and volleyball teams will help. I do think it's a little challenging for Catholic schools because a lot of our best players will go to other schools sometimes when they hit their freshman year. A lot of our kids are going to put a hole in Yolani elsewhere. So that, I think, hasn't happened so much on the football side, but maybe in the other sports. That's okay, too. People have to find the right fit for themselves. And there are a lot of great schools out there. And we're very lucky in Hawaii. We're going to try and help on the facilities side. And we just keep finding the right people. Ultimately, I think a lot of it comes down to coaching, too, and finding the right mixture of coaches. You could be a great coach, but maybe not necessarily in a certain environment. So finding the right coach for the right environment is important. Completely agree. Now, let's talk about Marcus Mariota and Tua Tunga Wailoa. They are incredible role models and great representatives of St. Louis School and Hawaii. Can you share some insights about them? Well, I've been lucky enough to get to know Tua at a pretty personal level because he was there at school when I was there. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't there at St. Louis School when Marcus was there, but I did have the chance to fly up to Tennessee and meet with him and meet with his family. Marcus has done so much for St. Louis School and I think he's done a lot because the first thing people will say is he's just such a nice guy. Such a nice person and to the core, such a good person. And I think that has a lot to do with his parents. His parents are just amazing people. He's so giving, so kind. And I think one of the reasons why our enrollment, about five years ago, was somewhere in the mid-500s and now we're at about 900 students is because of what he's done. He's gone out there and said, look, if you go to St. Louis School, here's your potential. This is what you can potentially become. For Tua, I was so proud of him at the end of the Alabama camp. Oh, yeah. I was sitting there thinking, okay, what is he going to say? And the first thing he did say is that he wanted to praise God. And again, a lot of it comes down to his family. You meet his family members and their faith in God is so strong. And it is in him too. So I think both of them, I pray for them all the time. And I hope that both of them will continue to inspire others to do whatever they dream they would like to do. Well, Marcus and Tua, they stayed at St. Louis all the way through. They didn't switch schools at all. And look at the people that they've become because of St. Louis. Yes. Now, since you joined St. Louis, you've been doing amazing things for the school. Can you share with me some of those things? Well, you know, I'd like to take credit for it, but it's been a real team effort. I'm supported by a lot of incredible graduates of the school. People like Walter Dodds, people like Tony Guerrero, people like Mike Hogan, Darrell Hulk, just many people that have worked together. We've done several different things. The first thing we did was we basically took all of our classrooms and had it renovated. And so people were not willing to pay a lot of money to come to school where you have dilapidated classrooms. So that was one thing that we've done. And we've done a lot of fundraising for them, a lot of hard work on that. The other thing we've done is we've basically taken a look at our curriculum and we said, okay, do we want to grow St. Louis men from the sixth grade or do we want to start from kindergarten? And we felt that it would be important for us to grow St. Louis men from the age of kindergarten. And so we started our elementary school in my second year. And we were able to take these classrooms that we were literally using as storage, turn it into an elementary school. And that elementary school has grown in the last two years and has been doing well. We've also had, other than the renovations, other than that, we've also taken a look at our curriculum to try to see what can we do. And so we've been trying to install this blended learning curriculum where students can learn in a traditional fashion, where everyone's moving at the same level, a grade level, learning the same text, learning the same information, but then also providing the teachers resources so that students can move in their own zone of possible development. So if they're falling behind, there's some help that they can get so that they can catch up. Or if they want to push forward, we have the programs that will allow them to be able to push forward in their skills. So a lot of different things have been happening, but we were really excited about it. And then finally, of course, we entered into a collaboration with Kamehameha Schools, knowing that we have population of about 53% Hawaiian students. And so they've been able to help us and help to fund our Hawaiian students to attend St. Louis School. And that just started this year. Now, high school graduation is always special, and you greatly care for every student at St. Louis. But this last month's graduation was extra special for you. Can you share what happened? Well, St. Louis School has been around for 172 years, and people were stating before graduation, they said, Glenn, you're making history because this is going to be the first time that a president gives his son a diploma. And so for me, I was very excited about that. Now, little did I know that there were people behind the scenes making other plans. So I was about to give my son his degree, and they kind of stopped the proceedings and said, hey, they started talking about this person that had been there for three years, and had done all these things. And I thought, oh, were they talking about it? And all of a sudden, they asked me to come up, and my son actually gave me an honorary award as a degree to become a St. Louis School graduate. And for me, I have to say that that's one of the greatest honors in my life, I have to say. Not only because I have so much respect for St. Louis School and the graduates that have walked through those halls, but also having my son give that to me it was a special moment. And I'll never forget it, and I'll never take it for granted. I try my very best to make the best decisions for St. Louis School as a whole. And it may be that some people may not always agree with what I do, but I know in my heart that I'm trying to make the best decision for the school to survive and thrive. Well, thanks for sharing that. We can only imagine what you were feeling. That's amazing that your son was able to present that to you on his graduation day. It's an amazing day. I was numb the whole morning. Now, you shared some great insights into why you're successful and the exciting times for St. Louis and what's coming. And I just want to really thank you again for being here. Oh, thank you so much. Thanks for all that you do. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Rusty Komori reminding you to strive for excellence every day and find your greatness and help others find theirs. Please tune in next Monday as we go in depth with Governor David Ige Aloha.