 As you know, ThinkTech has spent the last six weeks or more interviewing candidates for all of the various offices in Hawaii. Gubernatorial, Lieutenant Governor, Senators, Representatives, and OHOP. From all the parties, the Democrats, the Greens, the Independents, and today we have someone from the Republican Party. And he is just the most delightful person I have met. And everybody knows, I only talk to my best friends. So here is my new best friend, Lynn Barry Mariano. Welcome, sir. Aloha, Marshall. Thank you for the opportunity for allowing me to come on ThinkTech today. Well, we want to do across the board. We want everybody to see as many candidates as we could present. As I told you, we only did the candidates that had challengers. We didn't do any of those people that were running on a pose. There was really no reason to do that. So you have a challenger. We had interviewed her. So now we want to talk to you. Now, let me. Lynn is a retired U.S. Army major with combat experience. And he's spent several fast-paced, special operation forces, foreign relations, customs, protocol, domestic, international, politics, economic, and finance. Wow. Following retirement, he successfully owned and operated a small financial planning business. Wonderful. Let's follow the money. Yes, yes. So now tell me, what are you doing? Oh, you worked at the Pentagon. Yes, ma'am. Pentagon Force Protection Agency to upgrade and integrate 21st technology physical security at the Pentagon. Wow. Yes, ma'am. I was given that opportunity to, and it was hand-picked, to upgrade the Pentagon infrastructure interior and exterior for physical security. That required access control points for vehicles and also pedestrian access control points to include the new, but really not new, but biometrics. So that was after 9-11 when they rebuilt the Pentagon. That's correct, yes. Well, that's quite a job. That's quite, my goodness, just finding your way around that building is a job. How long were you at the Pentagon? Approximately 10 years. And again, I was given the opportunity to upgrade that right after 9-11. So prior to 9-11, you know, I was working as a consultant in Virginia. And then a friend of mine called me, used to be my former boss, and asked me, would I come to Washington DC and look at one of the programs that they had as part of the counterterrorist program? So I had that opportunity. After 9-11, I was one of several individuals that went into Washington DC to help with the interagency response. Following that, I went around the country designing, conducting, and training first responders, particularly law enforcement SWAT teams on counterterrorist responses after 9-11. My goodness. And so then the Pentagon, I was at a golf tournament, and the director of the Pentagon knew who I was, and asked if I would consider coming on to work for the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, and to help him bring the Pentagon to the 21st century technology while keeping the Pentagon open simultaneously 24 hours, 365 days a year. And so we did that. I was allowed to pick the right teams, coordinate with various agencies, departments, the various armed services, and worked that out so that we could upgrade the Pentagon while keeping it operational and open. That's an incredible building, my goodness. And all the things that they do there, and they're all top secret? No, no. Not all top secret. There is some top secret, but yeah, it's kind of open. Yeah. So now you were born here? Yes, ma'am. I was born in Kali. I grew up in Kali Palama. Initially, I went to a Puhali elementary school, and then my family moved to other parts of Kali, and we ended up at Kali Palama. So I went to Likiliki, Alakaua. I went to Farrington High School. The governor's? Yes, class of 74. And then I had the opportunity to go to Shamanad University, where I majored in psychology with a minor in business. And in fact, after returning back home, I'm an adjunct professor at Shamanad, you know, teaching now, but I'm not teaching currently in the law and force criminal justice positions. And I thought leadership and management of police organizations. That's quite a mouthful. So when did you get into politics? And in all of that, and you had time to spend in politics when? Well, I initially started to have my taste for public service, you know, back in high school, and really more in college. And so at that time, there was the first neighborhood board under Mayor Frank Fosse. And so I ran and was able to get elected to that position. And so I served on the Kali Palama Neighborhood Board for two years. While simultaneously doing that, I've had some mentors along the way, some senior senators from Hawaii. And they saw some of the potential that I had. And I was selected and appointed by Governor Oriyoshi to be the West Sub-Area Honolulu Health Commissioner back in 1978. While taking a full load at Shamanad University, I was a student body treasurer at that time. And also in several committees like the Kali Palama Finance Committee, mental health programs. What is a health commissioner? Well, at that time, you know, it was still kind of a, well, to me, it was kind of new to me. So I was kind of learning my way around the bureaucracy and to help out to see what kind of things that we could do to help Hawaii in a state of public health. So my job, again, was not a high-level position, but it was just a commissioner in there to help you know, facilitate the process. Was that in the 70s when we got the, 1974 was when? It was around 76, 77. Yeah, but that was when the legislature passed the health care bill. Correct. And HMSA was one of the insurances at that time. So that's, so you were a commissioner when all of that was developing? Correct. Yes. Oh, that's quite interesting. So you have a job now? Yes, ma'am. I'm doing a consulting over at the Pacific Command, working in the J3. Pacific Command, that's the army. No, it's a joint command. Joint command. Yes, that's a, it's now changed to US Indo Pekam. And I do consult. That means it's bigger? Yes. Indo Pekam. That's much bigger. Yes. And so the area of operation is one of the largest combatant commands, you know, in the Department of Defense. And so I do a continuity of operations, consulting and continuity of operations and continuity of government. Well, my goodness. And so you're going to run for the Senate. Yes, ma'am. I went ahead. What is all of this military that all the experiences you have, you are going to run for the Senate? How does all that translate into the way you see what you want to do? Should you win as a senator from District 12? Stop. Where's District 12? Oh, thank you. Senate District 12 is Kakaako, Alamoana, Waikiki, Makali, Mo'ili'ili and lower Makiki. Lower Makiki. Yes. From the, from the freeway down to Makai. Okay. So now that's a huge district and so diverse. Yes. All the interests are so different. It seems strange that that would all be lumped together. Well, that's one of the nice things. Senate District 12, when you look at it and the face value, it's, it's really the face of Hawaii. Yes. You know, you have Alamoana, Kakaako and Waikiki. And so with that diverse group, I bring with me a bunch of experience where I can work across aisle to make no win situations, to win-win solutions. And I've done that time and time and again. I've managed budgets anywhere from a million up to 250 million dollars and balance the budget every year to ensure that we have the programs going. The program that I instituted, not me personally, but the director of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, they instituted was the Pentagon Century Program. It's a five year program, 250 million dollars. And we built pretty much 26 projects, construction projects from inception, concept to design and development, to ending the construction to implementation where we turned it over to the end users. So the police officer currently, when you visit the Pentagon, they're using the pedestrian access control points with the biomechs to go in through the various term styles. And when you come in with a vehicle, there's a way to check the vehicles to ensure that it's authorized to be there at the Pentagon. So I bring that type of knowledge where I can integrate plans, policies, programs and fiscal responsibility, you know, into this district. Because again, sitting back on the outside, looking in since returning back home, you know, I see the same old status quo. It's a one party system. And with that one party system, there's really no healthy debate in which to move things forward. So I bring fresh ideas, new, innovative ways and have the ability to work across aisle, you know, to help work to one, make Hawaii affordable again. But at the same time, to be even prouder of Hawaii, because that's why I travel around the world and also, well, over at the Pentagon, you know, play Hawaiian music, you know, to promote the all of us here. Oh, that's what you do play, yes. Yes, ma'am, yes. Yeah, I remember that, yes. And so you decided you wanted to run for the Senate. Yes. And you have these, can you tell us in more specific ideas or just the district as a whole? OK, that's, thank you for that opportunity. You know, for example, when you look on the outside, the President Administration has a plan, you know, with the city to fix the homeless problem. But it's only a short-term solution. There's no realistic long-term fix, you know, to solve the homeless problems. All we're doing is moving human beings from one location to another location, only for them to be in a revolving door to come back to the same location. I would bring the fresh, you know, I want to hear all of your ideas. And we need to take a break. Yes. And we'll be back in 60 seconds. So I want I want to hear your whole program. I don't want to interrupt your program. So let's take a break and we'll be right back. Hi, I'm Bill Sharp, host of Asian Review here on Think Tech Hawaii. Join me every Monday afternoon from 5 to 5 30, Hawaii Standard Time for an insightful discussion of Contemporary Asian Affairs. There's so much to discuss. And the guests that we have are very, very well informed. Just think we have the upcoming negotiation between President Trump and Kim Jong-un. The possibility of Xi Jinping, the leader of China, remaining in power forever. We'll see you then. I'm Jay Fidel, Think Tech. Think Tech loves energy. I'm the host of Mina, Marco and me, which is Mina Morita, former chair of the PUC, former legislator and Energy Dynamics, a consulting organization in energy. Marco Mangostorf is the CEO of Provision Solar in Hilo. Every two weeks, we talk about energy, everything about energy. Come around and watch us. We're on at noon on Mondays every two weeks on Think Tech. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner, and we are Community Matters. And we're back today with my new best friend, Len Barry Mariona. And he is running for the Senate, the State Senate from District 12. And you, that is the most diverse district in all of the state of Hawaii, I'm sure. You were just beginning to tell us about your plan for the homeless. And it seems to me that the city, nor the state, has a plan. They just keep moving people around. In fact, they don't even treat them like people. They heard them like cattle. Yeah, it's a statistics. Yes. It's a numbers game. It's a numbers game. Yeah, I heard the governor the other night say they reduced by so many percentage. That's that people. Yes. Okay, so tell us your plan. And just, if I could. Certainly. For every person, it affects four or more individuals. You know, that person may have, you know, have parents, and if they're, you know, and then those parents, you know, have spread, and if they're married, you know, now you have more. So by taking individuals as a number or statistics, that's not solving the issue. I would suggest that, and this is some of the things that I would have as far as passion, and that is to treat the homeless in a long term solution. I would split the homeless into two categories. Category A, which is individuals that need help and assistance, and category B, those that need treatment, either mental health or drug addiction. And so when we do, say, category B for those that need treatment, we need to not just provide treatment for them. We need to also provide training and even what you call aftercare so that they can bring themselves and mold themselves back into society. And so we need to provide that. Just recently, this past legislation, the governor signed 140 million dollars to upgrade the mental health facility on the windward side. It's upgrading the security and also 144 beds. Should I be fortunate enough to get elected? I would go back and relook at that and just say, well, security has been great for all those years, and maybe we need to upgrade the security just a tad, but increase the bed capacity from 144 to maybe up to 500 or whatever that can do. Because then we can take the homeless that's on the streets that have mental illness and provide them the treatment that they need. And that's that's not what we're doing. No. And the Supreme Court did make a ruling with the ADA. Yes. That certain people that have certain illnesses don't need to be institutionalized. They need homes, special homes to meet those needs that schizophrenia and some of the others, they don't need institution. They need home care. That's correct. And I agree. But that's again, those are the common sense things that we need to take a look at rather than just doing a statistic number. And then going back to category A, those that need help, I've gone out and I've talked to several of the homeless people that's on the street while I'm waving signs or walking through the neighborhood going door to door and meeting residents, I would come across one or two homeless individuals and I'll sit down and chat with them. Some of them, you know, they have a lot of pride that they don't want to hand out. What they want to do is they want to earn, you know, some of the living and they're working paycheck to paycheck just to make ends meet. So we need to look at this as a long-term solution. So category A are individuals and families that we need to help and we need to provide them that type of assistance. Recently for affordable housing, all of this are all interconnected. Marsha and that is, you know, affordable housing, you know, recently they said they were going to set aside some money for affordable housing, but the governor approved only 10 years for affordable housing. So if you move someone into a condominium, for example, and you only give them a 10-year life cycle and after that, then the developer, you know, can be able to resell that. Well, that's not really a life cycle for a family, particularly a young family. So 10 years later, they may not be able to make ends meet to even buy that condo or then they may have to move out. Well, 10 years from now, if the same status quo is going, the housing is going to be unattainable for those individuals that we put in there and now we've increased the homeless population. Well, even today, when everything on the water, all the way around the island, is a million five, regardless of the condition it's in. But that's affordable according to the status quo. Yes, affordable for who? Yes. A million five? Yes. We have families all around the island. It doesn't matter what part of the island. Yes, statewide. When you look at that, we have family members that's leaving the islands to go to the mainland because it's more affordable for them to live. So it brings my next point and that is education. You know, I would go in and I would propose a new thing as for what I call investing in Hawaii, investing in the youth. So if you're a college graduate from Hawaii, whether you went to University of Hawaii, Shyamunat or any other local schools or in the mainland, USC, Princeton, Yale, if you come after graduation, come back to Hawaii and you work for the state or you work for the city government or any organization that invests in Hawaii, every year that you work and invest back in Hawaii, we should deduct your student loan. And while you're working for the state or the city and if they find some cost efficiencies and just say, I'll just throw this number out, a million dollars in savings. Well, a percentage of that should go towards that individual that found that savings and maybe put it in as a savings account for them to later on maybe purchase a house or you know, increase their pay. But those are the things that we could do and just think if we start now, five years from now, you know, we have a through a slew of new entrepreneurs, new business people, students coming in and we can look and find efficiencies that we have in this high cost we have in Hawaii and maybe bring some of the price down. Well, what about people that don't go to college that are all these are the skills that don't require a degree? Well, what about those skills? Why are we just looking at a degree? What about those people? Because we have so many unskilled. And I know lots of people with a degree that don't make as much money as a plumber. Right. But then, you know, sending them, you know, some to trade schools and all that. The reason I just gave that example. No, I understand what you because of the student loan that they get when they graduate. I understand where you're going, but it's like we never address people that are talented with their hands that do all of these other things that are daily living requires. And your points well taken and I totally agree with that and that we need to provide them some type of trade that they don't have so that they can learn so that they can get higher paying jobs. Yeah, because you know that we tend to say, oh, you can't. The child says, I can't do math, but they go as a carpenter and all of a sudden they are dealing with math that yes, that's correct. Yeah. So they got rid of the word I can't do and then they're doing and get paid very well. Yes. The same thing. The other portion is doctors. Right. You know, we have doctors that's that's been working pretty hard. Yes, a lot of them are in the age where they're starting to retire. So we need to start to attract new doctors into the area, but we're having a challenge doing that. So I would look at maybe doing some and pushing for some type of incentives to keep doctors here. Also maybe some tax cuts so that we can keep doctors and attract doctors from outside to come in Hawaii should not be one of the lowest levels as far as medical care, you know, where we're an island state and we should be be able to have the best and the brightest. So we have, for example, if you're have an illness and you need special treatment on Maui, you have to fly to Honolulu to get treated. Okay, so family support if they want to come is out of their own pocket to come and stay with the patient. Say they're well, they have two weeks of rehabilitation. Now they go back to Maui. So for follow-up care, the patient will either have to come fly back to get that treatment or the doctor and staff will have to fly to Maui to get that. Well, we should have a virtual type medicine where the doctors here in Oahu can use the FaceTime to treat patients. Now the issue with that, yes, that's absolutely perfect. It should be with we need rural health, all islands, all islands. However, the fiber optic cable that delivers this is the problem. Yes, that's the problem. Well, and that's where we talk about investing back into Hawaii. So if this is the type of thing that we need to do, we need to go ahead and fix that. You know, starting at Senate District 12, you know, we have some of those infrastructures already in place that needs to be upgraded and then we need to broaden that. So as a state senator, you know, looking across the statewide, those are some of the things that we need to address and I'm ready to work across the aisle and with my colleagues to ensure that we can find a long-term solution to the temporary fixes that we're doing right now. Because even the health department admits that that is a big issue that they can't deliver services because of the fiber optic cable. They can't. Telemedicine is wonderful. If the fiber optic cable can deliver. Yeah. But if you if you have the same status quo, you'll keep having we can't do we can't do and over when I worked at the Pentagon or other jobs that I had in the past, you know, no was not the answer. It was how can I make things better? Yeah. And that is I'm loving this because I can see that exactly what you're saying about health care. You know, anybody that really tackles health care on the neighbor islands even rule Honolulu. Yes. Would be crowned a king or something because those issues are daily issues. Like you said, you have to fly to Honolulu to get certain issues. If we could look at those islands and really seriously and as a senator, you get to work with the senators from those islands. They will tell you the reason I know this is because we've had them on the show and that's been their complaint. Yes, that's their big complaint about and they all said, oh, you people from Honolulu do not understand. Yes. And see, that's where I do understand because what the past experience I had traveling worldwide and also in continental United States. Those are some of the things that we can bring here. If we think outside of the box, right, you know, and we need to work, you know, collectively as a team, you know, and bridge that gap rather than saying, no, we can't. We should say yes, yes, we can, yes, we can, but and then some, you know, what's the best thing because if Hawaii can be the number one medical industry, we not just only help fix and the citizens of the state of Hawaii, but we also have those international from the Pacific Rim, you know, that may be coming here for treatment. Well, they do to Tripler. As you know, that's the only hospital in the Pacific. That's correct. Well, Queens is a really great. No, I meant that all of the trust territory people come to all the military from Guam and all these other places, they all come to Tripler and we should have more. We should have more. Yes. And we should have good medical facilities on the other islands as well. Right. Yes. So and we have a really good school here that John Burns medical school, you know, and also Shamanad and also BYU where they have good quality teaching and so we can use those students as part of their training to help expand the medical care that we have here to include. I think Josh Green has a model his 4-H program and that is taking students to help with the homeless population as part of that pilot program. I'm not too well versed into that program. I know just from the outside looking in, but as if I'm fortunate to be elected, I can dive into those things and bring some common sense to some of the organized chaos that we currently have. Well, I want you to take a look at this camera and tell us why we should vote for you. Right. Well, again, Marcia, thank you for the opportunity. I began public service in Hawaii while still serving going to college and serving on a neighborhood board. You know, I had that I traveled the world all over and and each time that I traveled, I brought the aloha spirit to those countries and also to those states. I have lots of friends that's all over. One of the things that I have done is I have looked at federal state and local jurisdictions across when I went around as I said earlier, doing exercises for first responders and learning that how we can bridge the gap from shortfalls and gaps and making it things from a concept to a reality and while at the same time being conservative and saving money as a state senator, I bring fresh ideas. I bring expertise. I bring leadership conservative values where, you know, we need to balance the budget and also cut wasteful spending. And so with those things, selecting me as as your state senator would not only help Hawaii to improve on some of the gaps and shortfalls that we have here, but to take us to the next level. You know, Hawaii should not be a place where we have more outside investors. We should have locals investing in Hawaii as part of my education program that I would like to promote and that is investing back in Hawaii. Well, thank you so much and good luck with your election. And after the election, you will come back and visit us again. Well, thank you so much, Marcia, for the opportunity and also think tech for this opportunity to give me a chance to talk to you, the citizens of Hawaii. Aloha. Aloha. We'll see you next time. Yes.