 Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, host of Sister Power. Beachside lighting started out as a two-person operation and has grown over the last twenty years to twenty-five employees. Their business manufactures copper and brass landscape and architectural fixtures that are sold in Hawaii on the mainland and throughout the world. Today's Sister Power guest is Whitney Benedick. So Bob, she currently serves as Vice President of Beachside Lighting and her duties include operations, facilities, management, finances, and human resource management for the company. Whitney, welcome to Sister Power. Thanks, Sharon. Glad to be here. I'm so glad you're here. Thanks. It took us a while, but we're here. Yeah, we're here. And sorry if I kind of messed up, that's well bowed out. That last name is difficult for everybody. It's quite all right. Tell me about the last name. My husband's last name is Bohemian in nature and I believe it means freedom. People have told us. Okay. I like that. I'll take it. Yeah, it's good. You'll take it. Sounds good. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself. Oh, I'm a Hawaii resident for twenty-three years. Now I'm originally from Indiana, grew up on a farm out there and ended up here by accident as many people do, came once and fell in love and decided to make this my permanent home and I love it. So I've been working at Beachside Lighting and running things over there for almost since I've moved here, twenty-plus years now. What a blessing. It is. So tell us about Beachside Lighting, tell us a little bit about the business. So my partner founded the company and originally we started out seeing a need for fixtures, landscape lighting fixtures, anything that would be near the ocean that would withstand a salt water environment, salt spray, anything that comes with that. We all know how corrosive that can be. So our first project was to remake a lot of the tiki torches that you see everywhere. So they used to be made of steel, they used to have a seam and now it's a seamless copper tiki torch that doesn't rust, it just ages well with time and that was kind of our bread and butter product and through that we... Oh, we have the torches here, tell us about that, it's beautiful. So that's just kind of the standard traditional, you know, tiki torches. We remade it to, you know, make it out of copper so it would withstand the environment so they wouldn't have to be replaced as often. What is that little blue light that's coming out of the torches there? I noticed there was a blue, see the blue light? That's the gas. So that's... Oh. Yeah, that's a gas, natural gas or propane tiki torch. So that's the blue that the gas gives off. Now are those the torches that we see at the majority of the hotels? Everywhere. Yes, we make them. That's Beachside Lighting. That is Beachside Lighting. Yes. Look underneath the torch, you'll see a label on there, it says Lamaku, which is our corporation name, which means torch. Which means torch. And I want the audience to know the background, our background, which is absolutely lovely, is Beachside Lighting. It is. Torches and lighting both, I think, in that photo. Really makes a difference in your outdoor space and we live outside in Hawaii. So yeah, any coastal area. I could see why Beachside Lighting has lasted so long. I think that we take for granted about the lighting and the beauty that the lighting brings your entire environment to light. Yes. Yes. I mean, we spend a lot, a majority of our time outside here and people spend money on their landscaping and enjoying that space and you should be able to enjoy it day or night. So having that lighting out there really allows you to enjoy all that. Well, how do you get your clientele, I know you've Beachside Lighting, you've done business in the Caribbean. Yes. Well, our target market are people who will specify our product. It is a high-end product, it's not cheap. So we want people to believe in the professionals that they're working with that will specify this on a plan and say, this is a product that lasts. That has led us to a network of sales reps all over the country. In trade shows we've met people from all over the world. We do have a distributor in the Caribbean. We have a network of distributors and sales people in Dubai. We're doing a lot of work in the Middle East and all over really. Any coastal area is a perfect fit for our products. So you get to travel there and occasionally, now when they contact you, who takes it from there? Walk us through when a client contact Beachside Lighting. So we do have a website and people can contact us through there. So it could be a Hawaii resident, it could be somebody international. We do have two inside sales people that handle all of those requests, information requests. And if we have a rep in that area, we farm them out to the rep to give them more personal service locally. And if it's international, usually we take care of that on our own. You do? Yeah. So you have a full day? Are you six days a week, five days a week? Five days a week. Yeah, we're managing it five days a week. And it's difficult sometimes. There's a lot of work to be done. We are manufacturing a product. We're not bringing it in and selling it. So you manufacture your own products? Yes, all of our designs and our hours of our design and manufacture. Now that's good to hear. Yes. You heard it here first, everyone. Beachside Lighting manufactures, they're fixtures here in the United States in Hawaii. Yes. That's good to hear. Yes. Oh my goodness. Yeah, we do have, there are many other landscape lighting manufacturers there on the mainland. We're one of the few manufacturers in Hawaii that isn't a clothing or food product. So it's unique. It is unique. Yeah. You know, when I met you, we had such a wonderful conversation at the tea and champagne. And I was listening to you tell me about your organization and what would you, what type of advice would you give to girls and young women to get into this type of industry because you're in a male dominated business, am I correct? We are. I, the landscape industry, there are many women working as designers and even landscapers themselves, landscape architects. The manufacturing industry we have found to be still male dominated. This was a very new to me. My experience as a Spanish teacher, you know, I kind of jumped in and got involved in the business. Everything I've done, I have learned along the way and there's absolutely nothing to be afraid of. It's interesting. It's learnable. It takes you to places all over the world. And I never thought that being involved in a manufacturing business would allow me to do a lot of the things that I've done. So I would just say if you have an interest in it to, to just go for it. There's no limit for women in that industry at all. Is there any, some type of degree that you need to have, some type of certification? You know, my partner and I, neither one of us have a background in manufacturing or engineering at all. We definitely have taught ourselves everything that we have needed to know for this business. That being said, it never hurts to have a mathematical mind, a little bit of an engineering experience. Those things are helpful. You know, we've, we've grown along the way and have made mistakes and that's okay. Everybody does. But some of that was having a little lack of knowledge in those areas, but still, we've figured it out. There's a couple of more pictures. I want to show the, the, oh, that is absolutely beautiful. It is. Tell us about that. That's a hanging, a hanging fixture can be installed, you know, hanging from a tree. Just need the wiring run up to that. And the, that cylinder is a solid brass cylinder and it's perforated. So the light shines outward as well as down. So you recede it in the chair. You can see there's some lighting down below and also kind of shining outward from the fixture. Oh, and that's beautiful. Is that someone's home? It is someone's home. I'm not sure whose home it is. We have many photos, but that's a path lighting fixture. So it's kind of eliminating the landscape next to it as well as providing security going down the stairs as well. What is it? Oh, look at that one. It's gorgeous. That's an interesting project that we got through our New York City rep. And that is some lighting at the Polar Bear exhibit at the Central Park Zoo. Polar Bear exhibit? Yes. You never know where our fixtures are going to end up. Many times we sell them and we have no idea, but it's nice when we're working with the rep, they a lot of times will give us some background information and we get to know some of the really interesting places where they end up. So do the reps fly out to the location and they work with architects? They're local reps. So they're serving their area. So I'm not sure the exact number. We probably have between 30 and 40 reps at this point who are out promoting beachside lighting locally in their area. So they're contacting specifiers, architects, landscape architects, and designers. That's who they contact on our behalf. Oh my, you know, this is just so interesting to me. Thank you. I love it. What are some of the challenges of beachside lighting? The biggest challenge is just manufacturing any product in Hawaii. It is a logistical nightmare. A lot of the services that we need like machining up parts and that kind of thing, there are very few people that do that here, requires a lot of expensive machinery, a trained individual to run those machines. So we do get a lot of our parts made on the mainland even though they're our design and then timing that to bring them all in, to do all the assembly, to get them out on time to the customers, that is, that's the biggest challenge. And we're very fortunate that we have a few key employees that really make that happen for us. So usually what is the turnaround time? It very much depends on the order. For something like lighting up a home that could be maybe 20-ish fixtures, that's a one or two week, you know, turnaround. We have other orders that are several hundred fixtures at once and of course that adds weeks, you know, depending on what it is could take quite a while. So do you have to employ outside help to come in and help with your employees to complete the project? No, they do it. So this is all in-house. It is. Yeah. Yeah. We have a very good team. We have many employees that have been with us for 10 plus years and they are good at what they do. They are dedicated to the company and we love them so very much and it's kind of like a family working together to get the work done. So you've been at the company from the start. Not from the very start, but for how many years again? 22. 22 years. Yes. And so the company has been in existence for... Since 1994. Since 1994. Since 1994. So what has to turn around at your side lighting? As far as employees go? Yes. Well, like any business, you know, you get some people that come and they're in and out very quickly. Out of our 25 employees I believe we have at least 10 who have been with us for 10 years or more and some going on 13, 14, 15 years. So that is... Oh, that's wonderful. It is. Certain positions turn over a little bit more and but that's okay. That's just running a business. Do you have a showroom? We do have a showroom. It's in our Kailua office and it's very small but it has everything in there that we would need to show somebody if they were interested. Okay. Well, Whitney. You'll have to visit. I want to come and visit. That would be great. I just need the invitation. Oh, well, anytime. Anytime. Well, when we come back we're going to continue our conversation about beachside lighting. Sounds great. Hi, Mabuhay. My name is Amy Ortega Anderson, inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power Hawaii with Think Tech Hawaii. We come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday. We invite you to listen, watch for our mission of empowerment. We aim to enrich, enlighten, educate, entertain and we hope to empower. Again, maraming, salamat po, Mabuhay and aloha. Aloha, I'm Wendy Lowe and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at 2 o'clock live from Think Tech Hawaii and on our show we talk about taking your health back and what does that mean? It means mind, body and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about. Whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means, let's take healthy back. Aloha. We're back. Welcome back to Sister Power and my VIP guest is Whitney, vice president of Beachside Lighting. And as we were telling the audience, our background is from your company, the Light Fixtures, which is absolutely beautiful. Thank you. Beautiful. So again, very quickly for people who are just tuning in, tell us a little bit about Beachside Lighting again. Beachside Lighting manufactures copper and brass landscape lighting, solid fixtures to withstand a corrosive environment, salt air environment. And that's perfect for Hawaii and everything is manufactured here. Here in Hawaii. Yes. Right here in Hawaii. Yes. What about shipping and shipping cost? For the customer. For the customer. So this has improved greatly over the last 20 years. And at the beginning of our business, it was everybody's concern on the main line, getting fixtures from Hawaii. It's too much. It's too expensive. Now, even to Hawaii, we can get things shipped for free all the time. So we have shipping policies in place for certain dollar limit orders. We'll actually ship it for free, but because our business has grown and because we're shipping out boxes every single day, different orders, our rates are very good and it's actually very affordable for the customers. We don't very rarely get a grumble about shipping now. And that's rare to hear in Hawaii. That is affordable. You know, rarely hear that word affordability in Hawaii. Well, we've had to make it affordable because we don't want to scare people away from the product because of a shipping cost. It's a good product. And now that we have kind of built a reputation and have tried to facilitate and share in some of that shipping cost, then we don't hear too many grumbles about that. Oh, that's good. Well, let's look at some of your work again. We have more pictures to show. Oh, tell us about that one. So that's kind of a bread and butter fixture. That's a directional fixture. Can be used for up lighting, down lighting, sideways. And that picture is a good demonstration of that solid brass that we use. It's kind of an unfinished fixture so you can see that it's a solid brass fixture. That's a path lighting fixture, again, to light underlying landscape or a pathway, steps. That's a nice Lonnie kind of photo. This is a ballard fixture. A ballards are also used for lighting pathways. This one is more of a commercial grade fixture that you might see at a hotel or a resort property. Oh, now that's beautiful. It is. That is absolutely gorgeous. It's beautiful and functional. So you get light up and down and then you get the, actually we have an artist on the big island that makes those sconces for us. So it's our fixture behind the sconce and then we have those custom made for our business. So you work with other vendors to just make it all come together and beautify it. They're pretty much the only ones but they do these custom sconces and torch covers for us that are amazing and each one is made by hand. Made by hand. Made by hand. A lot of work that's put into beautifying a business and your home. And so anyone can just call Beachside Lighting and say, I want your business, I need your business and this is what my vision is. So for professionals in the business, architects and lighting designers, we will come out, we'll visit you, we'll give a demonstration of our products and even homeowners if you need help with lighting design to a certain degree. We do help with that as well. So we try to guide people to the best products for their need. That's good. Yeah. Name some locations where Beachside Lighting has been installed. This is one of my projects that I've been wanting to work on is installing a big world map in our break room so that our employees can see the reach of Beachside Lighting. They make fixtures every day and they usually don't know where they're ending up, but our fixtures are worldwide. They're absolutely everywhere. It's hard to name a place where they're not at this point. So it's very interesting. Especially the torches, they tend to go more worldwide than anything else. The Hawaii gets a lot of visitors and they look at the torches and they want that for themselves. So the torches probably have the biggest worldwide reach, but having distributors and reps in different countries and things greatly expands people's knowledge of Beachside Lighting. Did you mention Dubai? Yes. That was a surprise. That came from a lighting designer that we met at a trade show many years ago that used to work in the United States. He relocated to Dubai and loved our product and has helped us grow our business over there tremendously. It was very interesting. Yeah. So have you ever been to Dubai? I have not. Not yet. I'm sure that's an open invitation. I know that Beachside Lighting Prize itself on customer service, elaborate on various parts of the equation. You know, when we started the business, my partner and I were a two-man operation for a long time. So we were doing absolutely everything, manufacturing the product, shipping the product, speaking with customers, developing brochures. And because of that, all of our customers got to know us very personally. Now that we've grown, we've had to kind of let loose of that a little bit. Our salespeople represent us. Our anybody answering the phone, anybody coming to pick up an order. And our employees know how important our reputation is. And we asked them to uphold that and treat everybody with aloha so that they have a good experience and have good feelings about Beachside Lighting. Very important. Very important. You can look at the pictures and look at the lighting and look at how you've placed everything that you, when Beachside Lighting completes the project, you do leave with a good feeling. This beauty is just, this just makes you feel good. Yeah. Yeah. People do love it. When their lighting is finally installed and they get to enjoy their outdoor space and highlight the hard work that they've put into getting that, they do love it. So you stock all your products? Well we are in constant manufacture. So I would not say necessarily that they're in stock. But as soon as you place your order, we begin manufacturing them, right, that goes into a production timeline and they get made. Well what do you do for downtime? I mean what, because this is an ongoing business, it seems to, you're constantly busy. Yes. People are building, businesses are constantly going up, what do you do to relax? Myself personally? You? Yes. No. I have three children. They keep me really busy, a daughter in college, a sophomore in high school, and a first grader. So usually in my downtime I'm doing something, you know, with family. I do like to exercise, I like to spend time with friends. I serve on different boards in the community to kind of get back. Tell us about the board to serve. My first board experience was with Baby Huey of Hawaii, that is now called Family Huey and that was many years ago before I understood what being a good board member was all about. I was just passionate about the organization. I was on the board for Family Promise of Hawaii which helps to have families experience homelessness in the community less, you know, get them out of that situation. I was on that board for six years and currently I'm on the board for the Women's Fund of Hawaii which is a grant making operation to fund women and children programs in Hawaii. Yeah, I like that organization. That's where you and I met. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Getting back to beach side lighting, what are the biggest obstacles and how do you overcome them? Logistics is really the biggest obstacle. We are reliant on having a lot of our parts made in the United States. We do not order parts from China. That would be a lot easier. It would be more inexpensive, but we're very committed to making a US-made product. Because of that, you know, our lead times can be long. Sometimes if we get parts in that don't meet well, don't match up or we're not made correctly, that kind of sets the timeline back and our aim is to keep customers happy. So the logistics and the manufacturer is always the tightrope that we're walking on there. Did you have a role model for something like this that you're in a male-dominated business? Was there a role model for you? This might make me teary, but my mom is my role model. She's just a strong woman, very involved in the community, involved in both my parents actually, an amazing work ethic. My partner has amazing work ethic. And that's just something I try to pass along to my kids, is you just keep going, just one foot in front of the other. You'll learn it, you'll do it, that kind of thing, and to give back to the community as much as you can. That's what it's all about, you know, paying it forward. And I know about that. Teary, my mother is my role model, too. You still have your mother. Yes, I do. You're so blessed. I am. You're such a blessed woman to have your role. Your mother is your role model. And I'm sure she's very proud of you. I hope so. I like to think so. Yes, sure she is. You are a leader, whether you want to realize it or not. What is the toughest aspect about being a leader? It's interesting you say that I am a leader. In my heart, I know that I am. I know that I'm setting an example for my employees or my children. I honestly don't think about it. I just do. I know it's important to show up. I know it's important to be there and set that example in whatever it is, whether it's home or school. I don't think about it much. I just do. Just show up. Show up. Be there. Do what you're supposed to do. Everybody knows what they're supposed to do. Everybody knows that. So it's just important to do what you know you're supposed to do. That makes me feel so good because that's so important. It's so important that your word is your bond and that people have their expectations after viewing your beautiful work. You have to surpass it each time. How do you do that? We do have to keep growing. Technology changes. Our products have changed over the years because technology improves. Lighting improves. It's something people don't think about a lot. You used to have giant fixtures to give the same amount of light now that a tiny little fixture will bring. So we need to be able to know that we are going to have to change and accept that and be ready for it and do it. That's how you keep current in your business. Are there certain classes that your employees need to attend sometimes since the organization is growing, technology is changing? We have done some classes, not so much with our production staff. They do have to learn all of that, but we usually train that in-house since we are designing our own fixtures and we also train them how to build them. So they're learning on the job as well. So that's a big benefit, especially working in an organization. Something that's beautiful, the work that you do. Whitney. Whitney. Whitney. Thank you. This has been absolutely wonderful and I would suggest any organization, any business, home owners to definitely contact Beachside Lighting. Yes, please. How would they contact you? Our website is beachsidelighting.com. We're located in Kailua. You can find our address on the, all the information is on the website. It's easy to visit us and we welcome everybody to come. Oh, thank you so much for coming. Thanks for having me. I had a great time. Well, this is it, Sister Power. This is the end of our show and thank you for spending part of your day with Think Tech Hawaii and Sister Power and Aloha.