 Welcome to this week's edition of Business in Hawaii. I'm Daelyn Yanagida and we are broadcasting live from the ThinkTech studios in downtown Honolulu. If you want to tune in live, we are at www.thinktechhawaii.com. You may also subscribe to our programs and getting our mailing lists there as well. The theme of business in Hawaii is to share with you stories of local businesses by local people and our guests share with us their journey to building successful businesses right here at home. In the ThinkTech studio with us today is Melissa Pavlisak, president of Hawaii Public Policy Advocates. Melissa, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I know that so many people recognize your face because as you make your rounds around the state capitol, around the ledge, so I know that you're not an unfamiliar face. But I really would love to hear about how Melissa got started in the field of advocacy and lobbying. Thank you so much for asking me. Our company is 15 years old and we started it really because we saw a need in the community to have a voice at the legislature. I remember working as an attorney and attending a women's leadership conference where I saw lots of women entrepreneurs and they were often complaining about laws and regulations, fees, taxes and other things that kind of made them mad and I really thought it might be a business opportunity to help people have a voice in making policy. And so often people feel like politics or legislative work is something they would never want to do and whenever you see people saying there's something they never want to do, you definitely know you'll always have a job. You found the niche and you filled it. But how was that journey? I worked at the legislature as a staff member and that is actually where I met my husband of 25 years now. He also worked there and I was speaking about the need for businesses to have a voice at the capitol but similarly legislators, they need to hear good information, good, reliable, trustworthy information and they're eager for community members to talk to them in a way that they can process and make good decisions and I really do believe that they're there for good reasons and so often they get accused of making decisions without having good reasons but it's really on us out here in the community to give them all the facts, the data, the evidence that they need to make sure that they make good policy decisions. So on the business and why you show, we often like to ask business owners, entrepreneurs like yourself, what were some of the barriers to getting started? I mean one of the more amusing ones is when I left working at a law firm, people in the law field said to me like what do you mean you're going to start your own business, you're going to have to buy your reams of paper from Costco yourself and I'm like I think I could handle that but there really is not much of a barrier to becoming a lobbyist or an advocate and many people do it on a part-time basis or for free because they have something that they want to do, a passion that they want to express and I think there's a misperception that most lobbyists would do or say anything because a client hired them to do it. I really feel it's important to advocate with integrity and to make sure that I only accept clients where I know like and trust what they're saying is true and I can carry that message and help them. The only part of my job is really speaking on behalf of organizations. Another really important part of my job is to help them know how to frame their messages themselves and to empower them so that they know they can have a voice in making good policy decisions too especially for nonprofit organizations. So often nonprofit organizations are comprised of individual small businesses and they come together because nobody has the bandwidth or the time to be able to go up and spend a whole day at the state capitol waiting for a bill to be heard but when they come together and can pool their resources they can have a better voice and so it's really working with those businesses to help them understand the process. For example this morning I was over at the Honolulu City Council and it was a packed hearing room and just getting to sit next to some people who hadn't testified before just let them know you have to sign in and just because you submitted testimony online doesn't mean that the council members will know that you want to be a speaker. Little things like that can help a lot. So how does someone figure all of that out? Is that something that HPPA helps with? Right well I try to be open and educate people regardless of whether or not they would ever consider hiring a lobbyist for themselves because I'm a citizen too and I want to make sure that there are good policy decisions. I have two teenage children and I hope Hawaii is a better place for them. So I do share a lot of information and the state legislative website and the Honolulu City Council website as well as the City Council websites of the other neighbor islands are really a wealth of information. Gone are the days when we have to go down and get a stack of paper to find out what's going on. You can find out quite a bit about what's on the agenda, who else is testifying, what's happening with any particular measure. But even before that usually when I meet with people who are interested or ask if they might be a fit for working with us they often have the idea I want to change a law or I want to pass a bill and when I talk to them I ask them questions to find out do you even need to change the law? Is it something that can be done with a state agency or through rules? Is it something that you can work with people on and talk informally so that you don't have to go through a full-blown process? Every year there are about 3,000 bills introduced and only about two to three hundred passed. So if you're relying on your bill getting through it might be a little challenging and you try to find other strategies for accomplishing what you want to do. Oftentimes they do want something and so we try to look at has this been done before? What are the key ways we could get it done? Some of the considerations that we look at are you know who would benefit from this change so trying to find other stakeholders and can we interest them in getting involved in this? Who would oppose it and can we address their concerns before we ever go talk to a legislator and ask them to take up our cause we want to go in with all of that information so that they know what they might be getting themselves into. Is there a point at which your consultancy begins? I think I want to change this law and then you talk them through. Is that where the relationship starts? I mean ideally I would love if all of our relationship started that way but sometimes it happens when I'm sitting in a hearing next to somebody who's there for a bill and they're sort of tearing out their hair because they don't know what's happening next and they ask me if I can help them and often I do because if I believe in it I just believe in it and that might end up being a client relationship down the line. Well I've had the honor and the opportunity of following you around the Capitol during the legislative session and I mean you definitely, I mean your subject matter expert but more than that you have passion and you literally show that you have passion for what's happening in this process. Wearing your heart and your sleeve is maybe not always the best strategy for a lobbyist having a poker face is maybe a job qualification and I'm not sure that I have it. I know I brought some photos with you and maybe we could take a quick look at those and that could kind of show us some of the things. So this is a photo of two community members meeting with the state legislator, representative Tom Brower who has a very colorful office there but you can see you know he's really engaged in the conversation and they're learning what's his passion and then they can kind of tailor their message to try to match up with some of the things that interest him and you'll see Darth Vader I think in the background there but each legislator has their own unique style and things that they're interested in reflecting their community and so trying to tap into it on a human level to try to really relate to them is part of it. I think we could go on to a next one. I know we have a couple other photos. So another way that we try to get the legislators to know about what we're doing is to ask them to recognize either with a proclamation or a certificate a special day and this happened to be Give Kids a Smile Day which is a free clinic every year that dentists put on and these are some dentists who are there to receive that acknowledgement. Sometimes this happens on the floor of the legislature or and I know Dalin you've been there when these things are going on but that way all the legislators who are sitting there ready to do business are gaining awareness of what your organization does. I know we have yet another slide if we could put that one on. This is you in action right? This actually isn't me and I think it kind of looks like me a little bit but it is a community member and this was the first time she ever testified at a Senate committee hearing and some of these senators are no longer in office and I feel like that looks a little intimidating and it is sort of reflective of what it feels like to be testifying for the first time at the Capitol but this particular community member did a really effective job and she was able to convince these legislators to change a bill and so I love this photo because it shows how one person can really make a difference. I think we have one more. Yeah I mean often we talk about trying to develop a strategy or put all the policy points down and this is a good picture of a group going through some strategic planning and I like to put this photo at the end because it's sort of a never-ending process. We have a two-year legislative biennium and so going into 2020 this will be the second year and many of the bills that were considered last year will still be alive so it's not like we always get the luxury of starting here at the beginning and do strategic planning. Sometimes after we've gone through a legislative session we start to strategize for the next one so I think that's what that photo represents. I think just having someone who knows the ropes and knows this process and the fact that you know the bill is still alive into the next legislative session I mean I wouldn't know that if you know if you didn't share a process and guide us through that I that's just not common knowledge so I think that the service that HPPA provides to various organizations just so valuable right because everybody has a message or an opinion just don't know how to to get it heard. I also know that HPPA does other things besides advocacy at the ledge. What are some of those things? Right so many times groups will go up to the Capitol and I noticed that they could use some additional help besides just advocating or articulating their message and sometimes that meant helping them convene a meeting or work on their bylaws and because we are attorneys and we have some experience with that we started taking on a couple of our organizations as their executive director and that really has been a good compliment. There's this myth that non-profit organizations can't lobby and it's not really true. Non-profit organizations even charitable organizations can do some lobbying a small amount compared to the rest of their work. They can do a considerable amount of advocacy and educating so those things really work together well and if we don't have our nonprofit community which is often comprised of small businesses and business professionals advocating at the Capitol that's an important voice that's missing. I think I need an education on the difference between advocacy being an advocate, a lobbyist and all those different parts that come together and definitely what HPPA does but we need to go to a break so when we come back I'm hoping that you could give me that education as well as everyone else. We are going to that break. This is Business in Hawaii. We'll see you back here shortly. Aloha my name is Duretian. You are watching Think Tech Hawaii. I will be hosting a show here every other Wednesday at 1 p.m. and we will be talking to a lot of experts and guests around sustainability, social justice, the future here in Hawaii, progressive politics and a whole lot more. So please tune in and thank you for watching Think Tech Hawaii. Hey Aloha everyone and welcome to the Think Tech Hawaii studio. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Pretty Matters Hawaii. We air here every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Hawaii time trying to bring you issues about security that you may not know, issues that can protect your family, protect yourself, protect our community, protect our companies, the folks we work with. Please join us and I hope you can maybe get a little different perspective on how to live a little safer. Aloha. Welcome back. This is Business in Hawaii. With us today is Melissa Pavliksek of Hawaii Public Policy Advocate. I am so excited to have you here because I think I have questions of my own. Before we went to break, we were talking about the difference between advocacy and lobbying. You know there's a couple different definitions and for small businesses really the one that they need to be thinking about is the definition of lobbying which really means for pay. So if you advocate for on behalf of other organizations and receive compensation you have to register with the state ethics commission. So as a volunteer if you are a small business owner and you volunteer for the Chamber of Commerce or the National Federation of Independent Business, you don't have to register as a lobbyist. If you turn around and pay an advocate such as myself then I would have to register. So that's a key definition and then for nonprofit organizations they have some IRS definitions they need to worry about. So for them lobbying again means for pay and it also means on a specific issue. So if you are advocating I'm in favor of bill 100 or I oppose bill 100 that will start to add up to how much lobbying you can do if you're a nonprofit but you have an unlimited amount of advocacy and education so you can say I support small business or I support early learning or I support education for native Hawaiians those are all education advocacy on issues and you wouldn't necessarily have to worry about your nonprofit status. So in a while the legislatures are in office when they have hearings anybody can submit testimony is that correct? Yes absolutely and sometimes they're very long hearings but you know the hearing itself is just a small part of what the legislators are doing to find out what's happening with a bill. So an issue might relate to a small business fee or tax and so the legislators will be thinking about that before they even have a bill written and introduce it and then when a hearing is scheduled they'll be receiving and reviewing all the written testimony also accept meetings in their office you can call and request a meeting of course they can't necessarily meet with everybody on every issue so that's when it helps to kind of know who your geographic area legislators are so calling up and saying I live in your district would you be willing to meet with me for a few minutes or have a staff member meet with me it's very powerful and there's such an easy way to find on the state legislative website up in the right-hand corner you can type in your street name and find out who your legislators are that's often a good place to start. Legislatures also organized by committees so finding a topic committee that relates to what you're working on so for small businesses we often go before the economic development committees and talking to those committee leaders and then by the time you get to the hearing you know who you are and they kind of know a little bit about what you want to say that really helps because I think there's some statistic like somebody has to hear something seven times before it sinks in so you want to really make sure yeah or more you said it at least that many times so for HPPA we try to work with our organizations so that we find out you match up you know who is the messenger so who is going to go to the meetings who's going to testify who's going to be the face of the issue along with the message and make sure those are a good fit and then it will communicate the position a lot better and be much more memorable nice so when business owners entrepreneurs have an opinion about a topic they can go to their legislators and have their voice heard but they would call upon you or any of your staff at HPPA to represent them when they need that extra guidance and perhaps understanding who the best person to talk to is right they could but usually at the best place to start is to see what organizations are already doing that work so what I like to do is if somebody asked me something about an issue that I haven't worked on before and go on the legislative website and do a few keyword searches and look at those bills and for the other people and the other organizations that testified and then if you can find one so it might be the Alzheimer's Association or the arthritis Association they've been testifying on a bill connect with them or see if they have a public meeting if you can go to it and kind of learn what the positions are and get some colleagues to go up because that can be very persuasive when you're at the Capitol when it's more than just one person but never underestimate the power of one person to make a difference just like we saw in that photo of one person testifying can be very compelling and I this is why I love what I do because I really feel like I can't make a difference and it's so easy to sit outside the process there is a that's very popular about how we're waiting for the world to change but I feel like if we wait for the world to change it's just not enough time we have to get in there and be part of that change so I've had also the opportunity to hang out in your office with your staff and you folks do so many things I would love to hear about a lot of things that HPPA does right well specifically for our lobbying clients as I was saying it's not just being their voice at the Capitol really the majority of the work is back with them and trying to help articulate what are the compelling stories that they can tell try to humanize their issue get some data and research are there any governmental reports and we go down to the Legislative Reference Bureau library which has a fantastic wall of news clippings back from the 1970s on every topic you can imagine and and do some homework really trying to do some stakeholder analysis who else is working in this area can we go to some neighborhood board meetings and stir up some interest and get some more people involved in this and we help write some letters to the editor or see if any of the stakeholders would be willing to write an opinion editorial that can be published in the paper people who can get some media training and be interviewed on programs like this one and really work to build capacity so that when the organization is ready to launch their message we can really find champions in the Legislature and the policymakers and really find someone who will be passionate and like-minded and advance the issue what are some of the other things that you folks guide your clients through well I think being prepared for opposition is definitely one of them and trying to go through some mock interviews or mock hearings so that people can be prepared for some tough questions because the last thing that you want to do is say the wrong information at a legislative hearing or promise something that you'll never be able to deliver because that will haunt you for a long time so really practicing and being prepared and doing your homework and then really the goal is not so much to just win the battle or make sure you got through this particular hearing or got a bill passed but you really want to have a long strategic view and sometimes issues of importance take a long time it might take one year two years five years to have a bill passed but in the meantime if you're building up support and building colleagues you're making progress towards your goal and a lot of the work that we do is trying to come up with measures for those things so that we're not just did you win today or lose but did you make progress towards a goal and is it going to stick is that bill with that idea going to last for a long time and can we measure you know change by some positive steps towards reaching a goal sounds like the work that you do with your clients builds a very long lasting relationship do often it does and I think many of our organizations have been with us for over 10 years and that also makes it fun and we get to know people on a human level and really have some good relationships and friendships and similarly with some of the elected officials you know there's just people often ask me what does the legislature think and there's 76 legislators on any given day and they have different ideas and as you saw from some of the pictures some of their offices reflect their colorful characters and so it really is a great opportunity to get to know people and to make a difference in our community I would be one of those people who call you and say so what's going on without realizing that there is just so much going on there that you know it does get one of the things that people often don't think about when they think about advocacy is it's not necessary just the Capitol building it's not just the legislature or the governor's office or the state agencies but using strategies with the judiciary so we don't actively even though we're lawyers litigate cases pertaining to our bills or issues that we work on but our clients do and so we try to think through is this something that a court a recent court case might affect we don't need this bill anymore or now we do need a bill because it was decided in a certain way based on the current law or is this bill even valid so there every year there's bills that violate the state Constitution's prohibition on having two topics in a bill so anytime you see a bill that has the word and in it you're gonna start to ask yourself is that really one topic or is it two topics so you know things like that having having a law background is helpful but not required but definitely helpful so what's next for HPPA you know we're celebrating an anniversary of our company this year my husband and I are the co-owners of the business we're celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary and I think we are just looking forward to doing some good work and continuing to help be the voice of some of our clients and small businesses what kind of advice do you have for our small business owners and our entrepreneurs out there who really want to have a voice on certain issues just just yeah I think it's so easy to say I wish they would leave me alone and you know I understand that sentiment but I think the legislative that's doing themselves and legislators at this service because their voice is important and legislators welcome it and so finding the time making the time either to personally develop a relationship with a key elected official or supporting another effort through a trade organization it's really important and I think my tip would be not to let others do be your voice but to really participate in the process make sure that you vote make sure that you have a say in who who is serving as our elected leaders and don't leave those opportunities to others so for our business owners and entrepreneurs who do want to seek your services to help them with that voice or that guidance how can they find you of course we have a website at Hawaii public policy advocates and it's easily searchable and my phone number and email is on that and we welcome conversation or hang around the state capital either you are one of your staff or think tech thank you so much we are out of time but I wanted to thank Melissa for joining us today and a huge thank you to the production staff here in the studio if you would like to be a guest on our show please email your information to shows at think tech Hawaii comm business in Hawaii airs every Thursday at 2 p.m. and we look forward to seeing you here next