 Rusty Kamori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou School Boys Varsity tennis team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. This show is based on my books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game, and it's about leadership, welcoming adversity, and creating a superior culture of excellence. My special guest today is the highly respected CEO of Island Energy Services. He is John Maurer, and today we are going beyond helping Hawaii. Hey, John, welcome back to Beyond the Lines. Hey, good morning, Rusty. Thanks for having me back on your show. Really happy to be here. John, you and your company, I mean, you guys have been doing some incredible work to help Hawaii, but can you first share with all of us about Island Energy Services and what you do? Sure, of course. So Island Energy Services is a locally headquartered company here in Hawaii. We're out in Campbell Industrial Park in Kapolei, and our company imports fuel here into the islands and distributes across not just the Wahoo, but all the neighbor islands as well. And so it's fuels that people would commonly need. It's jet fuel, it's gasoline, it's fuel for the utility companies on neighbor islands. And so we have a company here that's largely focused on safely, reliably importing that fuel and getting it out to our customers on a everyday basis. Well, that's so necessary for all of us, John, for sure. And John, can you explain your relationship with Texaco in Hawaii? Yeah, of course. So beyond the importing fuel to Wahoo and all the neighbor islands, we have the network of 58 Texaco stations across the islands. So we're the licensee of the Texaco brand. And so that's how people are most familiar with us is those Texaco gas stations where people come and pick up the Tecron fuel additive in our gasoline, Texaco with Tecron. Well, I'm one of them, because I need that Tecron. I mean, when you explained to me before the Tecron difference, I'm like, OK, that makes sense to me. I need Tecron. Now, John, can you explain and give everybody the situation about what happened with Red Hill and the water contamination? Yeah, so obviously, Rusty, it was a while back. The military has had some challenges here on a Wahoo with their fuel storage. They have a large fuel facility in an area what's called Red Hill. And over a period of decades, that equipment was having some challenges in terms of spills and other concerns. And so it was about mid in 2022 where the military finally made a decision that they were going to exit that facility and look for an alternative here in a Wahoo. And so they tendered a potential contract that we bid into, and that was about July of 2022 to help provide some additional fuel storage so that they could get out of the Red Hill assets and storage capability and find another place here on a Wahoo to store fuel. Well, John, that was all over the news. I mean, it was such a sad situation where the fuel contaminated the water supply and really affected a lot of the Navy residents, the housing, and it's such a massive situation. And I mean, it's amazing that the Navy awarded Island Energy services the contract for the fuel storage. Can you tell me more about that? Yeah, of course, obviously, this was a very challenging issue for the residents and people who live here in Hawaii. Having a fuel, you know, contaminating and having issues in the water supply is just a really, really difficult problem and a lot of concerns with that. So we did bid on the project to provide an alternative fuel solution for them, and we awarded that contract in October of 2022. And as part of that contract, they were looking for someone to come in with one and a half million barrels of storage to provide for things like jet fuel and diesel fuel that the military so desperately needs here in Hawaii, but then even larger across the entire Pacific. This is really a hub for that fuel supply and having that here available is really critical to our military across the whole Pacific region. And so we got, we awarded that contract in October of 2022 and it was a super tight timeframe. They wanted that storage available within 10 months. And so that put in motion a large project with our organization where, you know, our whole team kind of leaned in really hard on that. They recognized the importance and critical requirements this project was going to require, but also the benefit that would come to the island community by solving this long-term problem that, you know, we as residents were challenged with. So a lot of hard work and effort and planning and expertise went into that and we were able to get that project completed just this past August, you know, ahead of schedule by about a month. Man, John, that's incredible that the 10 month time period and then you got it completed one month earlier in nine months. And John, tell me about Mark Dangler's role as the project manager. Yeah, so Mark Dangler is our vice president of logistics is his normal day-to-day job, but Mark is a excellent leader. He just, he really sets a good vision. He inspires his team and he was able to mobilize our internal organization to really rally around this project. Oftentimes with a project this scale and this schedule timeframe, you might look to outsource that to go to another outside engineering procurement management company to help provide resources. And Mark saw it within our organization here at Island Energy Services that this is something that we could do ourselves. And so through his leadership and coaching and mentoring brought together just an outstanding project team. I couldn't be more proud, Rusty, of our organization, the way this whole project has rallied and to see people step forward and lean in on this really hard. And it really is kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity for organizations like ours to have something like this that we can try and accomplish. And Mark led the way and he built this team and really kind of leveraging his experience and the experience of our engineers and our maintenance guys and our operations department procurement. Everybody came together in just a very cohesive, can-do attitude, just inspiring, Rusty. And I guess looking back, not surprised, we have a fantastic organization and getting immobilized and organized and really kind of inspired to do this project for all the right reasons has just been a tremendous, tremendous blessing for me to kind of see a team come together like that, just outstanding. Well, John, I agree with you 1 million percent. I mean, Mark is such an incredible leader. I feel so fortunate to be able to be working with you guys for over three years now, just trying to build that superior culture, like I always say. And you know, Alchi, I mean, Ryan, Tim, Nick, Rodney, Leia, Naomi, Galen, now you added on Phil. I mean, you have such an incredible team around you, right? We really do, Rusty. I mean, we've been working, this is a journey, right? We've been working with you and around the beyond the lines, beyond the game framework, in terms of trying to help set a vision and expectations about how we can improve our leadership capability and capacity as an organization and to see it grow and improve and develop over the last three years has just been inspiring. And you know, in your books, you talk a little bit about small wins lead to big victories. And I think that's absolutely fundamentally true. You know, over these past three years, we've been seeing, you know, little victories here and there and making progress and making progress and to see it culminate in this large project they were able to do for the military. It's just a textbook example, I think of these little things build and build and build and then at some point you can really step out and go after something real challenging and claim a big victory. And so we're really, you know, proud about that because the way the team worked together and the growth that we've seen not just at the leadership team but our supervisors and within the organization around us just a great progress and again, super inspiring to see this all come together. Yeah, you know, it's been a journey, John and I feel the same way. I mean, it's incredible to see the growth and the perseverance and the resiliency of your entire team. And John, I was so honored to be at your recent Hawaiian blessing for the fuel storage tanks and can you share about that event? Yeah, so at end of August, we had a celebration event where we traditional Hawaiian blessing is part of the commissioning operations of the facility. And so we invited a number of dignitaries here locally and some of our military customers and counterparts that we've been working to help support. And we all came out to the site and Roy had a chance to step back and take a minute to appreciate all the hard work and effort and commitment that went in on behalf of our employees and everyone. It was just a fantastic event to really recognize all the hard work and contributions people had made. And so really wanted to launch the new facility in a good way and get it off to a really good start. So just a fantastic event, very memorable I think for me as a leader here at I Know Energy Services but I think importantly for our employees as well to have a minute in time to kind of reflect on what we've been able to accomplish. It's just a tremendous outcome. Well, John, as I was there during the blessing, I mean, we're right there among the huge, ginormous storage, fuel storage tanks. I mean, pictures and video, it doesn't do it justice. I mean, when you're there in person, as you know, I mean, it is remarkable how huge your storage is and how much fuel does each tank hold? So we constructed about 1.5 million barrels of storage. And so put that in scale, that represents about 60 million gallons or about as much fuel as the state, the entire state of Hawaii would use in about a two week period. So this is just a tremendous amount of storage of a huge project that we had to put in place. The larger tanks handle, some are in the neighborhood of about 250,000 barrels each. And so we built five of those tanks and then we reconditioned the number of other tanks we already had at the site. So when you pull it all together about 1.5 million barrels and beyond that rusty, it's not just the tanks, it was one, we had to put in 15,000 feet of new piping. So that's almost three miles of new piping and over 15,000 feet of cabling and wiring and other facilities to make this all work. So it wasn't just the tanks, it was a whole lot of other work that was needed to make it all functioning operational. And again, that all had to be done in 10 months and our team, I said they leaned in hard on this and we got it done in just over nine months. A lot of companies wouldn't even attempt to do what we took on and get it done in that way it was just a remarkable outcome actually. Well, John, it's absolutely impressive and isn't it such a major validation to your company and your team members? I mean, you've been building this culture of excellence with them. And like you said earlier, these little victories really lead to big victories and you never know what you're capable of accomplishing and whether or not you're successful until you look back on what just happened, right? I think that's true. We've been in Iron Energy Services for about seven years now. We're heading into our eighth year here in November. And so it hasn't been an easy run all the time. We've had some very difficult times and challenging decisions we had to make. Looking back, you'll learn some lessons and those decisions and directions that you go kind of helped shape where you go into the future. And so with that, you do have some little victories that you build upon and build and you get some momentum going. Doesn't mean there aren't setbacks. We've had a number of setbacks to be truthful. However, with those, you learn, you adjust and you keep moving forward. And I think what we've been able to do over these last seven years is just build organizational resilience. The COVID period in 2020 and through 2021, really difficult for us when our major customers like the airlines aren't flying and there's no fuel to be sold as all the tourism got shut down. Fortunately, we've seen that kind of rebound fairly well and that's all been really helpful for our business. But there's all other kinds of challenges and pressures that kind of eke into the business on a regular basis. And it just builds a stronger company. You end up getting through those difficult decisions and challenges and you learn from it and you start to develop a little more of like a cand. If we can get through that, we can get through the next one. We can get through the next one. If we can work through these issues, you get to a point like, hey, let's do this big DLA project where we can build all this storage and let's go after this hard. And then you look back and go, oh my gosh, we just got that accomplished. How would have thought we would have been able to do that seven years ago? I probably wouldn't have been able to say that seven years ago, but today it's like, wow, what an accomplishment and it just builds a lot of momentum and a really strong positive culture. It's just fantastic. John, I have to mention you did a, it's so generous of you to have done a big book donation to the Women in Need organization. And it was so touching to be there with the CEO and founder, Mary Stotlau and her staff and with you to really see the impact that the books had on them and for their clients as well. And just being able to interact with them and to really see the emotions. I mean, there are people crying there just because of how thoughtful your book donation was, right, John? Yeah, that was a day that I'll never forget. Sometimes we get busy in business and our wife and things going on and we forget about, you know, there's a number of other folks in the communities that are out there. They need help, they need support and to be able to get connected to that organization with you Rusty and, you know, just have a small impact and in a way, hopefully, you know, change your perspective, change your mindset and give some inspiration about, you know, things can improve, things can, you know, resilient, things can move in a better direction and to have an organization like Women in Need with Mary and her team, just a fantastic, just the love and the energy you felt in that room as we were talking with them about the services they provide and their outreach in the community. It's just a fantastic opportunity to share a little bit with them and to see what they're up to and how they're making improvements in our local community here. There's so much need and they're there every day kind of helping people, you know, find a better situation for themselves and to move forward. Just like I say, a memorable day. I'm never gonna forget that, Rusty. Thank you for, you know, making that opportunity available. No, me too, I'll never forget that. Thank you, John, and you're so right. I mean, what Women in Need are doing, I mean, they're helping Hawaii in a different way. You guys are helping Hawaii in another way. And when I would come in to do our quarterly trainings with your leadership team, I mean, they have, your leadership team is incredible. They're just, they're so attentive. They're just, they just want to improve. They wanna do things in a greater way. And I think when we're focusing on mindset, and like we mentioned earlier, welcoming adversity, because I always say challenges are inevitable. Adversities are inevitable. It's going to happen. And some of us are gonna have deeper levels than others, but adversity is nonetheless. So we need to look forward to it because when it happens, we become tougher for getting through that experience. We become smarter. We become stronger. We just become better people for going through that adversity experience, right? Yeah, I think that's exactly right, Rusty. Let me go back to just the point you made before that and trying to have a positive impact in the community. Behind me on the wall here is what we call the island way. And it's our mission vision values that we aspire to as island energy. And our vision as we see it is that, we exist here to make life better for people in Hawaii. And so the way we do that, our mission is through providing, safely and reliably providing the fuels that are needed to support ongoing economic activity and people to get a transportation and all the reasons that you need fuel to help just get along with your daily life. And so we try and do that in a responsible way and do it for the betterment of everyone here in Hawaii. And so we see that as a role that we play and it's not just fuels. It's about how we do the work. It's our role in the community or what are we doing as island energy to help support the community and make things better on those fronts as well. And so we have a fantastic leadership team, they have that. We're all aligned on this. This is what we are as a company, how we think about our roles, not just with our internal employees and our workforce, but our customers and the stakeholders that depend upon us to do our work safely and reliably every day. It doesn't always go smoothly and that's where this resiliency thing kicks in, right? And you have these plans and goals and sometimes you have a setback or two, but that doesn't slow us down or doesn't stop us. Our leaders know that we've got a great organization there can do and we may have to shift gears or refocus it a little bit, but we're gonna move forward and we're gonna make things better. And that's our role as island, that's I see what my role and I think our leadership is is to work with our team to make ourselves better and improve it, not just for our company, but again for Hawaii as a whole, the entire state. Now, and John, I've been with you through those, I mean, very turbulent times. I mean, like you mentioned, during COVID, everything shut down, there's no flights whatsoever. There's no air travel. I mean, there's no jet fuel being sold. There's no jet fuel being used. And then that leads to these financial challenges. I mean, people need to understand that so many companies, average companies would shut down, would close, but you guys found a way to adapt and adjust and navigate your way forward, right? Yeah, I mean, it was the jet fuel and people aren't driving. People were staying at home and it just had a major impact on our business. We adjusted, we tightened up our belt a little bit where we could and made some hard decisions and we're able to kind of navigate through that successfully. And so I think through that our employees kind of recognize that we were trying to do it the right way. We were trying to be respectful of them as employees and the situation they might have been facing at home with COVID or managing kids at home and now they're not at school and how are we gonna work through all these unique situations that no one's ever really experienced before. But through all that, you try and do it the right way, make good decisions and be respectful of people's situations and make good business decisions at the same time. And we were able to roll forward out of that and get back on track as tourism, COVID started to diminish and tourism started to come back and people got back to their normal day-to-day jobs and having to get back to work and school and fortunately we've been able to kind of weather through that in much, much better place today. So in some ways better for it because it kind of strained our organization but in those stresses you build like called organizational muscle. It helps you get stronger and more resilient and helps you set yourself up for that next challenge and what are we gonna do and how are we gonna work together to get through the next. Yep, it's just what is that next challenge gonna be? But if we have that mindset to really look forward to it because of the reasons we talked about we can get through anything. And John, you know the great thing is you wanted everyone. I mean, everyone played a role in the success of the Red Hill fuel storage situation. And I always say that you are a reflection of your team and your team is a reflection of you but everyone played a critical role and it seemed like everybody trusted each other and they felt empowered to do the job. Do you agree? Yeah, I think that's right. And we've put a lot of focus and attention on our project team that you know our employees and parts of the organization that were really focused 24 seven on this because it's such a tight schedule and timeline. But you need to also recognize the balance of the workforce had to continue to operate the base business. And so they did that exceptionally well. And so making sure that we're continuing to reliably and safely import fuels and get that to airports and get that to the utilities and get it out to the network of the Texaco stations and a number of our other customers. And they did that without mishap. They did it on time reliably without any incident. And so that allowed us as the management team and the project to really focus and get that done on a really tight schedule because the rest of the organization was carrying their load and maybe even then some to help make sure things continue to operate well and safely. So it was a team effort. Everybody had a role in things that they had to do well. And as that all came together, you'd be able to deliver a huge success not just from a project perspective but the overall business result in continuing just the day to day operations. Again, just we have a phenomenal organization. I can't speak highly enough of it. They just do a great job and they know what they're doing and they just do it accelerated every day. John, I want to ask you as a leader, what's the biggest challenge that you face personally as a leader? Because I know, I mean, you and I know each other for a while and I know that you feel everything. I mean, to the deepest core that you have, what is the biggest challenge you deal with as a leader? I think the biggest challenge is just perhaps the responsibility. I feel an enormous amount of responsibility to make sure that this goes well. And the responsibility is for the role that we have as a company and the things that we do in terms of managing fuel and the energy security for here in Hawaii. And that in itself has a lot of responsibility but the same time to our organization to help make sure we're making decisions and thinking about the future. So that not just our company, but our workforce and all of our stakeholders that we can engage with on a regular basis can look to us as being a responsible company that's gonna be here for decades to come and helping create that future and work hard to build alignment with that, the leadership group and our customers and our suppliers and others that we work with. I mean, it doesn't always go easy. It's a lot of work, a lot of mental thought process, what's coming next and how do you work with the team and how do you take feedback and then try and roll that into your next rounds of decisions that you wanna try and make and move it all forward. Again, fantastic leadership team, fantastic organization. And so that's what inspires me. But at the same time, there's a lot of responsibility that comes with that at the same time. And I enjoy it, I really do. But at times it can be, it's not always easy. I'll just say it's not always an easy role to have. Well, John, I completely agree with you. And I know how much you truly care about each and every team member and the purpose of Island Energy and really helping the community. And John, as a coach or as a CEO or as a leadership team, you can come up with the vision. You can come up with the strategy, but it's up to your people to execute that vision, to execute that strategy. How are you able to inspire your people to really step up and be ready for such a big job like you just completed? Yeah, I think it's, we spend time with our managers and our supervisors to really help, I think coach and mentor them in a way. We provide, I think a lot of transparency about what we were trying to do as a business so that we can hand responsibility to the cascade that responsibility. So they feel some ownership with it. They feel, so they have influence that they have a role and they're making a difference. And so we've been working on that over the last several years to really try and cascade this and build strength across our entire organization in terms of leadership. Just because your title may say manager or supervisor doesn't mean others can't also be leaders and big influencers. And so trying to help people understand their role and their ability to help impact and drive and positively influence how things get done every day. And so I think that's a big effort that we've been trying to really focus on over the last several years. And again, this is where those little victories, you see one department or one team kind of getting some wins and that creates positive momentum to, hey, the other guys don't wanna get outdone. And so that it just builds this culture where people wanna continue to grow and improve and what we try and do is foster that and help people see that they have an important role and that they can make a big impact. And I think over time it just continues to build and build and build and we're trying to make sure it's all going in the right direction. And so far I think the results of this project would indicate we're making some really good progress and it doesn't mean we're done. We've got a lot more things we can be doing in the future and what's really cool to see is people are just so fired up right now. They're like, bring it on, we're ready to take on what's next. So exciting times here. That's always the best mindset when your people are like, bring it on, what's next? And so, John, I wanna ask you one more thing before we wrap up. What is next for Island Energy Services? Yeah, so today we're importing fuel and distributing that across the islands. We see that will continue on for literally decades to come. The fuels may change though. And so what has been historically petroleum-based fuels will transition over time to renewable fuels, things like renewable diesel and biodiesel, sustainable aviation fuels. Those fuels are all now on the edge of the market and starting to make their way into typical fuel supplies across the planet. And we think Hawaii is gonna be another big part of that. And so our role will be to help support that transition and look to connect suppliers of those fuels to end customers like the airlines and like the motoring public and utility companies and the marine customers. They're all gonna need fuel and they're gonna need different varieties that in the coming future. And we see our role is to really help enable that and provide those alternative fuels that we know are gonna be needed for the decades to come. Well, that's interesting insights what you just shared right there, John. And John, again, big congratulations to you and your team for accomplishing such an incredible job in helping Hawaii, especially the Red Hill, the Navy resident community. I mean, it's, what you did is absolutely awesome. So I just wanna thank you for taking time to come to share this on the show today. Thank you, thank you, Russie. Great chance to catch back up with you. Always appreciate the chance to kind of share what we're doing and what we're thinking about here with ION Energy Services and the future that we see for us. So a great place today and we're looking forward to more opportunities as we go forward. Thanks, John. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. For more information, please visit rusticamory.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that John and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.