 Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou 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, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence. My special guest today is the principal and CFO of Kai Hawaii, and he's the founder and owner of Island Business Management, and he's the chair of our Hawaii Restaurant Association. He does a lot. He is Ryan Tanaka, and today we are going beyond finance. Hey, Ryan, welcome to the show. Hey, Rusty, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here. Ryan, I remember when you played JV Tennis at Punahou, and I know that you're also a wrestler and you ran cross-country. How was your experiences at Punahou? I had a great experience at Punahou. I was there for middle school and high school, and it really prepared me for life, and from there I went to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and worked in Tokyo, but all of those experiences later on released them from a wonderful education at Punahou School, and great coaches like yourself. I wasn't quite at varsity level, but I did have coach Scott for JV for Tennis, and I did that on the side. I was a wrestler primarily, and was under coach Matt Oni, who was just phenomenal. Now, Ryan, I also know that you won the most inspirational player award at Punahou for three times. I mean, that's impressive. That really says a lot about your character, and in terms of that, the team was the one that was voting for it, right? I'm surprised that you remember that. Thank you very much, Coach Rusty. Yes, I did. My freshman sophomore and senior year, and it's a vote from the team, and there's so many inspirational wrestlers and athletes at Punahou School. So to be recognized, it was truly an honor. Now, Ryan, I know your wife, Casey, because I trained her in tennis for many years, and she's such a terrific person. I'm so happy that you both connected and you guys are married. And I know that you guys also went swimming with the sharks together. How was that experience? That was a great experience, yeah, we did. Casey, every birthday, she tries something every now and then. That's out of the box, out of her comfort zone. And so one year, she wanted to go swimming with the sharks without a cage, went to Haleiva, and I'm prone to motion sickness. But I took the ginger and I had my drama mean. I took that before and it didn't help at all, but we still had a great experience out there. And yeah, the sharks are nocturnal and they typically will feed them in advance. And so when you go there during the day, it's a great experience. It's very peaceful, the sharks are there, they're peaceful as well. They saw Galapagos sharks and black tip. I mean, there were probably 10 or 12 sharks with us in the ocean and they must have been between as small as like six feet to as maybe 10, 11 feet long also. Well, Ryan, I know my friends have done that swimming with the sharks. And this is like you said, it's free swimming with the sharks, you're not in a cage. And they said it's such a surreal experience. And I like hearing that you and Casey did that. And I wanna ask you, Ryan, about you being the principal and CFO of Kai Hawaii. Tell me what you guys do at Kai Hawaii. Kai Hawaii is a locally owned structural engineering company. And most of our work is public infrastructure over half and that includes highways, bridges, airports, schools, medical institutions, and then the other half of our work is private. So we service our clients, their landowners, developers, architects and other clients with anything from shopping centers to multifamily and just about everything in between. At Kai Hawaii, I was fortunate to join under the founder and president Ken Hayashita who had worked now about eight years, but I'd known for about four or five years prior to joining. And I always called him as my trusted structural engineer. And he has built a company with now 50, close to 50 employees, mostly Lysland structural engineers and project managers. And they're just some of the kindest and smartest people I've worked with. Regularly we talk about one of our purpose of our company, which is to help create a safe and sustainable tomorrow for our community. And that's something that we all believe in. And I see our structural engineers regularly researching and trying to find the most suitable structural solution that's economical, that's modern and that I really give their project the longest shelf life possible. And that's what you want from a trusted structural engineer. So it's a great honor to be here and he has recently promoted to principal. Well, it's amazing. I mean, at Kai Hawaii, you guys do a ton of stuff and you mentioned Ken earlier, what do you admire most about Ken? He's trustworthy. He's just someone who's selfless and he does demonstrate great leadership because he's constantly looking to build the next generation. And so so much of our time is just spent on how do we grow as a company? How do we grow as individuals? It's not just about achieving customer service excellence, which is a top priority for us, but also personal excellence. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, he's a great leader. And Ryan, you were the founder and owner of Island Business Management. Tell me what you do with Island Business Management. So I founded Island Business Management in 2007 and it is a specialized in corporate finance. So this is where I help clients to diversify the balance sheet, to acquire, manage and sell real estate, different businesses, strategic investments to really help grow their own portfolio and to create this safe and sustainable future for their own employees. So that's what Island Business Management specializes in. And Ryan, when I look at you, I know that you are the master of finance. I mean, you really are. And you do a lot of things behind the scenes, but I want to know, how did you first get started in business? What got you excited about wanting to get into business? Well, first of all, thank you, Coach Rusty. And that means a lot coming from you because you're always the varsity tennis coach for Punahou and everybody knew that you bred champions. So that really means a lot coming from you. You know, what started me in business at a young age was because our family, to get what we wanted, we had to earn it ourselves. And the fastest way to do that was to sell a product, right? Or to provide a service and you would receive cash, you know, or some type of payment. And so that just became the lowest hanging fruit, right? The path of least resistance to getting what I wanted when I was in middle school and high school. And then my junior year of high school, I was at Punahou and that was the year that actually I played JV tennis. That summer I was invited by Nestle, the, you know, the chocolate milk company to fly to the Philippines where they have a very large presence and they wanted to promote one of their larger products, Milo, through POGs, through milk caps. So this was a variation of milk caps and they flew me out with a friend and a couple of chaperones and we were their representatives, like the US POG champions, that's what we were called. And we traveled, you know, all across Manila, Makati. We were on national television. We performed and demonstrated at private schools, public schools, mega malls. You know, it was a very humbling experience, but we were at a parking lot one night because every night they'll take us to a different restaurant to try. And when we got out of the van, I had a driver and three tour guides assigned to us. The, there was a girl who came up to me out of the blue and she probably was somewhere between four and five years old and she had a cup, you know, like a mug and she held it up to me and looked into my eyes and that was my first time experiencing someone you know, asking for money, basically begging. And it wasn't an adult like you see here in Hawaii. This was a child, you know, and so I looked into her eyes and I tried to understand her in that moment and I couldn't, I couldn't see a soul. I couldn't see life, you know, she was just empty. And it really left an impression on me that there are people out there who need help. Nestle had given us $700 of spending money in 1996. That was a lot of money. And so I took out a $100 bill, put it in her cup and the driver pulled it out of the cup, put it in my pocket, pulled me aside and said, look at that staircase. And there were a few men who were sitting down and he said, that money will go to them. It's not going to go to her. And I realized no matter what I wanted to do I thought in that moment I couldn't help her because it would go to them. And so what I love about business is that it allows you to really live beyond the line, right beyond the game like your two books say and to influence industries. However you believe you can and to create positive meaningful change. And that's what drew me to business is that it allows me to do that. And they say that your childhood can really shape some of the other experiences can shape who you become today. And that was definitely one of the experiences that is in the back of my mind when I think about our employees and how we can help them, how we can service our clients, how we can make a positive impact in people in our community. Well, you're definitely making a positive impact in our community, Ryan. I know that you were doing a lot behind the scenes during COVID. And I know that you also did a bunch of surveys to try to really help with COVID relief. Can you tell me more about what you did there behind the scenes? You know, the COVID economic hardship survey is really came about because the state of Hawaii was receiving $1.25 billion in federal CARES money, but this is the first federal response. And so a handful of state, a house finance committee members had called a meeting with members of the private sector. I was privileged to be invited into that phone call. And their question was, how do we spend this money? So one of the proposals I had thrown out was commercial rent relief because this is now in the beginning of April when businesses deemed non-essential were being temporarily closed. And so people were struggling with their lease agreement with paying rent. That was, you know, the single actually falling because it was even relief for those who were unemployed or the federal plus up. And so that led to, you know, my reaching out to city council members and then to different trade associations who were all very supportive. You know, trade associations became the clarion call for many hardest hit businesses during COVID. And then I found myself because of the people who I was with on a call with our chief state economist, Dr. Eugene Tian, who is employed at the state of Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. It was him, his deputy director, and they offered because we had just created a survey before we published it, they offered to administer it. So that was a blessing in disguise. From that point, you know, reached out to the banks, the credit unions, they all agreed. And within, you know, a matter of days, maybe weeks, we were able to create a statewide push to really diagnose, you know, who is suffering from their inability to pay rent commercially. And, you know, our results showed that it was over half of businesses statewide were suffering, you know, we did, like you said, do a quarterly survey. So four times during COVID, we made do a follow-up survey. But this was an opportunity, quote Rusty, to really see the, you know, the community at its best, right? Everyone coming together and trying to find a solution in a time of need. Well, I was so proud of you, Ryan, to really be instrumental in doing what you did to help countless businesses here in our community. And, Ryan, I wanna ask you regarding business, what's one of the biggest adversities you faced? Well, for me, what comes to mind is COVID, right? Because we had just, I put together a Huey and we had acquired a Waikiki restaurant on January 30, 2020, 45 days later, were hit by COVID. And, you know, the adversity was because when you're unable to pay rent in a market where you're already paying a premium and you have a prominent landlord who was publicly traded. And, you know, they have quarterly earnings announcements and they need to tell their shareholders that they're being responsible, right, they're being fiduciaries of their money. You understand that at some point, both sides have to give something, right? We have to pay something, we have to do something. So we never stopped paying rent through all of COVID. And we ended up working with our landlords at the time, Barbara Campbell from Outrigger and Chris Sullivan from American Assets Trust, this phenomenal people and great to work with and, you know, so happy that they were able to fill all of their properties during and through some of the aftermath of the initial COVID pandemic that affected all of us. But that was probably one of the greatest adversities was just, you know, closing on that transaction 45 days before COVID really hit. And, you know, it was a, there was some panic, right? Because for finance people, like you said, I'm a finance person. And so everything is numbers, right? So it's all linear. And then you have COVID, which created uncertainty. This uncertainty that became this kiss of death that nobody could wrap their minds around. And, you know, we thought it was gonna be done by Easter, right, of 2020 that then became, hopefully independence day of 2021. And then we saw the Delta variant take over. So it's just been an ongoing experience, but fortunately we had a great landlord, you know, a lot of federal relief. And so everything worked out. And Ryan, I have to say that restaurant that you acquired, that's Giovanni Pastrami in Waikiki. I love that restaurant and that bar. I mean, it's so nice. I mean, I'm glad you guys got it. I'm glad, you know, things are going good again. And, Ryan, I wanna ask you as chair of the Hawaii Restaurant Association, what are some of your goals? Well, let me start by saying I am the incoming chair. The chair is actually Greg Maples. And I just love him as a person, as a professional. I was working closely with him during COVID. So our collective goals, you know, along with Cheryl Matsuboko, the executive director, who I also love and admire, they've been true leaders during COVID. And HRA, you know, think about restaurants, where the Russian industry is a $5.6 billion industry before COVID, 3,600 restaurants, almost 100,000 full and part-time employees. So, you know, they are significant here in Hawaii and we're a destination economy. Right now, the biggest goal is helping all of our members and restaurants as a whole, and hardest of businesses, because it's not just for restaurants, but helping hardest of businesses to make it through the Delta variant. And that's through the employee retention credit. You know, because we're in Hawaii, it's very likely that if you're hardest hit, you do qualify. So if your CPA tells you, you know, we're finding other category experts to give second, third opinions, because most likely you can get some additional funding that will float you through the end of the year. And then on top of that is just working closely with Mayor Blangiardi and Governor Ige and their administrations. They've been so inclusive in their leadership and so great to work with. Just working with them on the timing of loosening restrictions, right? Making sure that they're able to manage the public health crisis while we're able to help them to rebuild and re-stimulate the economy. Oh, I love hearing that, Ryan. I mean, you guys are all working together so well. And Ryan, you have both of my books and I want to ask you two things. First of all, did you like the books? And secondly, if you liked it, what are some things that stood out to you in it? I do have your two books. They're fantastic reads. I recommend everybody to read it. I was able to read them very quickly. I have them right here with me. The first book beyond the lines, my interpretation of it, Coach Rusty, is that they're different trade secrets on how to succeed in your profession or how to build a leadership culture in what you do professionally. Whereas beyond the game is how do you then succeed at life or how do you develop habits and attributes that will help you just to be a successful human being? So the two really work in tandem. You can't read one and not read the other. And I'm hoping that you write a third book. For me, one of the most meaningful parts of your second book, towards the very end, so I don't want to give away anything, but it's the 1% principle. And it's every day living 1% better, trying to find ways to be 1% better than you were last week or remember things, read and acquire knowledge, always be, and you live life to be 1% better. I used to use a 10% rule and that bar is just too high. It's so easy to forget about your goals and go on to your day to day, but 1% is tangible for all of us. And I think it's a great reminder for us to just live 1% better, but you can learn more about what that means by reading your book and I encourage everybody to read their great reads. Yeah, I mean, I like that you mentioned that because little victories lead to big victories. And you can't just do something and oh, I got a big victory. No, it's all these little things that lead up to it. And yeah, I mean, it's interesting how you said 10%. I go 1% and everybody can get better through 1%, right? Yes, I would use 10% but I've scaled that down to 1%. Yeah, now Ryan, I need you to be my promoter for my books and then there's a better chance there could be a third book. Well, one thing that you mentioned in your book is really what it means to live beyond the lines. And so I'm hoping that you can add some color there. Certainly, I've already been sharing your book with my kids, with my family, with a lot of our employees. And we are hoping, we're looking forward to you coming in and actually training all of us at Kai Hawaii in later on in December. So you will continue to have a lasting impact on all of us co-trusting. Well, I hope I don't let you down, Ryan, but I'm definitely looking forward to that speaking and training in late December. And Ryan, you've worked with the Tokyo Star Bank, you've worked with Deutsche Securities, you've been around a lot of great leaders throughout your life. What are some things that you feel the greatest leaders do? Yeah, you know, Tokyo Star Bank, Deutsche, I really was working with some phenomenal world-class people. And to this day, I mean, just world-class, some of the best. And moving to Hawaii, you know, with my clients through Allen Bitt's management, Ken Hashida, just working with, again, world-class, some of the best people. And really what I find that they do on a consistent basis is help and inspire people to do what they didn't even realize they could do themselves. Right, that's leadership. You know, when you can, you know, kind of like what you've done, 22 consecutive victories. And then the year that you leave, I don't wanna, you know, I'm sure that there's great coaching that continues, but it just says a lot, Coach Westi, that after the year after you left, right, for the last six years, Punahou School has only won once. And so I think great leaders really allow, you know, help people who may already be talented, who may already have the right chemistry and the right makeup to do what, you know, to do things beyond what they believed they could accomplish. And it's creating that purpose. And you talk about your four Ps and I wholeheartedly believe that, right? Start with people and then your purpose, where you need to have a defined purpose and then follow the right processes that will lead to good performance. And as a finance person, I do look at financial performance as well, right? Not just community impact and having a great product and service, but also, you know, is it financially sustainable? Well, that's why you're the master of finance, Ryan. And you know, I wanna ask you, Ryan, out of all these experiences that you've had so far, what's a valuable, very important lesson you've learned? You know, I would say one recent lesson that stands out to me is just letting go of the past, right? You know, we're always learning from the past and that's important, right? You learn from the past, it helps shape the future. But when, you know, when you're personally involved in something that may experience, you know, an outcome that you weren't hoping for, then it's easy to hang onto that. But I think, you know, one important life lesson is just letting go of it because today, tomorrow, there's gonna be new decisions that need to be made. And that really comes with a clear conscience, right? And looking at a new set of variables and making clear decisions by learning from the past, but also letting go of any personal ties to it so that you can really make, again, same thing like we try to help our lawmakers develop data and make informed decisions. We do the same thing for our businesses. Well, I liked hearing that too, Ryan. And what would you say, Ryan? I mean, wherever you have gone, I mean, you've done so many things. You are so successful at everything that you do. When you really reflect back on everything so far in your young life, why are you successful? Well, you know, there's been struggles along the way and that was, you know, all part of the process. And I think what I've learned, again, going back to your four P's, it starts with people, right? You wanna work with the right people. And so now when I look at an investment, whether it's even in real estate, do we have the right property management team if it's a development? Is it the right developer? If it's a business, do we have the right operators in place? So starting with great people, so high quality people, and then are they doing the things for the right reasons, right? Are they following their purpose and do they have the right processes in place? And if so, are they delivering, right? And, you know, as we're now evaluating different businesses, you know, one thing at Kai Hawaii, for example, co-trustee is Ken Hayashide and I co-founded Kai High Capital. So it's an investment arm. We make strategic investments to help build that, you know, that safe and sustainable tomorrow for our own employees and for their retirements. And we look at, you know, are these the right people? Are these the right projects and are they high quality? And that's, you know, I think if you have those ingredients in place and it's a lot easier to have confidence that you're making a good investment. I completely agree with you, Ryan. And I want to ask you about affordable housing. I mean, during this pandemic, I mean, it really obviously affected affordable housing. Can you talk about that and what you're doing to help our community in terms of affordable housing as well? So just pre-COVID, I was invited to a meeting and Finance Chair, Sylvia Luke, had announced the Alice Report, right? That says over 17,000 affordable housing units are needed over the next five years here in Hawaii. So that's the demand. You know, we can't build fast enough to do that. And, you know, one thing that some, you know, very successful developers like Marshall Hung, Mel Kanshige, Newton Chung and Derek Locke did was back in 2019, they worked with the Kotol administration and City Council at the time to establish Bill 7, which is here in Honolulu. And it allows a landowner who builds, who has a property below 20,000 square feet and who wants to build affordable housing and, you know, service that 100% AMI or less gap group allows them different concessions. So they can build up to 60 feet. They can have higher density, no elevator requirement, single staircase, no parking requirement. And then they wave, the city waves a number of permitting fees and wastewater fees. So just to give you an example, if you have a 5,000 square foot land and it's appropriately zoned, apartment or business, BMX, you can build up to 25 affordable housing units. So that's an area that I've really been spending quite a bit of my time in because it's also become a priority for Mayor Blangearty. His first bill, Bill 1, offers an incentive, a completion bonus. So if you build an affordable housing Bill 7 building, they'll give you a percentage back as an incentive bonus. And that's become so important for his administration. So I've had the opportunity to work closely with Mayor, with his managing director, Mark Formby, with planning director, Dima Cheetah. And we're tracking all of the Bill 7 projects city-wide and we're at 17 permit applications. There's about nine to 10 projects that are being planned and in design. And those represent the permit applications that represent over 450 affordable housing units. So going back to the 17,000, we just can't build fast enough to get there. There's other 201H, very successful tower affordable housing developers who are building in the hundreds and in the thousands also. So collectively, if we all band together and just really continue to push ourselves and to get these projects done, then maybe we can move the needle and really address this growing problem of the lack of affordable housing here in Hawaii. Ryan, I'm so happy that the Mayor and our state representatives are calling you. I mean, that's how smart they are. They know who to call. And Ryan, as successful and busy as you are, I mean, obviously having balance is super necessary in life. And I know that you're a man of faith. Can you tell me about how your faith really helps keep you grounded? Yeah, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ by the saints, and that really has been my number one priority. And so my relationship with God, my relationship with my family, that comes first and foremost. Ironically, I am divorced. So I see that divorce also as a blessing. But, and then I've been remarried to Casey, who you know, and that was another blessing. So there's so many different aspects of life, but I think being grounded in faith is important for everybody to find your faith. And the other thing that I do is I have a personal, you know, life board of directors, sort of speak, just different category experts who really are overachievers in their own field and have achieved or have achieved prominence in what they do. And so for example, you know, in the media during, you know, all of our efforts to try to work with the media and tell the right story and create the right narrative that would demonstrate what we're trying to do, that, you know, we're really keeping our neighbors and friends employed for commercial rent relief. Somebody who was, he was Diane Ako from KITV, you know, she on the side would just help with that messaging and, you know, selfless volunteer, trying to make the community better. And so I've found that that's so vital is to tap into these category experts, whatever the field may be in each area, I have somebody who I can call for advice, for sound advice, so that we can again, do the right thing and think through the different variables because every industry is different. And as you know, you know, like you said, there's so many different aspects of our portfolio. And so we're always looking at working with the right people. Ryan, it was a pleasure having you on today's show. I mean, you truly are the master of finance. I still don't know how you get everything done, but you find a way to do it. And I want to thank you for taking time to be on the show today. Thank you, Co-Chresti. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that Ryan and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.