 Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, and this is Beyond the Lines. We broadcast live on Mondays from the beautiful Think Tech Hawaii TV studio in the Pioneer Plaza in downtown Honolulu. This show is based on my book, which is also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, achieving greater success, and sustaining that greater success, and finding greatness. Today's special guest is Kei Chuen Tu Weather Anchor, Justin Cruz. During hurricanes and other natural disasters, hundreds of thousands of people in the state of Hawaii tune in to get the latest weather updates from him. He is very popular, extremely professional, and very trusted in Hawaii news. Justin is obviously successful as a weather anchor, but also in other aspects of his life. And today, we are going beyond hurricanes. Hey, Justin. Rusty! I promise you, I did not write that and pay him to say those very, very nice things, by the way. Thank you for that intro. That was fantastic. Thank you for being here, Justin. Yeah, and congratulations. This is a milestone episode for you, right? Well, this is my 20th episode. Nice. You were my first guest on my Beyond the Line show. And by popular demand, I've been getting tons of emails and text messages from countless people wanting us to do a sequel show. So here it is. Yeah, and congratulations on that. And thank you. I kind of figured a sequel was coming, because honestly, the first show, neither one of us knew what the heck we were doing, right? It was your first time, and my first time in doing this. And so I'm glad we have a chance to come back and kind of polish it up and clean it up a little bit, because it was a great first show, but you know, you learn as you go. Congratulations on 20 episodes. And I heard from a little birdie that you're going to have to do some more reprinting of your book. Yeah, the first printing sold out. I just found out about it about a week and a half ago, so we put a second order for the printing, and I'm just glad it's doing so well. Thank you so much, because you're a big supporter and promoter of my book. And it's a great book. I mean, congratulations on selling, or yeah, I mean, the first run was... 4,000. OK, so that's a lot of books, and I know you hustle. I know you, this guy's constant hustle, but congratulations on both this TV show and the book as well. Thanks, Justin. I want to have you share a brief history on your background. Sure, sure. We'll go right to, you know, Hanabata days. I was born in Saigon, Vietnam, but my family moved to Guam when I was a little baby, kind of to escape the Vietnam War. We stayed on Guam. My family started a family business, an extermination company. And my dad and I and my sister and my mom, we all worked in that company. And we grew to the largest extermination company in Micronesia. But there came a point in high school where I was like, mom, I don't want to be a bug killer anymore. I was done killing bugs and roaches and rats. And so my dream of becoming a radio DJ, it happened in high school in my senior year. And so from that point on in 1992, all the way up through 2007, I was a radio DJ either in Guam. In 96, I moved here and worked for KQMQ 93.1 and stayed many, many years with them. And then in 2007, my current boss gave me a call and said, we have an opportunity for you. Would you consider it? And she told me it was weather anchor and she's like, we'll get you trained, we'll get you in there, we'll get you up to speed. And that was in 2007. So 11 years later, still doing it. Yeah. That's the short story for you. So as a weather anchor on KQMQ for all this time, there's some, a lot of people have questions about things that you do on the show. One of the questions is, do you read a teleprompter? Well, I do not. Everything that I say and do is off the top of my head. I'm just staring to the left and to the right to these monitors and I can't really be attached to a teleprompter because if you attach yourself to a teleprompter, then you're going to make mistakes because the teleprompter is going to move. You can't look left, right. You can't walk around. So you must know your material so good that you are not dependent on the teleprompter. That being said, I still write words for the teleprompter for our closed captioning audience so they know what's going on with the weather. But it is all ad lib. And some days the ad-libbing skills are great. Some days you crash and burn. So it's dicey. You roll the dice every time you ad-lib. But for the most part, I haven't screwed up that bad. Every once in a while, but so far so good. Knock on wood. Another question from viewers that they want me to ask you is, do you wear full suits? And the answer is yes, I do wear full suits. And I really could wear slippers. But the reason why I don't is even when I was a radio DJ, but I think when you wear shoes, it takes your level of professionalism to the next step. Just mentally, mentally wearing shoes, there's something about it. Even when I was a radio DJ, I would not wear slippers to work. I would at least wear some kind of shorts. I'd have a hat. But I needed the shoes just to kind of like take me to that higher level. That being said, there is one exception. Can I tell you the exception? Yeah, please. I'm wearing slippers today. When I go beyond the lines, I wear slippers. We're definitely going beyond the lines. Yeah. One more question from the viewers that I got that they want to know is, what is your workday like? When do you start and when do you finish work? Great question. My workday starts at 2.30 in the afternoon and goes on until 10.30 at night. So it's an eight hour shift. Sometimes I stay late because as you know, these hurricane bulletins come out at 11 o'clock. So I'll stay late, do a Facebook Live, or I'll come in early. But on the clock official is 2.30 to 10.30 at night-ish. Okay, got it. Now let's talk about Joe Moore. I mean, he's legendary in the Hawaii News. Legendary. Such a great guy. I mean, everyone really loves getting the news from him. Can you tell me about him? Yeah, Joe Moore is a great person. And when I first got the job, one of the most nerve-wracking things about accepting this job was working with Joe Moore because I had not met him prior to accepting this job. But when I got to KTWN, I submitted my audition tape and he approved it. I mean, he was like, yeah, bring this guy on board. So number one, he's had faith in me since day one. He's included me in some of his plays. And it's an honor for me to be in his plays. I also have a good friendship with his family, with his wife, Teresa. We're going to death leopard together. On Friday, I'm going to be with Joe and his wife, Teresa. And then on Saturday with you. But back to Joe Moore, he's told me in the past, and it's something I'll never forget. He told me he's like, Justin, I'm your number one fan. Nobody can outfan me when it comes to you, Justin. And that level of support, like if I were to do something wrong and fail, this is a guy that would lift me up. He's got my back, for sure. And I got his, and it's not just a work friendship. It's also a personal friendship that has developed through the years. And that's why we're going to death leopard. Well, speaking of death leopard, I mean, death leopard is our favorite all-time band. It is, right? All-time favorite band. And so Saturday, we'll be side by side in a few weeks. Right. And we're going to do the meet and greet. We're going to meet them. Yeah, thanks to you, by the way. Yeah, we're going to do two nights of death leopard. And I've been to a previous death leopard concert in Mexico. And you went a few years to see them as well. In Las Vegas. In Las Vegas. Folks, it's a great show. It's loud. It's fun. If you don't have tickets, you should get your tickets. Because as death leopard fans, you know, it's a great show no matter any age. I've seen kids. I've seen adults. But when you go with Rusty, he has the ins, yeah? So hopefully he says we're going to meet death leopard. We'll see what happens. You know, I always give honest feedback. I speak the truth. That's true. Let's talk about hurricanes. I mean, we've had such an active, busy hurricane season. Can I get your thoughts? Sure. These hurricanes that have moved through this year have been pretty historic. Hurricane Lane was a category five hurricane at one point. Very close to the islands. And that's why everyone needed to be prepared. This is Dr. Allison Nugent and I, when we were doing wall-to-wall nonstop coverage. I mean, wall-to-wall for a good two and a half days. I didn't know really when it was going to end. And I want to thank her for her insights because she really, you know, when you do wall-to-wall coverage, sometimes it's hard to fill in that time. And she was there as a great resource. And, you know, she's a great resource from the University of Hawaii. She's not, you know, she's right here with us. So Lane was different in that it was such a powerful hurricane. Cat five at one point. Olivia was historic because it made landfall over Maui. So in that type of situation, this has been a very active hurricane season. There's one to the south of Oahu right now. That one has a Hawaiian name, Walaka. So hopefully these things start to scale back. But for now, we're still in the thick of things with hurricane season, unfortunately. And during that time period, you know, you went to the big island because of the lava. And I mean, you were right there with the lava. Can you tell me about it? Yeah, you know, I was fortunate enough to be sent there over the weekend to kind of cover the lava and to let you know how that feels like. It's pretty incredible. I mean, not only do you see the lava, but you can feel the lava. You can smell the sulfur. You can really feel the heat and all the gases that are pushing that lava up. It's like ocean waves crashing. So so much, all of your senses are being used as you're standing by. That was Fisher seven, by the way. Fisher eight didn't pop up yet. But all of these senses, you know, sight, sound, you know, you could probably even taste the sulfuric acid in the air. It was a pretty incredible thing. And I'm very fortunate to have seen that. And thankfully, the lava has decreased. Yeah. No, that's that's an amazing situation. And I mean, I feel so sorry for a lot of the people that's affected on the big island. Yeah. And again, we didn't know, I mean, nobody knew when the lava was going to decrease and start to, you know, subside. But thankfully that's happened. So we're not seeing as much Vogue move into other parts of the state or Kona. So we're getting a break from it now. So we've had enough natural disasters. Time for a little break. Now, everybody knows you as being an extremely successful weather anchor. But not everybody knows about your successful business. Hikespikes. Yeah. And I love hikespikes. I mean, whenever I go hiking, I need to have hikespikes because it just makes the whole hiking experience so much more enjoyable and it's safer. Can you tell me about it? Sure. Hikespikes, Hawaii is a wholesale company that we import these traction devices that you can put over any shoe. So when we went hiking together, Rusty, we put it over the shoe and it prevents slippage, especially in situations where we have high mud or maybe some moss or algae over rocks. You just strap this device, this traction device over any shoe and it's got 21 spikes on the bottom and you get grip. And that's very important because as you're hiking, one of the biggest problems is that you don't have grip and you slip and even if you slip in a stream, you can injure yourself big time. So this kind of gives peace of mind. I mean, you can't go crazy all tarzan of the jungle even though you have this on. But as you know, we've hiked parts of the Ko'olau Mountains that really helps in terms of the grip and anything like this kind of traction device just gives you confidence. You know what I mean? It helps in that situation. There's me with some of the spikes right now and they're available in stores like the NEX, Ueda Shoes Store, McCully Bike, Uloha Hiking Store and it's the best thing ever. I mean, the reason why I help bring this in is because I'm a believer myself. Yeah, I absolutely love it. Going over rock or moss or roots, mud, I mean, you just feel confident with it. All of the above, all of the above. Yeah, and you know, strangely enough, this was designed for winter walking but kind of looked at it and said, this could be used for, this is good for like, you know, mud and roots and stuff like that. So that's how we got it. This is the manufactured by Hillsound and this is the Free Step 6. And it only takes like literally three seconds to put on and three seconds to take off. Oh yeah. I love it. And it goes on any shoe. Any shoe. You don't need to buy expensive hiking shoes anymore. You know, the cheap shoes that you have at home or you know, any kind of stuff like that and then you just slap them on your feet and then boom, start hiking with confidence. Justin, I know one of the greatest experiences of your life was flying with the Blue Angels. Oh, absolutely. Tell me some details about that. Yeah, so I had a chance to go up with the Blue Angels a few years back and it's always been something I've wanted to do because as a kid, I've always, loved and have been fascinated with fighter jets. If we can hold on. Can we go back to that picture? So this is the pilot, Jeff Koos. So Jeff Koos took me up in plane number seven. He was very professional. This guy is a great American and he's a hero. Unfortunately, one year after taking me up in the Blue Angels, Jeff had a mishap in the Blue Angels show in Nashville, Tennessee. Unfortunately, he couldn't recover from a maneuver as he took off and the plane crashed. He tried to eject. He ejected too late. But I just want to give just him a little shout out memory and you know, his family are in my thoughts right now. He was just a nice guy and he would tell me as we were up in the Blue Angels flying around, he's like, hey, there's Sandy Beach. Hey, you know, these landmarks that he knew because he would come to Hawaii on vacation. But this guy's a true American. He's a total stud. I mean, he was a real life Tom Cruise. And he made, I mean, he didn't hold back any punches with me. When I said, let's pull some Gs. He's like, okay, here we go. Six Gs. You want more? Seven Gs. You want more? Let's take it to eight Gs. I didn't get sick. I had tunnel vision a little bit. I got a little dizzy, but I didn't barf. And I didn't get sick, just a little bit dizzy. But I'm in the back seat of an F-18 all strapped in and just the most incredible experience I've ever had in my life in any situation. And I've done a lot of cool things. I'm so thankful for that. And thank you, Captain. Justin, great pictures right there. We're going to take a quick break. Okay. And when we come back, we're going to continue going in depth with you, okay? Sounds good. You are watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii with my special guest, Justin Cruise. We will be back in one minute. Hello and welcome to Out of the Comfort Zone. I am your villainous host, RB Kelly. Today we are playing two truths and a lie. And I will tell you two truths and you will tell me which one is the lie. Truth number one, this is a real mustache. Truth number two, I want you to watch my show on Tuesdays at 1 p.m. So tune in and let me know which is the truth and which is the lie. I'm RB Kelly with Out of the Comfort Zone and show up next Tuesday to see my mustache live. And Aloha, my name is Calvin Griffin, host of Hawaii Uniform. And every Friday at 11 o'clock here on Think Tech Hawaii we bring in the latest in what's happening within the military community. And we also invite your response to things that's happening here. For those of you who haven't seen the program before, again, we invite your participation. We're here to give information, not disinformation. And we always enjoy response from the public. But join us here, Hawaii Uniform, Fridays, 11 a.m. here on Think Tech Hawaii. Aloha. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My special guest today is Justin Cruz. You know him as the famous weather anchor at KHON2. And today we are going beyond hurricanes. Justin. Hey. Star Wars. Yes. You are a huge, I mean, I don't even think huge is the word to describe it. You are like a Star Wars fanatic, right? Yeah. Geek, geek, you know, and I'm proud of it. No. Can you tell our viewers that what two costumes you have? OK. I have two full movie grade costumes. These are not ones that you just go by at the swap meet or something like that that's put together. This is the real deal. They've taken the molds from the original costumes in the Star Wars movies and recast it to make these two characters. So I'm a dark side kind of guy. I like the empire. I have Darth Vader. And the iconic stormtroopers. And that's me right there in the Darth Vader. But, you know, the buckets off, the helmets off. Yeah. And the details, I mean, I remember you telling me when you got the Darth Vader outfit that you actually had to adjust the shoes. I did, yeah. OK, look, I'm 5'10". But some of these stormtroopers, my friends, you know, they're 6'1", 6". So I look shorter than the stormtrooper. And you can't have Darth Vader shorter than the stormtrooper. It doesn't look right, right? Darth Vader's supposed to be taller than everyone. So I had to get one-inch lifts on my boots just so I could stand a little bit higher, just a little bit over the stormtroopers. And imagine, you know, the band Kiss, you know their boots, they have lifts. It's just like that. So underneath the cape, there's a one-inch lift on the boots, and it had to be done because I just didn't want to be the short guy of the bunch because my friends are all taller than me, you know, so. But with a stormtrooper, it doesn't matter. OK. Any heights, just fine. Now, the great thing that you do, I mean, you're part of a nonprofit Star Wars organization and you guys go around to different hospitals to really help kids. And can you talk to me about that? Sure. I was part of an organization called the 501st Legion of Stormtroopers. And it's the biggest costuming organization in the world. We have several thousand members. And when I first joined, I've kind of scaled back from it right now, but when I first joined, I loved the fact that you could dress like your favorite Star Wars character and go to charity events. And we would go to, like, the Christmas lights at Honolulu Halle, and kids would come up and they really think you're Darth Vader. This is like Santa Claus action going on, right? When a kid looks at Santa Claus and when a kid looks at Darth Vader, they really think that's him and they ask questions like, where's your lightsaber? Where's the stormtroopers and stuff like that? So we interact with the kids in that way and it's so rewarding. We also visit hospitals. We've done stuff for Shriners. We've done parades. We never charge, by the way, ever. We are not an organization to make money, but let's say if somebody wanted to make a donation to a charity on our behalf, just, you know, write to a check to Shriners Hospital for 50 bucks or something and say on behalf of the 501st, and that's how we generate income for these nonprofits. But it's so rewarding to, you know, show up as a character and have these kids just like, they're just blown away. They think it's real. Now, I know that you do so many things outside of, you know, being a weather anchor at KH1 too. Now, you're probably one of the most sought-after MCs in the state of Hawaii. You're very in demand. Can you talk about what type of events you do? Sure. I can break down those type of events into two types of events. There's the charities or the nonprofits and then there's the ones that are like weddings and corporate ones. So I do a lot of nonprofits. I enjoy those in the same way I enjoy dressing up as a Star Wars character and seeing reactions from the kids. I'm involved with Prevent Child Abuse Hawaii. I'm a board member there. So, you know, I'm doing like teddy bear roundups at the mall. I enjoy MCing any kind of charity event, whether it be for, you know, Make-A-Wish Hawaii or anything like that. And then I also do some pageants. In fact, that's how I found Kelly Simock. Kelly was in a pageant and she expressed her love for weather and so she's like, I want to be, you know, a weather anchor one day and then the opportunity came and that's how I met her. But this is the pageant here. This is a wedding. I do quite a bit of weddings. Whatever kind of event, I mean, I enjoy it. It can be challenging at times, but I've done so many that it's definitely rewarding. This is at the Shriners Hospital for an art contest. I do another art contest for Servco. And then this is that teddy bear roundup at Winward Mall. That's Kale right there. We round up all these teddy bears and stuffed animals and then we donate them to shelters and hospitals for these foster kids when they're in their home just to give them something to hug and, you know, something to have and make them happy in somewhat of a difficult situation that they might be in. I love all these, you know, insights and the background because a lot of people, I mean, they see you on TV all the time, but they don't really know all the stuff that you do behind the scenes and I'm just happy that we're able to showcase that. Well, thank you. I really do feel it's my way of giving back. I mean, people give back in certain ways and I feel with visiting schools and, you know, doing nonprofit events, giving back of my time, that's really rewarding to me, Rusty. I mean, there's no better feeling than to go to a school and read to kids in the kindergarten or first grade or doing career days for high schoolers and these kids, they do appreciate it and it's the one positive thing that I could do that is outside of the news that is on my own time that I can give back to these kids in the community. I love that. Justin, when my book first came out, you were just as excited about it as I was and you've been a great promoter and supporter of the book. Can you tell me what is it about the book that you like? I like the stories. I mean, even in my news business, we're storytellers, okay? Different types of stories, but I think it's very important that your book had these true life stories, people of people that you've been leaders to and look up to you and have gone through these challenges and succeeded in the end and those really, to me, are the golden gems in this book. Outside of the leadership advice that you give anyway, those stories, they take that content and they bring it to life and so I like the stories in the book and I think that's really the Easter eggs of keys to the success of the book. Do you get that feedback too about those stories? Yeah, I do. Everyone loves to hear stories. Stories is where it's at. Now, thank you. I feel so grateful that you helped me so much with the book and you like it. It was your hard work, man. I didn't do anything. You wrote the book, you got it done. Well, it took me two and a half years. I think the only thing I did was proofread it a little bit. That was it, really. That's the extent of my help. Now, I want to ask you a question about the book that kind of relates to it. Okay. How do you define success? Oh, boy. Success, so I thought about this question and I would veer away from the answer of money, power, all that kind of stuff. For me, success is if you're able to do a job at the end of the day that pays the bills and you're happy at work and because you're happy at work, you have a happy home life, that's success, in my opinion. So it can apply to all careers, all facets of life. If you're really happy at work, you're going to be a rock star at work and you're going to be successful and then everything else falls into play. You don't have to be a CEO of a company to be considered a success. You are a success to yourself. You define it within yourself and that's very important. I think whatever it is you do, just be the best at it. I like that. I love your job. I like that. So knowing that, why are you successful? I don't know. I think I'm just lucky. I work hard and I play hard. But when I'm at work, I kind of get into a zone sometimes and I know what is expected of me and I try to go beyond that. Beyond the lines? Beyond the lines. There's a line at work. I try to jump that one. And I do think in my situation, it's not really particularly any kind of talent. But I could work hard. That's a work ethic that both my fathers have given to me. I have two fathers. I have a birth father and I have a father right now. And both of those men are honorable, hard-working men and they're my mentors. So I would say that was the key. I mean, just working hard. Maybe working smart, but definitely working hard. I like to always tell people you need to work hard but work smart. Yeah, it's very true. Before we close, I want to ask one more thing, Justin. I know, the time just goes by so quick with you. It's extended an hour. Wall to wall, beyond the line. Wall to wall. Okay, sorry. I want to ask you, what do you hope to aspire to achieve in your future? Okay. In the short term, maybe even in the long term, I would like to continue in the news broadcast, knowing that, you know, TV is going more digital. So we're able to reach more people on different platforms. That's very exciting for me. I love broadcast. However, should I not be in broadcast, I would like to be, and I'm working for a company that has strong community ties so that I could do something with them similar to what I'm doing now at KHA when we have strong community ties, obviously. I don't know what type of company, but in my mind, I would think it would be a local company that has a good community outreach program or really cares about the community. That way I can go out there and meet the people and be a positive force representing my company to the community. I don't know if it makes sense because that's not a clear job description, but something along the lines of what I'm doing now, but just off the air. Yeah, no, I get that. No, that's so good. And Justin, I loved having you on the show today. Thanks for having me so fast. 20th episode. Congratulations on that. Thank you. Justin, I want everybody to know that you're a great person. You have exceptional character and, you know, just so that more of the viewers really know about your background, so I really wanted to let everybody know about that today. Thank you so much. Honored to be here again and maybe episode 40? Whenever you need me. Whenever you need me. Thanks, Rusty. Appreciate it. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. For more information, check out my website, RustyKamori.com and connect with me on Facebook, Twitter. I hope that this show and my book will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.