 This is Beyond the Lines, and I'm Rusty Komori. We are 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, achieving greater success and sustaining that greater success, leadership, and finding greatness. Today's guest is Christine Kamp. She is the president and CEO of the Avalon Group, which is a real estate development and brokerage services firm she founded in 1999. Christine is an extraordinary leader who has achieved incredible success, and her story will inspire countless people to strive for excellence every day. Today, we are going beyond real estate. Christine, so nice having you on the show today. Thank you for having me. You were born in South Korea. I was. Can you tell me about your early years growing up there? Sure. We were poor, but you know, I didn't know what it was like being poor because we were always without. But my parents decided that they would like to come to America to allow us to have the best of education and opportunities. We believed in the American dream. So we arrived here just before I turned 10, not speaking a word of English, really, but except to say I'm hungry because I was told that food grows on trees in Hawaii. And you know, hi, my name is Yanhee, which is my name, Yanhee Kamp. It really, growing up with not a lot, with political oppression, oppression, even when I was that young, I knew what it was to have a curfew. Wow. You had to get off the streets and get into a home by midnight. I knew what it was like to speak ill about the government and go to jail. Wow. Because I knew people, including my father, who did. Oh, no. Who, you know, almost did, excuse me. So it was those types of persecution that I was familiar with. Coming to America was a dream. And it was, you know, everything that I imagined it to be, being here now, I am just relish the fact that we're here in America and the opportunity that's given me. And the only reason why I appreciated 10 times more than anyone else is because I'm a Korean American. Great. From Korea. Great. So how was your living conditions like in South Korea at that time? It was pretty tough. We were fairly well off and then something happened. I'm not sure when I was really young. So we lived in an area where there was no running water and no toilets, it was just the outhouse. And we had to actually go every morning in the winter, all the kids, to get the bucket of fresh water they could drink and pump it back, you know, basically you go to the common pump, get the bucket of water, and then you walk all the way up the hill so you could have drinking water. And so I experienced that. I mean, you had literally a hole in the wall for toilet. And so that was the literal outhouse. And so, you know, I've experienced it. And then coming to America and seeing the toilet and not knowing what it was, do you stand on it? What do you do? What do you do? It doesn't go anywhere. So, you know, it really was difficult. And it was a period where my parents were here making a home for us. So about two years, two and a half years, almost three years while we're waiting for our immigration paperwork, we live with relatives from one relative to the other. And generally surviving on leftovers and goodwill of people. So what schools did you attend when you came to Hawaii? When I first attended Alialani Elementary for a few months, it was a very difficult period where my idea of America and, you know, the kids who were fairly mean, I'm sure they didn't mean it, but the ostracizing of, you know, the immigrants in that area was very difficult. Then we moved to East Honolulu, where we went to Wilson Elementary, then Kameki High School, and I graduated from Kalani High School. But one thing that's a changing experience, and I still remember to this days, Mrs. Hasegawa, my homeroom teacher, we were instructed to write poetry, and I wrote something about the Mylilay, and she told class, class, I have something to announce, I have an extraordinary poem I need to read to you, and she read the poem as if I wrote it. Of course, it was just of what I wrote, I think, but she wrote it so well, and it made all the class kids look at me like I was a smart kid. It gave me confidence to become myself. It made me proud of who I was. Just because of that one little poem that I did and how she showcased it, it changed me, profoundly changed me to think that I could write, to think that I was going to get even better and write more poetry and be the best English student. And because of that one woman, Mrs. Hasegawa, I still remember Ethel Hasegawa, and I wonder whatever happened to her because little acts like that by a teacher, to give confidence to a child who sorely needed it. Yeah, it's priceless. Yeah, it changed who I was and how others perceive me. Wow, see, teachers have such a huge impact on the lives of so many, and that story is amazing right there. Now, how was your English at that time? Not very good, but the good thing about my parents, my mom especially, was that we weren't allowed to speak Korean when we were at home, because they believed in 100% assimilation. You do not speak English. Even with her broken English, she would speak to us in broken English. My father passed away within 11 months of being here. And so it was just her raising five children. And she wanted us to make sure that we succeeded. And for her, the only way to succeed in America was assimilation. And so we spoke English. And within six months, we were fairly conversational. Within a year, we were fluent. Oh, wow, that's quick. Very quick. Did you do any sports in high school? I was a cheerleader for a while. But I remember the first sports that I did was summer fun. And the public park system where I played basketball in sixth grade. Great. And I just remember that I could not afford shoes. So kids who are disadvantaged don't have money for the balls, the equipment, the uniform. They allowed us to register for free, but there were no shoes. So I used shoes that were too small during the whole summer. And I lost every one of my toenails. But it was OK because I got to learn basketball in American sport. Well, you must have been excited to do that. I was. To lift my toenails, but to play with other kids? Absolutely. Now, what was your first job? What did you start to get paid money for back then? So I decided that I was going to help out my parents and my mom. And so I put out little cards in laundromats and in supermarkets, in those that you could, to babysitting service. Oh, great. And the minimum wage was under $4 then. And I was making maybe $10, $20 a night babysitting kids. How old were you? I was 12 years old. OK. I was in sixth grade. And then I even hired my sister and a friend of mine. So I even had subcontractors and employees. Because the business became booming. I had a great reputation. And I did that. And that was my very first job. It was quite successful and paid for my finishing school and all the extracurricular things that my mom couldn't. I didn't have the heart to ask my mom for then. But I did have failures. Really? My first business that was official actually registered, it was Style Christa. And it was where I bought 3,000 Chinese silk teas when I was 18. And I had all of my friends who were artists paint on them. Then I would ship it to tourists who might want it. I think I spent $10,000. Oh, wow. All of my life savings. Wow. And then some. So why did it fail? Because I didn't know what I was doing. OK. I was advertising in a magazine that was too expensive. And my target market really would have been swap meat, not in the magazines. But lesson learned. Yeah. And it's something that I never forget. Market research is that important. It was a very expensive mail order business that I had. But I learned something. And to me, that was worth it. Looking back, it was worth it. At that time, very painful. Did you go to college here? I did. Where did you go? So I started with KCC, then HCC, then UH, then HPU. So my degree is from HPU. And the reason why I go through those processes is that I graduated during my junior year before I was 18. To get a diploma, you had to be enrolled in college to receive a diploma. Otherwise, you had to stay in high school. So KCC was my option at $32 per credit hour. Really? But they never had the classes I needed because I was working. I had to pay for my mom's mortgage while I was working and paying for my tuition. So it wasn't really good for working students. And there was never a thought of going away for college because I knew that we couldn't afford it. But even with scholarships, I don't think we could have afforded it. Well, you learned from almost every college here. Every college. But HPU gave me a terrific education. UH gave me a terrific education. Every class meant something. Because I was working toward a career. So every class was something that I would learn and I would apply it back to my work. Or from work, I would apply it back towards my study. Awesome. So it took me over 10 years to graduate. But I did graduate. I have a degree in business management and finance. Great. Now after graduating, what became your first official job? So I didn't graduate from college when I had my official job. I had my official job before I graduated from college. Wow. And my employers kind of pushed me along to get my degree. Okay. But my first job out of high school was a girl Friday, which is like an administrative assistant in today's terms, but for a developer. And he was a single developer and he allowed me to do as much as I would like to learn. Great. And I worked every weekend to catch up for what I didn't know. So I learned that for five years, recruited by Kathleen Cook. Awesome. And I worked for them for Mililani Mauka. Wow. And that was my big career step up. Then A&B. Great. So it was all in increments of five years because I have a tendency to think in five year goals. Yeah. Wow. So after working at all of those great places, you started your own company, Avalon, in 1999. And I'm curious, why did you choose the name Avalon for your company? Well, I always used to think that you should be at the top versus at the bottom. So it wouldn't start with a Z. So it would be something with an A. Okay. But it was the Isle of Avalon. I was, I love fairy tales and I love the King Arthur stories. Oh, yeah. Excalibur. Excalibur, right? The Isle of Avalon is where his source of power came from. Okay. And when he died, it returned back to the source. To the island? To the Isle of Avalon. Okay. So my feeling was that we're on an island. My company is for Hawaii. And I'm from Hawaii. So I want it to be something relevant. Well, what a great story. I had no idea about that. Now, I've been seeing a lot of Facebook posts about Hale Kalei. Hale Kalei, yes. Can you tell me about that? So that's our 7000 Hawaii Kai project. Okay. We built that project for Hanwha, a Korean company, in 2016. So in June, we built it as a rental project. Great. But two years later, after operating as a rentals, we were able to buy the building from Hanwha. And right now, we're looking at providing options for people to buy their own units. Awesome. So there are two buildings. One building will remain as a rental. And that's called Hale Manu. Okay. And the other one, 7000 Hawaii Kai, is now renamed to Hale Kalei. Okay. And then it will be condominiums. It's great for people to have those options. Right. And in terms of living and buying or renting. Now, you recently broke ground in Kapolei. Yes. Can you tell me about that? So we own 178 acres of industrial land in Kapolei. That's awesome. And we've been in Kapolei since 2006. Wow. So you see us breaking ground about once or twice a year. And that's usually out in Kapolei because we're building warehouses. And so the most recent one, where you can see that Mayor was supporting us there. Okay. Sure. Councilmember Pine and Tye Cullen, the representative, they're very supportive because we want to create jobs. So Kapolei was meant to be second city. Yeah. And what that means is not just bedrooms, but it must have jobs. And so my goal there has been always looking for places where we can create employment that is beyond just retail and service, but it would be something more related to professional and higher paying jobs. Great. And so we're very focused on the industrial park. We're done. So we're developed up through about 120 acres. We've got the last 50 left. Wow. That's awesome. I'm curious also, Christine, what's been your most meaningful project that you've built so far? The most meaningful project, every one of them has been meaningful. Yeah, I'm sure. So I can't choose which one it is. But the one that we're currently working on, Halle Kalai, is one that is very meaningful to me because we were able to convince a Korean owner through my Korean heritage to touch their hearts and be able to commit to building affordable housing right on site. Great. They were going in the direction of a million to $3 million houses. Wow, that's a lot. And what I was able to do is to build for people who I grew up with, who couldn't live in East Honolulu because they couldn't afford it. So now we have rental options for them and housing options. And we built it with families in mind. Most of rental housing is studios in one bedroom. Our start at two bedrooms. Oh, awesome. All the way to four bedrooms. Great. Christine, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, I want to really go in depth into really why you are successful. Thank you. You are watching Beyond the Lines with my guest Christine Kamp on Think Tech Hawaii. We will be back in one minute. I'm Jay Fidel, Think Tech. Think Tech loves energy. I'm the host of Mina, Marco and Me, which is Mina Morita, former chair of the PUC, former legislator, and Energy Dynamics, a consulting organization in energy. Marco Mangelsdorf is the CEO of Provision Solar in Hilo. Every two weeks, we talk about energy, everything about energy. Come around and watch us. We're on at noon on Mondays, every two weeks on Think Tech. Aloha. Hey, Stan Energyman here on Think Tech Hawaii. And they won't let me do political commentary, so I'm stuck doing energy stuff, but I really like energy stuff. So I'm going to keep on doing it. So join me every Friday on Stan Energyman at lunchtime, at noon on my lunch hour. We're going to talk about everything energy, especially if it begins with the word hydrogen. We're going to definitely be talking about it. We'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner, how we can make the world a better place, just basically save the planet. Even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore. We got it nailed down here. So we'll see you on Friday at noon with Stan Energyman. Aloha. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. Today, we are going beyond real estate with my guest, Christine Kemp, the president and CEO of the hugely successful company, the Avalon Group, she founded in 1999. Christine, I want to ask you some of these questions that really directly relate to my book. How would you define success? That's a good question because I think before I was a mom, it would have been a different one. Now that I'm a mom, it's completely changed me. So I define success universally by not by the money that you make or the things that you have, but the respect of your peers and your community and your family. And having love, having enough resources to be able to appreciate that. Sure. And I have that now, and I feel very successful. Oh, that's awesome. Now, why are you successful? Why am I successful? So in my way of defining success, the reason why I'm successful is because I care. Okay. So everything I do, I do with my utmost effort and I do it to succeed. And the reason I do this is because anything that I do, someone else is relying on me. It would be my family, my community, my employees, my investors, and my lenders. So everything I do, I do it with a complete sense of gratitude that they're giving me the opportunity to do this. And I think with that and that attitude of gratitude, it makes a good recipe for success. I like these insights. Now, what has been your greatest obstacle in achieving your success and then how did you overcome that? The greatest obstacle to me and I think for a lot of us is fear. You're afraid. What if you fail? And the more you get successful, the more you have to lose. And so the fear sets in, I don't want to lose what I've achieved. And so every time, I always have to ask myself, what do you have to lose and if you don't try? And with that question, the answer is always, well, I can always go back to when I was homeless. I didn't have anything, but I tried and I got to where I needed to go. So I have to try now. In sports or business, the fear of losing is a mindset, but also playing to win is the mindset that everyone should have. How do you weigh risk in terms of fear of losing versus striving to win? Where does risk come in? You have to write. So everyone says, well, you're such a risk taker. You're taking $100 million bets on these things. Right now, my most recent project, Sky Almona, is $450 million. You're making a $450 million bet on one project. That sounds very risky, but it's not. You do it with thoughtful consideration. If you think through your market and all the other things, and so it's really about breaking it all down. Yeah. And seeing all of the issues and weighing them through the pros and cons. And so I always have pros and cons. And that's how you get through your fears. If you break it down into little areas and you can address it one at a time. And taking calculated risks. That's exactly right. Calculated risks. You said it better than me. And I also believe, and I talk about in the book, that risk promotes growth. We all have taken risks as babies, right? Otherwise we'd all still be crawling. Exactly. So risk is a huge thing in terms of developing yourself, but also helping develop others. What would you say is in your future? What are you hoping to aspire in your future? Well, this year we're going to be celebrating our 20th year of Avalon. Wow. So I think 20 years of having a business and growing it, you don't do it yourself. You do it with your employees. So for the next 10 years, my goal is to transition ownership to people who've helped me build it. Oh, that's awesome. And if I can do that, I would be very successful. Wow. That's a great insight. I mean, that's really caring about everyone that you work with right there. I do. I'm very appreciative of them because during the worst of times, you know, we lost. So we did very, very well into 2008. Yeah. And then everything fell. And every penny that I've ever earned, we lost it in that one year in gapping all the issues and risks that we've taken. Who knew that the whole world was going to fall off? Yeah. And so these people who had stayed with me took pay cuts and rolled up their sleeves and did things like janitorial and, you know, property management, handyman. They did whatever was needed. They were utility players so that the company could survive. And you remember them? I will never forget it. Yeah. Never forget it. Awesome. You talked about Sky Alamoana earlier. Is that your next big upcoming project? Yes, it is. And I'm very proud of it because we are building close to 800 units. Wow. Where is it going to be exactly? It'll be right across where the transit station will be on Kapiolani Boulevard across Alamoana Shopping Center. Okay. We're going to be east of Keamoku on Kapiolani Boulevard. The reason why I'm really proud of it is that we're going to build affordable housing right on the site. So we will have approximately 90 affordable units to be sold. And that's been subsidized by hotel units and the condo units. And our condo units are by no means luxury. They start at $500,000. It ends at around $850,000 right in town. And we also am proud of the fact that we'll be creating job centers where right off the transit center there will be a hotel. Great. Now, I mean, you've been in real estate for over 20 years now. Oh, 30 years. 30 years. 30 years. So you started when you were in your teens. Yes, literally. So it's very interesting. What kind of ideas do you have? Do you have in solving the homeless issue that we have here? You know, I think for me, homelessness has two factors. One is the houseless. Those who are working but just can't make their ends meet. And the other is just, you know, they need institutional help. OK. They need a lot of support. So we have to be able to see them for what they are and be able to address them one segment at a time. OK. I think the easiest or the more achievable results in the near future are those that are houseless. Yeah. They're working. And they need to keep their dignity and be able to find something where they can raise their family. So to do that, you have to allow more homes to be built. The state has issued a report that says 65,000 homes have to be built in the 10 years. That's 6,500 homes that have to be built every year to meet the need. Great. We build 1,000 a year. Wow. You're never going to meet the need unless you do something great. So what I really look for is you try to address the problems by glutting the market with a lot of homes. For developers like us, glutting that may not be the best thing because then we can't hold to our prices. But glutting the market means that there's more homes that are competing for dollars and therefore the prices will go down. The speculations will go down. And you build more rental housing so you can help those people. Then you need to look at some form of institutionalized housing where it would be maybe single room occupancy, provide them a room where anybody can rent there. Then you provide health services and psychological services and social services right there within the premises. Nobody wants it in their community. So it's one that requires a lot of political will. And I hope that our elected officials will take to heart for the next task at hand. Yeah, hopefully. I hope so. You have so much experience and so many ideas. I hope they're all like asking you exactly what you think and what they should be doing to really allow these things to happen at a quicker rate. Now, you've been the chair of the Honolulu Police Commission. You've been the chair of the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce. You were the president of the Hawaii Developers' Council. What boards are you currently serving on right now? I am on the Federal Home Loan Bank. That represents 13 states. Great. I'm also on the board of Central Pacific Bank. Great. And YMCA. Awesome. Advisory Board of the Catholic Charities, the Kahalanui. Yeah. You can see that I'm involved in a lot of different places because I have a hard time saying no when it comes to helping out. Well, you have so much talent and experience. When they ask for help, I say, how can I help? And it's been my model in a ways. I don't have to be on the board. In fact, I usually tell people, you know, I don't need to be on this board. What I'd like to be is to be able to have meaningful contribution towards helping. Yeah. And so that's where I'm focused most. My time is very limited. So I can't sit at board meetings. Yeah. But I can certainly help in their issues. And so I'm involved with maybe a dozen. Blue Planet Foundation as well. Blue Planet Foundation is, I'm the vice chair. Great. This year of that board. And, you know, people say that you are a developer. So why would you be involved in the Blue Planet? And the way I look at it is we all live in the same planet. Yeah. And we have kids. And you know, this is our community. Yeah. We have to protect our future. Yeah, you're right. Now, how do you keep outdoing what you've done? You've accomplished so many things and you're hugely successful. How do you keep outdoing what you've done? That's not my focus. The focus is doing the right thing for the right reason. Yeah. So it could be doing nothing. Okay. But yeah, no, it's not about outdoing. I think it's really about trying to fit a need. And so oftentimes I look at what we do and I think isn't mission-based. Do we achieve something that I believe in? Can I wake up in the morning and feel that I'm done something better, left this place better than the next, right? And you definitely have. And so every project I've done, I feel that way. Great. And when that happens, I don't need to outdo myself. I like it. It's a constant striving for excellence is what you have. Yeah. Well, Christina, it was a pleasure having you on the show today. You achieve so many things. And you're inspiring not just women, but a lot of men out there to really want to be better and to, you know, have a vision but actually go out there and do it and make the world a better place and help people. So I really want to thank you for taking time to be on the show today. Oh, I have fun. Thank you very much, Rusty. Good job. Thank you. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Rusty Komori encouraging you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.