 Aloha and welcome to another edition of Business in Hawaii. My name is John Strandberg. We are broadcasting live from the ThinkTech studios in downtown Honolulu. If you want to tune in live, we are at www.thinktechhawaii.com. You can also sign up to get on our mailing list there as well. The theme of Business in Hawaii is to bring you stories of local business by local people. Our guests share with us their journey to building successful businesses in our sometimes challenging environment. In the ThinkTech studios today is Trisha Fatui, Director of Events for the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii. Hi. Welcome, Trisha. Thank you for having me. Before we start, let's tell us a little background about Trisha Fatui. Well, thank you so much for having me here today, John. I really appreciate it. Right now I'm Director of Events for the Chamber of Commerce and I oversee all of the Chamber of Commerce's 60-plus events a year. Before working with Chamber, I was Special Events Coordinator for the Queens Medical Center. I did special events to raise money for the hospital and sick patients, so I did about three to five events a year raising money for the hospital. Prior to that, so that was a non-profit world. Prior to the non-profit world, I was in for-profit, Central Pacific Bank and Business Banking and Island, the Madden Corporation, doing product management. I was an account manager, so I had product in Target and Walmart and TJ Maxx. I was able to take all of that experience in the business world and making money and finances and people and turn it over into fundraising and just help to raise money for the benefit of the community. Yeah. A little bit about me. Yeah. You just said you did 60 events a year for the Chamber of Commerce. Yes. The title, Director of Events, is really an important title for the Chamber. Yes. It's not just Director of Events overseeing the 60 events. Literally everything from A to Z, name tags, advertising and designing flyers, getting people to fill the room, figuring out prices, venues, logistics, menus, all that kind of good stuff. So it keeps me very busy, but it's a lot of fun at the same time. I think when you create an event, you're creating the opportunity for people to get together in a room, make connections to just have discussions, network, and when you see people leaving, I mean, it's just like when you see people leaving with a smile on their face and saying, thank you for putting together such a great event. I got X, Y, and Z business out of it. You know, that's such a great feeling for me and it makes me want to just create more of those invaluable experiences for people. Well, some of them actually attend quite a few of those events. I leave with that same sense of feeling where I did make a positive connection and again, thank you from my end for putting those on. My pleasure. I know it's a lot of work. Mm-hmm. So you said you started everything from name tags to promotions. What's the hardest part about putting on an event before the Chamber? I think time, just having enough time, you know, doing events. There's so many details and I feel like a lot of times there's not enough time to execute all the details you want. You know, there's always some, we have so much opportunity, represent, the Chamber represents 2,000 business members and each of those business members has so many employees. So there's so much opportunity to connect so many people and share with them all the great benefits that the Chamber has to offer and all the great benefits that these events have to offer. But doing 60 events a year, you just run out of time and be able to make that connection to everybody. So, yeah. Okay. So the theme of the show today was not your parents' Chamber. I know the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii has actually grown and it's got an international reach now. Can you tell me more about what happened just recently? So for last year, we won Chamber of the Year, which is a national award by the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives and they oversee 1,400 chambers nationwide. And so we won Chamber of the Year out of all the 51 states, so it's very exciting. And it was for, like, we got the recognition for our certain programs, like our board. Like we have the most amazing board members that are really involved in providing great leadership. And then our Chamber members, you know, who we have such great partnerships with. And then our programs, like our business advocacy, all of our strong work that we do at the Legislative to fight laws for the benefit of businesses and programs like Hawaii on the Hill. I'm not sure if you've heard of Hawaii on the Hill, but it's a program where we're partnering with Senator Hirono's office for the last five or six years now. And we take businesses from Hawaii out to Washington, D.C. and we're able to showcase their products. And so we get, we do a few, like, small dinners with the legislators. And then we have dinners and we do tours of the monuments. And then we also have this huge event. It's like over a thousand people in attendance. It's called Taste of Hawaii. And so we give, like, all this, like, national senators will come, Pelosi will be there, Senator Hirono, all of her office. And we give everyone a Mai Tai, an LA, and a Spambasubi. And they just, I mean, they love the Spambasubis. We have lines out the door, you know, and they get everyone, they come in and they get to meet all of all these businesses that came from Hawaii and taste their products. And it's opened up distribution channels for a lot of our Hawaii businesses on the East Coast. And so it's just such a great experience. And we're so honored to be able to work with Senator Hirono's office. Nothing says Hawaii like a Spambasubi and a Mai Tai. A Mai Tai. Yeah. I remember seeing a lot of pictures of that. I've seen videos from that and it looks exciting. Yeah. Just one of these years I might even try to get up there for it. Well, I'm going this year, so hopefully you guys can come out this year. Okay, well, something I look forward to potentially. So tell me more about the award itself. I know you said the board involvement was big. Who are some of the companies on your board now? American Savings Bank. On our board we have our chair is Mark Polifka from Monarch Insurance Company. We have Don Takaki from Island Movers. Oh gosh, there's so many of them. You're quizzing me here. Pro Service. We have All Tresses on our board. We have a lot in a lot of different industries. We have Osaki Creative Group. So we have everything from like design groups, HR, but they're all really involved. So a lot of them we had a YP event last night and a lot of them were there. Hemic is Marnie Welch from Hemic and so, yeah. Everybody I've known so far for years, so good job on that. So how do you become a board member? Is it an invitation? Is it being a long time member? That is out of my area of responsibility, so above my pay grain, but I believe it's invite only. And it's the board will vote who to invite into. And then they serve like a two to six year term, I believe. So yeah. One day when I grow up, potentially maybe. I know it's all of our like big dreams. Yes, when I grow up I want to be a board member to the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii. So let's go back to events and what you actually do. So besides events, you're also part of the Young Professionals Program. So I'm the executive director of the Young Professionals Program and the Young Professionals Program started in 2011, so this is going on our eighth year. And it's to help young professionals ages 21 to 39 with their professional development and helping them to expand their networks and just be able to make them more polished. And I think a lot of it's kind of the millennials, but at the same time it's not, it's a little bit like posts and pretty millennials, but everyone's very ambitious and they want the corner office and they're just trying to figure out how do I get to that corner office right out of college. So we're providing opportunities for them to learn, okay, business etiquette 101 and marketing skills and resume building and networking and so we have mentorship program where it's a six month one-on-one with an executive and they meet on a monthly basis and just learn straight from the executive. How did they get there, you know, lessons to learn, just pour into their wisdom. And then we do monthly professional development classes, which you were a speaker at before. And then so those we just choose a topic and we bring in a speaker that is a leader in that industry and they will share their knowledge. We have monthly exec connect with, I'm sorry, I'm getting all the time to sit here, monthly exec connect luncheens, which is like one of our most popular programs and it sells out. We have like a weekly list of 15 people every month and that's an opportunity to have lunch with an executive and it's at the Pacific club so it's just really nice and everyone enjoys that one. We do field trips, it's kind of the behind the scenes of an organization and see what it makes it work. So we've gone to Kaiser last month, this month we're going to Honolulu Rapid Transport Authority to see the rail and the operation center. We've gone to, what is it, Island Chip Company, no Hawaiian Chip Company with Jimmy Chan. Oh Jimmy, yep. Yeah, I'm got to see how the chips are made and got to see them all there. Lots of samples. Yes, Jimmy is wonderful, we love Jimmy. So a lot of different organizations to see and it's just a great experience for a lot of people graduating from college. You know, they have a degree, they get out and they're like, okay, I have a business degree, but there's so many different businesses. So this is the opportunity for them to say, okay, this is healthcare, this is insurance, this is, you know, whatever. And for them to say, this is something I'm really interested in and figuring out, you know, the next steps. Just hearing you describe all that, I could actually sense the passion coming out of you for the YP program. Is that the near and dear program to your solo at the chamber or is that? They're just, you know, I'm really honored, sorry, I'm really honored to work with them. They are just such a great group of people. We have about 275 members right now. And they're all just, they're just, they work hard and they're passionate and they're kind and, you know, and it's just such an honor to work so closely with them. And, you know, it's like when you're part of a group and they all have the same goal. Like everyone is moving forward together. And so you're really building like lifelong friendships, you know, at the same time, making career, you know, relationships that you can partner with them like in the future. Like, hey, who did you use for this or what do I do in this situation? And for a lot of young professionals when you start your first job, you know, you're the only one that's in your 20s, you know, in an organization, in a large organization. And so like, if you do have a bad boss, you don't have anyone in your office to complain to, you know, or event to, or like, what do I do in this situation that's going to understand where you're coming from? Whereas the YP program, we kind of give you that support like you're surrounded by your peers. We love you. We support you. We're here to help you. And we understand, you know, when there's no judgment passed and then we're able to give you advice in a loving manner, you know, and then help you just to be there for you during those times. Wow. Yeah. I wish I was around for something like that. And so we're working on developing an OP program for old professionals. Okay. I was like, yeah, I qualify for that. The OP program, I'll probably be the poster child for that. We talked about throwing it on the idea of extending it and set 21 to 39, 21 to 40, because 40 is turning hard enough, you know, turning 40 is hard enough to let alone getting kicked out of the program at the same time, but not yet. So 39, that's it. Yeah. Actually, I learned about the YP after I was 40, so I just missed a cut even for back then. Yeah. But we do have non-member rates, you know. So if you are a Chamber member, you can still attend our YP events at the Chamber member rates. So we accept everybody at our events. Everyone's in the pool at the same time. Yes, yes. Very nice. So let's go back to your job as events director. What are some of the name premiere events that you have? Okay. So I got 60. Are you ready? Let's start off with your best and the signature events that you're just going down to. So we have about four, four or five signature events of the year. This is our Chamber week. Starts off in January. It's a whole week of events, talking about the legislative process and education and then just getting involved in meeting legislators. Then we roll into Hawaii on the Hill, which I already shared with you. We do a fundraising event called Roast and Toast, where we honor one of our board members and we roast them. And so with table sponsorships, kind of a fundraising dinner, which is a lot of fun. We do a golf tournament, which is great. And then employment law seminar, which for HR related in Chamber members. And then we also have annual luncheon. So that's our largest event of the year besides Hawaii on the Hill is annual luncheon. And with an annual luncheon, we try to bring in national speaker and so the speaker from the mainland to speak. And we usually have about 800 people in attendance. Okay. Very good. Yeah. We're going to take a short break. So we're going to take a short break. We'll see you back here shortly. Okay. Aloha. I'm Yukari Kunisue, the host of Konnichiwa Hawaii, Japanese talk show on Think Tech Hawaii. Konnichiwa Hawaii is all Japanese broadcast show and is streamed live on Think Tech at 2 p.m. every other Monday. Thank you so much for watching our show. We look forward to seeing you then. I'm Yukari Kunisue. Mahalo. Aloha. I'm Wendy Lowe and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at 2 o'clock live from Think Tech Hawaii. And on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about, whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means, let's take healthy back. Aloha. Welcome back to Business in Hawaii. Joining us today is Trisha Fatui, director of events with the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii. So we were talking prior to your break about some of the events you had and I thought a couple actually offered credits or continuing education credits. Could you tell us more about that? So we tried to partner with SHRM over the year to provide credits for people in attendance for different events. Last week, we had a health summit and we partnered with Kaiser and Dentons and we had a half day, it was from 7 to 2 o'clock different sessions talking about health, you know, how to increase employee engagement with your organization and how that increases your return on investment for businesses. And so that event offered three credits for SHRM, employee or... SHRM is just Society of Human Resource Management. And then for employee, we do an employment law seminar and an employment law update every year as well. So employment law update is just a smaller condensed version of the employment law seminar. That one's in March, what did I say, March 5th? March 5th and we're offering 1.5 SHRM credits and then in August we have our employment law seminar. It's a full day from 8 to 4 o'clock. We partner with Torchison and they provide all the speakers and presentations and that one's usually 5, 6, 7 SHRM credits. Wow. Yeah. If you're a SHRM member, you should become a Chamber member too. Yes. Well, we usually always... Yes, that is true. And we always want more Chamber members, but we do offer SHRM members, Chamber member prices to attend our events. Yeah. And it's good for general knowledge for us business owners and executives too. Yeah. So, I mean, those events are great. I mean, quite honestly, you know, when I started with the Chamber and I attended my first employment law event and I had a plan it, I'm like, oh gosh, employment law, this is going to be rough. The sounds are extremely boring to me, you know, coming from like sales and, you know, I did coffee cups and design and all that kind of stuff. And it was so fascinating. Like employment law, I mean, the Torchison team just gives great presentations there, you know, because when you think of a lawyer, a lawyer accountants are kind of, you know, this auditors are kind of monotone, very all these just attorneys. Oh, trust me. I got all kinds of jokes for you. I'll start again. But, I mean, their presentation was just so fascinating. I mean, I got more out of it, I think, than the people in attendance. I was just like, wow, more people need to attend these events. These are so great. So, I really enjoy the employment law. Okay. So, other events you have besides those big four? Yeah. So, we'll do smaller events. So, we, the 60 events a year ranges in size and we try to create events that meets all the needs of businesses, everything from networking. So, we have business after hours and those are monthly events that we do at different, at chamber members venues. So, we've done them at Roy's Yamaguchi Eating House at, it was an international market place last month, what are we doing now? We, I have one tonight at Jobsom and then last month we did it at K1 Speed in West Oahu in Kapolei. So, we try to switch it up venues and locations and chamber members and just, it's an opportunity for venues to open up their spaces and for people decision makers. I mean, like our chamber members are decision makers, you know, and for them to be in the venue and be able to experience the venue first hand, try their drinks, try their food, K1 Speed and take a lap around the racetrack, you know, and see how fun it is and then to come back and to bring their employees and bring their staff and bring their families. So, it's a really great program. We usually have about 100 people in attendance and we try to do it on a monthly basis. So, we have some regular people that attend and then we also try to get more of those chamber members to bring their staff and their coworkers and just their family and their friends and stuff. And chamber members bring their family and friends and it's just a network. We have a lot of sales people come because obviously they need their portfolio and get that, you know, get that pipeline of new customers in and even for the sales people, it's such a great opportunity for them to come and, you know, for sales like you have to build a trust, you know, and so some people like I go every week, every month I go to business after hours, but you have to keep coming back and you have to see the same people before and they have to trust you before they're going to give you their business, you know. So, coming to business after hours on a regular basis is really good for their business. So, business after hours, what other events do you offer? So, we do a focus on which is a quarterly series of events and that we partner with American Savings Bank and so they usually pick the topics and they're usually more like finance geared topics and then we partner with them to get speakers and it ranges everything from year in, you know, year in tax savings and while bringing accountants and CPA in to speak, we do soft skills and we'll bring in some soft skills leaders to speak. Our next one in March is on managing cash flow. So, we try to have the audience of small businesses in mind and speak to topics that's relative to them and how to manage your cash flow. Like if you're a small business, you have money coming in with the products, you know, in services, but you have payroll at the same time and, you know, how you can leverage that cash but at the same time that you can't, you know, touch it and so how do you do it? How do you maximize all that cash? So, we're so thankful for this partnership with American Savings Bank to be able to offer that. Okay, so, so far we've had business after hours focused on whether of the 60 years got to be more in there. Yeah, so we do content, a lot of content, you know, focus on a lot of fun, business after hours, we try to do everything in between. So, we have a C-suite, CEO, Paul Hanna, CEO, C-suite series. We're likewise to our annual membership luncheon, we'll bring in a national speaker and it's by invite only and so we'll invite CEOs of our chamber members, companies to come and attend and hear from the national speaker and so they'll speak, you know, to C-suite. So, that is a really great event that we do and that's just kind of quarterly. Then we have, let's see what else do we do? But it's hard because they do the YP program and the YP events too. So, YP events probably is like 30 events a year. So, they kind of get all jumbled. So, part of your 60 or 60 plus the YP. You know, it gets a little foggy after a while. Because all of a sudden you have 90 events in a year to manage. I'm like, you know, you're spending time with us today, so like, you're time is valuable. You're very sweet. Thank you, no, but thank you for having me here. It's great to be here and to talk about the chamber and the YP program. It's such great programs. Yeah, that's all I am drawing to blink at this moment. But yeah, a lot of good stuff. So, all these events, all these opportunities Do you have a favorite event? You participate in a lot of them. I'm a lot at the Chamber of Events only because our company's a participant. We're a member, our owner of the company was on the board for a few years. So, it's like, you know, we felt obligated. But at the same time, for us as our company, it's been very, I want to say, yeah, it bears fruit to be there in terms of revenue and growth. So, we enjoy it and my goal is always to be at a Chamber of Events at least once a month. Oh, good, good. Yeah, it's a good networking opportunity. And then we partner with our Chamber members to put on specialized events. So, last week when we did the Health Summit, we partnered with Kaiser and Denton to put on Health Summit. That was something that was close near and dear to their heart and they wanted to put together an opportunity for leaders in the healthcare industry to be able to share with the business community about healthcare initiatives. Last year we did Transportation Summit and we partnered with Matt's and to Transportation Summit. So, those aren't necessary events that we do every single year. It's not scheduled every single year, but it's brought on by our Chamber members. It's timely because it matches what's going on in the local economy. And I like to see that businesses out there take an effort to educate. Because that's one of my strongest efficacy is we want to educate people what companies do. Because the general public has no idea what Jimmy does, a potato chip company, behind the scenes. But they buy his chips at longs or wherever they might be. Costco. Costco. We want to shop locals. Sorry. No, right. Shop local Hawaii. Brought to you by Shop Local Hawaii. But again, anything else from the Chamber that you want to share? What else was there? I think that's it. I mean, we- I know you brought on some new staff recently. Yes, we did. Brought on some new staff. I mean, we've been making a bigger effort with the legislative process to be able to fighting the bills and minimum wage, fighting minimum wage. And we don't necessarily take a stance on these bills from the Chamber. We do surveys and have committee meetings with all of our Chamber members. And whatever is a voice that they're providing to us is what we take to the state and to the capital and to support them. So we've been making an initiative on that. So we hired a new person to oversee that. Or we have a team of two now. And we brought on a new director of communications. She's from Senator Hirono's office. And so she's just wonderful to work with. So knowledgeable. And so we're really excited to work with you. And she'll be in the legislative process. And that helps. Yeah, exactly. And she's familiar with Hawaii on the Hill because she used to help with Hawaii on the Hill in Washington, DC. So it's great to have someone here in the Hawaii office that is familiar with how to get things done in Washington, DC. Very good. Yeah. So a lot of new things happening at the Chamber and your staff. We have a new office. New office. Let's tell them about that real quick. We moved in December. So we're at Pacific Guardian Center now. Nice big office and lots of meeting spaces. And so it's an opportunity, another service and benefit that we can give our Chamber members more opportunity. Like if you need to have a meeting space and we have a meeting space available, we can always offer that to you at No Charge. We have Pacific Guardian Center at the bottom. There's a big conference room. So a lot of our events we can have there. So it's a really nice building. We love it. Very good. And thank you for your time with us today. After hearing about all the events. Are you excited? I'm excited. The half hour you gave me is very, very valuable, I assume, because you're taking away from an event. You have an event tonight. I have an event tonight. We have a business after hours at Jabsum. And they have SimTiki. We're going to go do tours of the SimTiki Center. And those are human robots that the students get to learn and operate on. And so it's a little miniature version of the iRobot movie. So we're excited to see them. I might just have to go now to see it. I'm with the tech company on that robot. Have you seen that commercial? I think it's like H&R Block or TurboTax commercial with the little robot. Robot kid and he starts playing. Oh, during the Super Bowl? Yeah. I thought that was laughing. It's OK. Unfortunately, we're out of time. I want to thank Trisha for taking the time to be with us today. If you'd like to be a guest on our show, please feel free to email your information to shows at thinktechhawaii.com. Business in Hawaii airs every Thursday at 2 PM. And we're looking forward to seeing you here next week.