 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 a very successful leader and mayor of our city and county of Honolulu. He is Rick Blangiarity and today we are going beyond leadership. Hey, Mayor Rick, welcome to Beyond the Lines. Rusty, thank you. I really appreciate being here with you and congratulations, I wasn't aware that you won 22 state championships. That's gonna be one of the records forever. Who's gonna beat that? Well, Mayor Rick, I used to really enjoy talking with you at Honolulu Club in between our workouts. I mean, it was so great seeing and talking with you back then. Thank you, yep, same thing. I missed that club, but another club I'm going through these days and my workouts are getting so tough right now. I used to like to go club but boy they get harder and harder. So I have kind of a love hate relationship with the club. Yeah, now Mayor Rick, I know that you played college football for the University of Hawaii for two years. I wanna ask you, what are some of the life's lessons you've learned through football? Well, I played football throughout my entire college career. Unfortunately, I had to transfer out of Hawaii because of some family emergency back east and then came back here and coached after I graduated. Actually, I was coaching at the University of Connecticut. Look, I think the big thing about any kind of competitive sport is you learn about dealing with adversity, first and foremost in that, and then combined with maybe some intellectual honesty as well because you have to be realistic when you're fighting your way into a starting lineup and when you're playing those games and everything else you have to deal with you, you really go inside yourself. So that and just the joy of teamwork. I wanted things that I really think I took away in all my years of experiences and the success I had, both player as a player and as a coach, all those great moments were set as a result of the teams and the people that I was associated with. So I think dealing with adversity, teamwork, not putting yourself first, that being exposed to some really great people and seeing humility at its best even though they were really great athletes, all that stuff has lasted a lifetime for me. Yeah, I like how you said adversity and teamwork for sure. And Mayor Rick, you were also an assistant football coach for some years and what did you enjoy about coaching? Well, I think anybody who goes into coaching it's really a helping relationship, right? So it's about really developing young people, is putting people in touch with their own potential and getting them to believe in themselves. And so many times when we would take young men on and that's what you work to do is develop them. Recruiting was one part and this is actually carried over to business as well but it's the recruiting but then beyond that is retention, it's development and are they better as a result of what you've done to coach? And you don't really look at that just in terms of the wins and losses of the overall team. And when you're coaching players and you have those positions that you coach or for that matter, just the overall culture of a team it's bringing that to fruition and creating that. Yeah, I love that you were a coach back in the day and Mayor Rick, your wife Karen, I mean, she has a lot of tremendous qualities. What's the biggest thing you admire about your wife Karen? She's an amazing woman. While she has great clarity, she can see through stuff and she'll call it for what it is very quickly and that in addition to that I think she's got great intuition. She herself had a very illustrious professional career and she was highly accomplished. So she's really good at that. I mean, she's a quick study. She'll cut through it and she can read it for what it is. Well, you guys definitely make a great team together. And Mayor Rick, how did you first get interested in the TV news industry? Well, it was really got of economic necessity. I was coaching at the University of Hawaii. I was the associate head football coach and defensive coordinator, which had a master's degree and so I was doing everything right professionally. The problem was I wasn't making any money in those days. So Larry Price was the head football coach at the time and I played for Coach Price and he was making $25,000 a year and I was making 15 as a number one assistant and I had a baby coming, my now 44 year old son. And so I was sort of at a crossroads financially. So unlike the coaches of today where the salaries get touted in almost unbelievable numbers at all levels, not just in the professional level. In fact, the college level was actually outpacing the pro level for a while. Now things are what they are, but I made an economic decision and I had a chance to go back and coach in the mainland. I was 30 years old at the time. I'd coached all during my 20s while I stay here and kind of reinvent myself because of my love of Hawaii and try to do something other than coaching because we wanted to live here and had a conversation with C. Seftal at the time, won KGMB and said something to the effect that if I was willing to work hard then in three years time I could make $50,000 a year. Well, that $50,000 number resonated because one thing it was twice as much as Coach Price was making and more than three times what I was making I had a baby coming. I knew I needed to make money. I wasn't afraid of hard work. So candidly, I really didn't have any knowledge of what I was going into other than I had a relationship with Joe Moore at the time who was doing sports. He was a young sportscaster over KGMB and I did interviews with him. But other than that, I literally backed into what became a 43-year television career based on economic necessity with no grand plan other than the fact that I really wanted to stay in Hawaii. I knew that I could coach football. I knew I could coach college football. I felt well, I owe it to my wife or a baby coming to at least try something different. If all else failed, I think I fell confident at the time with so many years ago now that I couldn't have gone back into coaching, but I never looked back. Well, it's fascinating to see how you've really improved the TV news industry for those 43 years. And Mayor Rick, what are some of your biggest accomplishments in the TV news industry that you're most proud of? Wow, you know, honestly, I've been really afforded a lot of really great experiences along the way. I started at KGMB, worked there for seven years. But I think first, there's probably three that I want to really cite. The first one was when we took over rat-infested warehouse and Kalihi called Kiku, turned it into Kachanel and really launched UH Sports in a way that had never been seen and done before. And that was a great accomplishment. And then that led to seven years later, six years later, might go into the mainland. And so I had some big jobs and I was gone for Hawaii from 89 to 2002 in those years. And Running King TV was a big accomplishment in Seattle. That was what it took me out of. But I also was at CBS New York and that I was in San Francisco. But then when I went to Los Angeles, I became president. I was actually president of a couple of broadcast companies nationally. But the one that was the last one that I did, Telemundo Spanish Language Network, we took a really pretty much, really almost a defunct company that was bought by Sony and Liberty Media and a couple of private equity groups and turned that into a really viable contender in the Hispanic marketplace, which was a mushrooming population nationally. And so that said, we did such a good job in a little bit more than three years and everything that we did systemically to the company, we ended up selling it to NBC for $2.7 billion, which that was a big accomplishment because the investors that owned it had paid around 500 million. And so in three years, we made them a lot of money. And it was very exciting. Also afforded me the opportunity to come back to Hawaii. And then the last thing I would say is that, 2008 recession brought all of the local television stations to the knees. And I'd come back to run both KGMB and K21 simultaneously in 2002, which was something nobody had done before. But given the national experiences, I mean, I came home with a sense of purpose and I made a choice to come back to Hawaii. So what then transpired because of the various, deals that were made in the buying and selling of television stations, then the recession in 2008, which brought all of the ownership in this market to its knees, we had the opportunity to consolidate three television stations, KGMB, KHNL, the NBC affiliate, KGMB to CBS and K5. And that we formed a company called Hawaii News Now. And we started in that an opportunity to provide Hawaii with a local news, local television news operation, unlike anything I'd seen before, but even more importantly, at that point in time, mobile technology, the iPhone had been around for about a year and a half and none of us could have predicted what would then happen since all these many years. But we saw some trends there. We understood the potential of the popularity of personal media over mass media. And we jumped on that right away with Hawaii News Now in the digital distribution. And so over the course of my 10 plus years at Hawaii News Now, the last part of my career, I really felt like we've not only provided Hawaii with a 21st century multimedia company, but along with all the other Emmys and Mach 20, all the woods we won, one of the most decorated stations in America. And a lot of people are looking at us of what we're doing here as being not only revolutionary, but highly innovative. And I was very proud of that. And more than anything, and what it represented as a contribution to the people who live here. Well, you're so right about that, Mayor Rick. And Hawaii News Now definitely was thriving under your leadership. And when you reflect back, what were some of the reasons why you were a successful leader at Hawaii News Now? Well, that's a great question. I would say I always go back, we talked about team earlier. It was a group of men and women that we surrounded ourselves with. And we were very, we were pretty demanding of ourselves, studied with me, but also what we expected from everybody in that kind of an operation. And so I can tell you that, we look for certain common denominators. I look for authenticity. I look for real people, especially people we put on camera. I look for passion, but at the end of the day, it was really people who understood that what we were doing was in service to the public and that the public would come first and that they had that kind of caring and that kind of mindset. And so in that regard, because we were evolving with the times and embracing technology and various applications because as things were unfolding, and we were first started out, nobody's even talking about social media, if you will, but we evolved at the time. So I can tell you the one thing that really worked for us in challenging this young people who were really passionate about the work they were in who understood the fact that we serve the community. I talked more about innovation than I did improvement. For me, improvement was gonna be a given for all of us, by itself included. But what was the, what was, you know, I always talk about managing three kinds of capital. One is the financial, that's sort of a byproduct of the right organization. The other thing really has a lot to do with the human capital, the quality of the men and women that you put together. But then how do you work with the primary derivative of your human capital, which is it's intellectual capital. And, you know, what are the ideas that we would embrace? And, you know, so we had a culture like that, a high culture of expectations, we will push ourselves and we constantly look and embrace new ideas and innovate. And I think that really set us apart. Mayor Rick, I'm so happy that you mentioned culture right there. I wanna, that's a huge thing that I talk about in my books. And, you know, it's not just a culture of excellence, but I like to say it's, you know, we're striving for a superior culture of excellence. And I think that's what you did. That's what your leadership provided at Hawaii News Now where you created this superior culture of excellence to attract a lot of these quality people to build a great team in front of the camera and behind the camera. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah, you know, I have to tell you, they made a plaque when I left that I think is hanging somewhere in that building. And they put on the plaque, the inscription is interesting what people wanna remember you by. And it was because I used to always say, you know, no matter how talented they were, I would always challenge them and say, you know, your best is still in front of you. And especially as I, you know, the older I got, the younger everybody looked. So that became even more so in challenging that way. And they put that on the plaque because that was sort of, that was the expectation. You know, your best work is still in front of you. And then we just worked to try to create an environment and to try to facilitate. They're going back to your initial question, Rusty, about people reaching their potential to where they could try to become as good as they could become. And that for me was about keeping the bar high, acknowledging their success and then in proper way, challenging them to do even do that much better. Yeah, acknowledging success, giving that pat on the back goes a long way in really moving the team forward and making people feel appreciated. And Mayor Rick, I wanna ask you about being mayor. Not many of us know how it feels to be mayor. But what do you- I'm not so sure, I'm not so sure many of you wanna know how it feels to be mayor, but that aside, go ahead. What do you feel are the toughest parts of being mayor? Well, I think the toughest part for me over the last 13 months now that we've been in office is to come in and operate with a sense of urgency, but then have to somehow learn how to calibrate it with the patience it requires to make things happen in government because as much as you want to make things happen quickly, there's a dose of realism there. And sometimes it has to do with some of the things we've already done in changing ordinances and some laws that just were getting in the way, but it's sort of like that. You have this incredible sense of we need to make things and make things happen now and keep in mind that's been exacerbated because we stepped into office in the middle of a pandemic. So, you're looking to try to make things happen because the need is so great on so many different levels and fronts, but you've got to be realistic. And therein lies the frustration because I think you also have a public that expects you to make things happen seemingly overnight. And when you don't, you can feel the frustration. And we all know that we can't satisfy everybody. I mean, I know that as a coach, but whenever we make a tough decision and we explain the reasons why, I think people will understand, but really respect why you made that decision, right? Yes, I hope so. I mean, I think we have to do a better job of communicating and it's something that I intend to be able to do going forward based on ironically enough coming out of the communications industry. I think this past year, quite honestly, we're a little too modest. I felt in the course of the pandemic, we just went about doing our task and people will begin to notice just how much we did get done. I don't think that necessarily gets rewarded in politics. I think we've got to be a little bit more demonstrative and all the things that we are doing to get people feeling a sense of confidence. But, look, at the end of the day, we live in a world right now where there's a lot of unrest, there's certainly a lot of dissatisfaction. I mean, if I get one more pusher word, people talking about the president how unhappy they are there or what politics have become in such a partisan nature to step into a leadership role during a pandemic, with high expectations, trying to meet them as quickly as possible, there's going to be people. I remind myself all the time, we won decidedly, we won by a lot of votes, by over 75,000 votes, there were still 150,000 people who voted for the guy I ran against. And so, they don't all love you walking into office to begin with, or they didn't believe in you. And so you've got that uphill battle anyway. And I think at the end of the day, our North Star is are we doing good work? Are we doing what's right and responsible? Is it making a difference? And we continue to hammer against that every day. Mayor Rick, the Red Hill water contamination situation is just such a terrible thing. I mean, such a disaster. What are your thoughts about that? Yeah, I'm glad you asked me that question because in the beginning I said sort of no comment because, you know, the Board of Water Supply doesn't report directly to the mayor and Ernie Lau is the guy at the table. And at that time, I wasn't being brought into any meetings. And I sort of backfired on me because I was, I'd come from a place where if I'm not the guy at the table and he was negotiating on behalf of the city and really the state, if you will, with the Navy and he's being, you know, he's privileged to get inside information. I mean, I didn't know enough about it. I now know enough about it. I do, I think. And I've been, even though I've been briefed to the extent of realizing it's a matter of national security, I think of what's of greater importance about local security. Right now the threat to our aquifer and I saw the poll this morning, 64% of people think we should drain the tanks. I know the government's against doing that, but we have to protect our aquifer and first and foremost, above all else. And I think that while the military might not officially admit to that, you know, there's been a lot of mistakes made over a long period of time, really a couple of decades and things were deferred and they should have been dealt with prior. So now, you know, as a result of now, this is the third human error since 2014 and it resulted in a really toxic situation for a lot of the military families, unfortunately, who were displaced, but it really created to a really heightened awareness the possibility of that threatening everybody with respect to our own aquifer and our own survivals on the line when it comes to that. So this is of critical importance and I have every confidence in Ernie Lau and representing the Board of Water Supply and really all of us and know and everything has worked its way through the legal system now, you know, that the filings have been made and we'll see what happens legally. But, you know, I come down on the side of protecting our local people and doing whatever we have to do to make sure we do that. Yeah, I mean, it just reaffirms the importance and the preciousness of clean drinking water. And Mayor Rick, I wanna ask you about leadership. I mean, the greatest leaders are proactive rather than reactive and that's what you are. You're a proactive leader. Thank you. What other qualities do you feel the greatest leaders possess? That's a great question, Rusty. You know, I've always been struck, you know, by humility, you know, the people that I've met who have really been highly accomplished in their life. You know, you know that about them, but they're not advertising it, you know? And there's that kind of inner confidence, if you will. It's also, I think I've already alluded to two of the qualities I like to look for. You know, they're authentic, they're real people and they're comfortable in their own skin and who they are. And they're also passionate about what they do. I mean, I don't think anybody accomplishes anything great in this world without having a real love for what they're doing. So I think, you know, that, I mean, it's a consistency too. You know, you need to be consistent in situations that I've been asked to step into when I've replaced somebody after, I was always that guy to get hired to turn something around. You know, you can see that they were, you know, the people will precede you part of their shortcomings or why they failed. It was that guy, they fired somebody that they hired me and said, fix it, you know? Was the inconsistency, you know, and how they dealt with people or decision-making or whatever. So, you know, in a spirit of being fair and ethical and so on and so forth. So I think being transparent is really important one. I also think having good communication skills, you got to be able to talk with people. Management leadership is an intensely human experience. And so you have to be somebody who is willing to engage people, talk with them and be straightforward with them, not just on performance issues, but engage them, care about them. You know, talk about coaching. You get a lot from your players, you know, they want to perform for the coach, you know? You have to build that trust and that respect. So it's about building trust. That's a big one. You got to build trust in your organization. If you don't have trust, it doesn't happen. You can't have a team without trust. I completely agree with everything you said right there. I love everything you said there. And those are all things that's in the books, Mayor Rick. That's good. Well, you're the guy writing books. I'm just trying to hammer it out day by day, Rusty. But look, I know that you are really highly regarded in that regard. And I think what you do is a great service to chronicle things like this so people can learn and see, you know? Because I do believe, I perceive now, I'm 75 years old. I've been enamored with the subject of leadership since I can remember. And I've always tried to get better. I've tried myself on being a lifelong learner. And I do think that leadership is a skill that you can evolve in. You can get better. This notion of while some people are leaders and some are not, if you want to lead, you can learn how to lead. And, you know, and part of what you do is help show people how to do that. I think that that's terrific. I really do. We both agree that great leaders are made and the greatest leaders are always learning. That's what makes them even greater, like you said. And Mayor Rick, you know what? I mean, there's a lot of people that really admire and respect you when there's protests going on. I saw that when the wedding people were protesting outside Honolulu Halle, you came down to really hear their concerns and engage with them. Can you tell me more about that? Well, it was really an impromptu deal. I mean, I went down a few times, I mean, a couple of times with the people who were here to protest mandatory vaccinations or vaccines in general. No, look, we knew that the wedding industry was hurting. I mean, it was no question. And we came in and it became evident actually during the campaign, because again, you know, we were doing all of that, you know, in the early months before there was even a vaccine. And you know, the industries were closing, people were losing businesses and clearly restaurants and weddings were being hammered as well as funerals. I mean, I talked to the funeral association, I mean, you know, they weren't burying people and really all kinds of things like that. So I knew that, you know, weddings are not just a wedding. You know, there's all these other related businesses that go into it. It's part of celebrating life. And so when they were here, when we're down and look, they didn't come here in a hostile way to their credit. We ended up all taking pictures together. We tried to sensitive and, you know, some people didn't understand what our jurisdiction was, but the city and county of Honolulu does not have a Department of Health. And so we yield to the state's Department of Health and under emergency proclamation, that is the law of the land. A lot of people thought we had the unilateral powers here at the mayor's office, which we did not. So we went through a lot in trying to negotiate with the state at various times to allow us as we were moving through the tier system, which was up until last year for six months, because it's just as we approached the Fourth of July weekend. We thought we were all going to hop and then Delta came along a couple of weeks later. But we just wanted to try to get as many businesses back on their feet. And also in this particular case, you know, weddings is such a joyous experience of life. And people are going through all this unprecedented hardship. So even all the more, just because of what weddings represented and not only that, the business of the weddings was a very good thing to get going. So we did everything we could and we got it going. Well, you know, there's not too many leaders that will go and really engage with protesters. And I think that all the leaders should because they need to hear these concerns. And I'm so glad you did that. And Mayor Rick, I want to ask you one more thing before we wrap up. Wow, that fast. I thought we were going to do two hours. I thought you said, Russie, we're going to do two hours. I just won't. You know, I'm going to have to do a part two. I could definitely do a show with you. I didn't know we were ready to call it set match here. Okay. No, Mayor Rick, when you reflect back on your life so far, what's an important valuable lesson that you learned about life so far? Well, to first of all, I really appreciate those people in the inner circle, the people who really care about your life. You know, it's my children and my wife and maybe a couple of close friends. I never tried to delude myself with any form of celebrity thinking, you know, the world loves you. We already talked about that today. But those people who are really in the inner circle, when it all gets said and done and I leave the planet and those people will really be affected by that to take care of those people and love those people and make sure that I keep them as close as I can and support them and love them as much as I possibly can. That's one of the things that I've really learned to appreciate is I've gotten older. The other things that I've gotten, I've really gotten to learn just two quick things is we've all gone through it during this pandemic. I've learned a couple of things. I've learned that people, as they age, people grieve differently. I don't judge people on how they grieve, you know, because I've seen people not cry a tear at a parent and almost, you know, have a breakdown over a pet dying. I mean, all over the place and you just, you know, it's hard to, I don't try to project that on anybody. And the other thing, and I think this has been really true during the pandemic is that people fear differently. You know, I don't try to judge people, but might not be something that feels threatening to me might really scare you. And I've learned to respect that, so between grief and fear. So it's what kind of like loving and how people grieve and how people fear, but it's in that context as far as the real human lessons. And the last thing I would say is to just expect a lot from yourself. You know, I mean, I never saw myself becoming mayor and made this decision. I was 73 years old to even run. And I didn't know what chapters were there, but I want to go through life as aggressively and as hard as I can and give everything I can. And as I once read a great line written by George Bernard, our great Irish playwright back in 1903 in a play called Man and Superman. He simply was talking about servant leadership. He says, you know, he said, the harder I work, the more I live, the more I love. And he simply says, because I want to be used up when I die. And when I read those lines some 30 years ago, I thought, you know what? That's the way to go through it. Mayor Rick, I love hearing your insights. I mean, you've been successful everywhere you've been. And I want to thank you for being on the show today. You are someone that definitely goes beyond the lines. Thank you, Rusty. That's a great compliment coming from you. It's been a real privilege to speak with your audience. And hopefully I said something, they'll have some meaning and value for someone. Thank you, Mayor Rick. 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 Mayor Rick and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.