 Hey, Aloha, everybody. How you doing? Welcome to the Bachi Talk. Andrew, the security guy here. I'm not Gordo the Texar. Unfortunately, he's not here. He's gone to watch his grandson play San Jose State tomorrow morning. Go Warriors. We're looking for a good outcome from that game, from those guys. But I do have a very special guest in the studio with me today, Mr. Sid Kentaw. Thank you for taking some time out to come and spend your Friday after lunch with us, sir. I appreciate you being here. Love being here. So, Sid has quite a varied history that I think you guys can enjoy. And we're going to talk specifically about some of the things that brought him here that revolve a little bit around the VA. And there are good work that they do here for folks. So, yeah, we've got a little bit of a soldier's story title today. And I'll have a little security minute for you after the break as well. So, Sid, welcome. Our format, we'd like to try to give our guests a little bit of history about your background. Did you just land here yesterday or did you grow up here? So, start where you're comfortable and kind of give us your history in Hawaii. Because yours is good. I'll give you the five-minute version. Give me the 12-minute version, then we'll take a break. Born and raised here. Whereabouts? Actually, I was born in Kaimuki. And then I ended up ending up in Kalihi, and from Kalihi to Kulio'o. And I had a little bit of a transition in my youth, and I ended up back at Foster Village. But I went to Kamehameha Schools. We've had a lot of Kamehameha grads on the show. And so we, from there, college on the West Coast, went to Woodbury University, headquartered in Newt Burbank. It was going to be an accountant. An accountant? How did that strike you? Like, how many young men did you actually grow up on? It was boring. It found it to be boring. So I said, I'm going to get into sales management. So I got into sales management, finished up in college. That was in 1966, height of the Vietnam conflict. And I was 1A, and I decided, well, I can't get a job. I was going to go to Europe for a while, but I said, no, I'm just going to come back, volunteer for the shaft. And then a couple of months later, I was the property of Uncle Sam. Was 1A at that time, what would that have, would that mean you were like a waiting being drafted, or what is a 1A status? You are immediately eligible for service. Okay, so then you would wait to be called, or you could just go ahead and sign up and say, let me go? Oh, once I told him I was ready, the orders were cut and the whale went. And did you do that from here? I did that from here. I came back to Hawaii, went in. I wanted to go in with a Hawaii contingent. Sure. And so did my training at Fort Ord and what have you. And then my service for two years came back out, lived on the mainland for a couple of years. Then I came back and I worked for a small start-up company called Safety Equipment Assign Company. Okay. And I worked for the owner during my high school years doing part-time work at what have you. So eventually I bought the name and the assets out and... Oh, you bought it from the owner? Right. Okay. And so in 1978, I took it for 25 years. Folks might know it as Safety Equipment Assign Company, Sun Industries, Hawaii. We were purchased by Grace Pacific in 2003. It's now called GP Roadway Solutions. Wow. And then Grace got purchased by A&B. Yeah, so going back to... because you jumped very quickly there. Okay. From coming home, you went down and signed up. So was that a shaft or where did people sign up back then? How did you enlist that? Oh, that was the ways. I think it was down at Fort DeRussis. Oh, at Fort DeRussis? Yeah. Because that's where it came back from a R&R. Okay. And then you were infantry? 25th Infantry Division. Okay, 25th Infantry. And it was... Still here? A wonderful experience. Back then, I weighed 172 pounds. Okay. Slightly lighter than I am now. And... Wait, about 175 today, so... Sure. Okay. But anyway, it was an experience. I think government... I mean, military service is something to be very proud of for all of us. Sure. To take that on people. I think a lot of people have lost that back at that time when there was, you know, there was a draft in eligible people. You know, it was an honorable thing to go. And I think the military's, you know, sometimes lost some of that luster for some people, depending on who you talk to. Times have changed. And they don't think they know how good it is, you know? I learned a lot of stuff. Every two weeks, I got a paycheck. What I had to do is what I was told. What about you? Oh, yeah. Did you have to make decisions or did you just... I got a paycheck and I got free meals. So, I mean, it could go wrong. Best job I ever had. It was. And at that time, you know, in my early 20s, it was something... Yeah. And it was different. But, you know, you... It's hard to describe defending America and coming home and being part of the traditions that go on each year. Sure. And I forget those that are still over there enlisted as missing in action or COW. Yeah. So, it is truly something that I'm proud of. And I think there are many Americans who maybe don't recognize the true value of our men and women in uniform. But I'll tell you what, we would be a much worse off place if we didn't have the military that we need today. Sure. And the pride... It's living here. Right. I love it. You got the 75th for Pearl coming up. And still some of those guys that served aboard the Arizona are coming. So, that's kind of interesting stuff, too. So, let's see. You are there. So, 66... And you were on in-country... In-country, 67, 68. 67, 68. So, hot times there. And whereabouts were you? I was in Coochee. Okay. And operating between Coochee and Cambodian. What kind of... What kind of... Did you up with, like, on the helicopters? Or would you end up... What kind of duties did you do? I went over there with Granders of being a security embassy guard. Okay. I was an MP. And I ended up with the 25th MP company with the 25th Infantry Division. But then it was different. Everybody was spread out to support all the units within the division. Sure. All over the country by that time. I mean, we were everywhere. Well, yeah. I mean, operated throughout Coochee in their immediate area. But it was an interesting year. It was in country for a year. And glad to have gotten home. Sure. Got off the plane. Walked away and didn't look back. Why were they bringing you back to Maine then, probably? Travis. Okay, Travis. I separated at Travis. And... How was that getting home when you were finally safe and no more bullets flying, you know? It was interesting. I got off the plane and dropped my cigarettes in a trash can. Stopped smoking then. And I've been home. Been going back since. And again, back then you were just glad to be home. So the service just ended? Did you out-process? How did it... You out-processed there. And then you're in this active reserve for a number of years. Oh, I see. And then you go completely out. So were you active reserve here in Hawaii? No. I was in California. Okay. Because what happened, I separated in Travis. I'd fallen in love in my college days before I went to Vietnam. But then married. And I stayed there. Okay. Before I came back here to work for the same guy I worked for in high school. All those years. Were you always... Were you entrepreneur? Did you have that mindset? Or were you kind of just looking for work when you got back under him? Or did you know that maybe you'd have an opportunity to take that from him already? Or was it a true business? Yes. I knew that I wanted to be on my own. And eventually I was going to do it. But when I came back and worked for the... Alan Perry was his name. He was growing his business. He wanted somebody to come in and be his second in command. And I said, sure. We put it together once. It didn't work. I left the company, went back to California. And he called me back again. We tried to put it together. It didn't really work that time either. And so at that point, he was trying to sell part of the company to another firm. So I decided that, well, I would go with that deal if it happened. And it didn't happen. So I had to make a decision. So I went in the next day. I said, listen, it didn't work. The deal didn't work. So I'll do it. I didn't have any money. But we put a deal together. Was he surprised? He was surprised. Wow. So I started off on September 1, 1978. And I sold it 25 years later to the day. Wow. To Grace Pacific. That's a guy who planned his exit straight. So you did that sales and marketing background from college, right? Correct. And you had leadership, of course, from the Army. So you brought that to the table. What was his background? Was he good at running the business? Or was he... Some owners are like good at... They have the skill sets, but they don't have the vision for business. It's interesting because it was a business that was chemical toilets. Okay. And then he had a safety line. And then he also did personal protection sales. And so what happened was I bought the assets of the signage and the personal protection, and barricade rentals, and the name. Okay. And then I launched on that. The reason he wanted to get out was he made it made enough. So he wanted to just sell off and retire and raise macadamia nuts on the big guy. Nice. And it was nice. Unfortunately, that was short-lived. He passed away two years after selling me the business. Wow. At least he got a couple of years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, an exit strategy is so important in any business, as you know. Sure. Well, I like that. The other thing that you brought up is something that the business community should pay attention to. Things don't always work the first time in business. So you try a few times and you finally got something that worked out. It didn't work out as well for him. He may have liked the exit sooner, but, you know, the fact that the first buyout didn't work out, the second didn't work out, but that came your way. So, you know, business is always ways to do things if you keep working at it, you know. That's a good story. You have to not, if you go into something knowing you don't know, you're better off. Yeah. Because I think if most business people knew what they were heading into, you're either under-capitalized, under-adequately staffed, there's always insurmountable hurdles. And you have two o'clock meetings with yourself in the morning trying to what in the world I get myself into. That sounds like my story. Now we're talking my story. That's right. I just said I can do this. I have a credit card. Oh, yeah. It's broke ever since. Well, I'll tell you what. Payroll can just swell up on you as fast as benefits are swelling up for you. And, you know, I feel for the businesses here in Hawaii this morning's paper, what? HMSA is hikes that have never been seen before. Sure. And Kaiser, I think. But it's going to impact everyone. Ever business. And the little guy that's participating now is going to suffer even greater. Yeah. And ultimately it impacts the consumers, right? Correct. Because we've got to pass that on. That cost, you know, if all of our insurance rates go up, just like when gas goes up, all that stuff. So, you know, especially in the services industries like I'm at, you know. Right. But it's, the consumers tend to get a little bit of a, they get a little past because they've already got quotes in hand and you got to honor those. Sure. And then so you don't get to, if they don't buy soon, their prices will go up. Say, you know how construction changes. You know, you were in the services business, right? You guys installed and set up the barricades as well as you sold equipment, right? We were multifaceted. We installed, we supplied on the construction side of it in our company. And then we also did, you know, safety consulting. Sure. Safety for the, for the city, for the barricades, for the roadways. Everything. And so it's, and you know, like in anything in Hawaii, you have a populace that is rather restricted by, you know, our island stake situation. So, you know, you want to do complete selling to your customers. Yeah. You know, don't try to get them all new, get all new ones. Just make sure you maintain the relationship and you can do a good job for your customers that you already have. Sure. That's always great advice. So hold that thought a minute. We're going to take a break. We'll pay a few bills as Gordo likes to say. And we'll be back in just a minute with second talk. Aloha. My name is Danilia, D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. We are the co-hosts of Keys to Success, which is live on Think Tech Live Streaming Network series weekly on Thursdays at 11 a.m. Aloha. Aloha. Hi, I'm Jay Fidel. That's Ted Ralston. You know, Ted is the host of Where the Road Leads. It shows every Friday from 4 to 5 p.m. It's about technology. It's about how people collaborate and solve problems with modern technology. It's where the road leads. We all know that. We should all be listening. Join us there. 4 to 5 p.m. every Friday. Now, what about that you agree with? All of it. I knew we'd say that. Aloha. Say Aloha. Aloha. Good. Welcome back to Abasi Talk. Andrew, the security guy here. Gordo, the techs are not with us today. But to Kintaz and the house, thanks for showing up, Sid. Yep. And I got a little bit of a security minute for you, because something came across my desk, so I thought I'd talk about this. We've been preaching for this active shooter event, you know, the Run Had Fight program that came out from the FBI. And it's great advice. And I just wanted to add to that that there's some news, some studies have sort of been done since that time, which has been, that's maybe two years ago, we sort of rolled that program out. We've talked about that periodically here. Some of the newer stuff is trying to say that, you know, maybe the had part is not really the best thing to be doing. So, obviously Run, you know, if you can exit a situation safely, exit it immediately and do not stop exiting until you encounter law enforcement. And remember, you know, don't have stuff in your hands like your cell phone. They can't tell what that is. So make sure that you're nice and clean for officers that are responding. But the had part of that is maybe questionable. And so it may be better to take the group that you're with and you may have more success swarming an individual and overwhelming them. And there's been some work done now to indicate that if you have the right people in the room who are willing to do that, that you may all be a lot more successful than waiting for trying to hide from a gunman who's got a lot of ammo and enough time to stay in a place and root people out. So, obviously, just wanted to introduce that idea that this is some of the new stuff that people are starting to talk about. So if you find yourself in that active shooter situation, again, hopefully you've done some of this training, you've done some of this training with your employees and run had fight should be looked at. But that had piece you might want to pay a little more attention to and if you find yourself in that situation, look at the folks around you and decide if you could overwhelm that person and maybe by just swarming on them. So thanks for that. So Sid, thanks for being with us today. Sure. And we were talking a little bit about service. We were talking a bit about business. We didn't get quite up to some of your political work that you did. So let's talk about the community service from a guy who built a business for 25 years, right? Then sold it, quite successful. Didn't have to help out, but you got the call. I got the call. Along with the techs are who also served and worked for Mufi and for Peter Carlisle. You ended up helping out your community that way too. So more service that you did. Give us a sense of how you got involved. Yes, after the acquisition by Grace Pacific. You were flush. Flush, you know, and paid my taxes. Ready to retire? Ready. Actually, we structured the deals that I'd stay on for a couple of years. But right after that, Bob Wilkinson, who was president of Grace Pacific at the time says, I want to have a meeting with you up at the Greek Pacific Club. So I went to see him and he said, I want you to come down a couple of days. I want you to work on marketing for the overall operation. I said, well, okay. Well, can I think about it? He said, sure. Let me know tomorrow morning when you can move. No pressure. Yeah. And so we did that. And I actually, and that was in 2004 and we were getting ready to open up the Kapaa plant. And I invited Duke Bainam at the time and Mufi Hanaman at the time to come. And my job was to coordinate that event and to let them know that we wanted a pavement preservation program. It would save the people, state of Hawaii a lot of money and we would have the improved roadways that we've been aiming for even today. Forever. Okay. And so the pavement preservation program was a hot item. And so Mufi came, Mr. Bainam unfortunately didn't show up. And after that, you know, I just went about my work. Mufi got elected and what have you. And then I got talked into saying from CHAPS at the Pacific Club where we work out, oh, you ought to submit your resume to Mufi. They're looking for good guys. And so I said, well, you know why not? You know, if it's okay with Great Pacific, and sure enough, one thing led to another and I became director of enterprise services for another Mufi Hanaman administration. And so our audience may not know what all that encompasses. Okay. So you had the zoo. The enterprise services is supposed to be the enterprising part of government. That's the vision there in part. We competed with regular other businesses for ticket sales. Honolulu Zoo was under our, my purview, the six city golf courses. We also had the Blaisdell Center complex, the shell, and then we had all of the outsourced city concessions. So you were the guy to see if there was a concert in town? I would be the guy to see if there was a concert in town. And it was a wonderful experience because our operating budget was from through ticket sales. And we were the only department that did that. So you generated your own revenue? We generated our own revenue. And then our capital budget came out of the regular city budget. And it was still supplemented if we were short in some areas on the operating. Basically, we had to plan and look at ways to create revenue stream at a good cost and have that customer satisfied. And we did, I think we did a pretty good job. We had a pretty good team. They're quite a while. And I told the mayor because he wanted us to do an asset review at the time. So we did the asset review early in 2005 and I came back and I said either shut it down or invest in it because if you don't invest in it then we're not going to be able to accomplish our mission to have things. And one of the biggest things that we did was to bring Lion King to Honolulu and among other acts. But it was with that thought in mind that we wanted to expand the horizon for a lot of people in Hawaii that may not leave the islands but we could bring outside of the islands to Hawaii. And so it worked out pretty good. I served for Mufi. He got re-elected. And then a short time with Korkowal when he assumed after Mufi resigned and then when Korkowal didn't get re-elected at the time I went and worked for Peter Carlisle. And at that point in time seeing where the things were headed for the islands and what have you, I became a bit disenchanted quite honestly. And so I decided to move to New Zealand. And I don't want to say self-imposed exile but I thought it would be a better lifestyle. And New Zealand's got a lot of good things going for itself. You want to re-register your car, you go down to the post office. If you want to get your license renewed you go to an outsourced AA effect similarly. Their parks and recreation, it's all outsourced. Roads are outsourced. So there's a lot of private contracting that goes on on the maintenance side for New Zealand. It seems to work. I mean, we're happy with where we are. But coming back, my wife and I come back on a regular basis. Some of it for VA. Yeah, so let's talk about how that caught you at the club this week. It's sad. It's good. What's up? Yeah, so what happened is that I did some initial screening with the VA many years ago thanks to a friend of mine. But then my wife said, you know, you should go back up there and talk to them about, you know, filing a disability claim and what have you. So I really, I was just glad I left the plane in 2000 back in 1968. And so I went up there and lo and behold by the time I filled all the paperwork, I said, yeah, you do have something legitimate. And they gave me a rating and they gave me a pension. And you're covered. And so now the problem with being covered though is that they say I was in the foreign medical program. And the foreign medical program, you deal with Denver. And when I called Denver, they said, you know, that's not what we, it was a lot of confusion. Wow. And that's foreign medical just because you live in New Zealand now. Because I live in New Zealand. And there's a VA center in Australia. There's a VA center in the Philippines. Okay. But there's nothing in New Zealand. So when I would call, I kind of get shuffled around. Interesting. And finally, I found a wonderful person in Pittsburgh who assigned me to the VA center here in Honolulu. And it's been a migration process. I see. How long did you have to work on this? Roughly eight months. Tara nudged you a little bit and said, go see what you got. Eight, nine months. Actually, I needed to get my eyes checked. And she says, get up there and get your eyes checked. And I've had that done and we're off and running. And you're in and out of Honolulu a few times a year. Yeah, a few times a year. But what I would like to say about the VA is that don't believe everything you hear about the negative impact. You know, there are things wrong with the VA like any large agency. And that starts at the top. We're going to let those guys take care of it, hopefully. But what I'd like to say is that the people here at Tripler have been so helpful in trying to help me sort out my problems. Okay. And I'd like to, in particular, I can tell you, if there are veterans out there that really are kind of lost in the shuffle and get frustrated, you know, call up there, try to speak to a case worker. I ended up with a young lady named Inga McLaughlin, who I don't mind saying did an outstanding job. She's followed up on my appointments. And I really feel that now I've finally gotten into a program for good health maintenance where I'll be coming in once a year and making the appointments for what I need. Wow, that's awesome. And it's worked out. And I can honestly say out there that the VA does work. And I can't thank the folks up at the VA center here enough. And so when you, so when you, did you have an appointment or did you have to come and sort of register and then they gave you an appointment? I go back and go back. Or once you, once you were headed here, you were able to arrange your onboarding with the folks here or how that tells. It took me a few weeks to sort out where I was going. Okay. And it finally ended up with Inga because they didn't know the guy from New Zealand. Well, what do we do with him? I see. You know, and it was kind of that catch 22. So finally a decision was made. We chatted more about it because some things can be covered in New Zealand, but there's some things that couldn't be covered in New Zealand through their medical care system. So in talking to Inga, she did her efforts to convince people that, hey, this is a guy that's caught between the rock and a hard spot. One that could fall through. So they made a, they made a decision where they assigned me a primary care doctor, which was really the stumbling block. And I've got that secure now. And so now with that assignment, even though I'm not in state, I will be able to be treated here at Tripper. Yeah. So I'm wondering if you have any idea how many people that aren't, you know, that aren't don't live in Hawaii, they get treatment here. I imagine there, because there's probably several spread around Korea and Guam and all the islands and, you know, like guys that exited that, you know, just don't live here anymore, but live out in the Pacific somewhere. I had no idea. I mean, again, it would be, it would be interesting to know what the, what is occurring. I ended up being contacted by the US Embassy in New Zealand when I filed my initial claim. Okay. It took about nine months to get that process. So that State Department came back to you. Correct. And so what happened, they said, here's what it is. You need to get a physical here. You send it back to me and we'll take it from there. And I did that in the course of 45 days. And I think 90 days later, they came back with a rating and with an announcement, you know, what my compensation would be. And then from there, the treatment side of it kind of fell off the wagon. Okay. Until this trip here. So you got here. We're in good shape here. And so your primary, so just your primary care physician, so, because they're military, they may be stationed here, but maybe they, maybe he gets repositioned some to the mainland hospital. Could be. Would you have to go to the VA office there or they would just give you a new one here? I would be reassigned one here. Okay. So that seems really reasonable. I mean, it seems like a good, especially if someone had, hadn't engaged the system. You hadn't, you hadn't been involved with the VA system at all. So for quite a while, you know, you obviously weren't, weren't in need of it. But now you said, hey, I might have some benefits. Let me go check on it. And you worked your way back in. So I think it's amazing. No, it was, it was a really good stroke of fate, I say. You know, my wife bugged me about it. And I didn't think anything would come of it, but it did. And I'll tell you, it does work. The system does work. Don't give up any of you veterans that get frustrated. Just keep asking for support. There you go. You heard it here on Abachi Talk. The VA is doing a lot of great stuff out there. Don't give up. It might be a little painful at first. But Sid, thank you so much. Thanks for coming in today. Pleasure. Thanks for sharing your story with us. Okay. Soldier's Story with Sid Contall. We'll see you next week. I don't think I'll be here, but the techs are. I'll be back. So Aloha everybody. Oh, we have a thing we do. One, two, three. We say, how are you doing? How are you doing? Thank you.