 Yeah, Community Matters. I'm Jay Fidel. It's Monday morning. Ben Trevino joins us. He's from HIPAA, and it does policy, and it does reports on what's going on, and it does suggestions for policy to everybody. HIPAA is not necessarily the HIPAA medical privacy issue. It's policy for Hawaii. So thank you for joining us this morning, Ben. It's nice to see you. You've been there for a couple months now. Can you talk about your career up to this point, and what qualifies you, what encourages you to do what you're doing? Thank you, Jay. Thanks for having me on the show this lovely Monday morning, Monday in 2021. Yeah, I'd be happy to talk about some of my background, what I'm hoping to bring to the role and bring to HIPAA, and all the things that you mentioned about policymaking in Hawaii. Principle among the characteristics that I think are valuable in this context are relating to innovation and civic technology. So my undergraduate background was in studying computer science. I spent about half my career as a software developer. I started running around with this open source, kind of civic-minded crowd, this open data, open government, and it was actually technology that started by interest towards the public sector. So I've spent several years. I just finished a role where I was working as the sustainability planner for HART. I really loved working in government. We were talking about that just before we got on this call, but I have a real soft spot. I feel like at HART, I'm still a government employee civil... How do you spell that, Ben? H-E-A-R-T or H-R-T? H-E-A-R-T. I have my heart for heart, which is always, which is a difficult project, and like many times it's going through some difficult times now. I started talking a little bit about civic tech and innovation and my career up to this point and how it's been involved in tracking wise kind of thinking about digital innovation. What's the role of tech entrepreneurship in our economy and how do all those things relate? I think I bring some of that experience into this role and how that fits into the larger context of Hawaii as a community and Hawaii as a society overall. I think the other thing that I bring that is especially relevant for HIPAA and, Jay, you mentioned HIPAA, the medical records and privacy rules. I try to use HIPAA as a distinguishing... Thank you. Got it. Got it. But I don't know... I will remember that. Thank you, Ben. But I think some relevant experience, analyzing data. And so for four years, I worked with the good folks over at YouHero on their data side, helping primarily the technical, doing some work to support the technical exercise of downloading and processing data, automating a lot of those processes, and also communicating it. So I spent the last few years that I was there doing research communication, data visualization, and trying to understand how the data that YouHero was collecting, in addition to being useful for the forecast, which is itself a really important product, could be made available to regular folks, to anyone that's interested in the data and using it to make decisions. Okay. And then my essential question is why, at this point in your life, why are you doing this? What motivates you? Is it the big money? It's not the big money. But I like to tell this story when I was in college, the first job I applied for and received an offer for was to be a software developer from Microsoft. That's a great honor. That's a great honor. It felt at the time like not what I wanted to do. I turned that job down. I don't think I earned the salary that was offered until maybe 15 years later, 10, 15 years later. I'm pretty bad, but it comes to you going after the big bucks. It's not my forte. Well, you're part of a generation who wants to see Hawaii be sustainable and deal with all the issues that we have. It's kind of a race. It's a race about trying to deal with those issues and having those issues like submerge us. It's frustrating. I'm sure in the old years, it was frustrating for you, it was for me to see the tech industry not really developed. Innovation never really developed. And a lot of people tried so hard to have that happen, but a lot of other people couldn't care. We're complacent or even opposed it. And now here we are having the same sine curve again. We should be interested in that. COVID and the big question mark around hospitality should make us look at that now. I want to get into that a little, but let me just describe what I think about HIPAA. HIPAA has been around for 20 years. HIPAA has a illustrious board, really leaders of the community. HIPAA's clientele are illustrious companies, leaders of the community. And you're right there. I'm not sure that you have a carte blanca about what you want to look into and what areas you want to make policy recommendations about. But we should talk about those choices and we should talk about exactly what the possibilities are for HIPAA. But one possibility, it seems to me, is to try to resurrect the energy that was going on in the early Aught Years about innovation, about technology, about becoming more than just Hawaii. I found a program. ThinkTac is a software company. I'm telling you, we do our thing the more we realize that software is at the core of everything we do. We have to be Akamai about software. I found a program like yesterday and I'm saying this is so clever. When you look at the tutorials, you hear those young voices and those are the voices of the developers who managed to get the funding, who managed to write it up, who managed to put all those totally clever things in there. I say to myself, you can do that in your bedroom. You can do that in the basement. You can do that in your garage. Why can't we do that here? We are clever. Why can't we get our act together and have a software industry? I'm sure you feel the same way. But tell me whether that is part of the bundle, the array of initiatives that you deal with. Yeah, I think it's certainly, I would characterize it like this. You talked about over the many years observing how Hawaii tried very hard, how many people in Hawaii were committed to creating a tech industry and how that has had mixed results. For the various investments that were made, some have worked very well, some have not worked as well as hoped. My experience of it as a developer in the developer software and technology community is something that really informs how I move forward in policy. One thing that I'll share that I felt very acutely is as I would observe community members, friends, colleagues that I relied on, people that I really depended on for their thought leadership and their partnership, be drawn away, away from Hawaii and consider what was best for their careers, what's best for their families, what's best for their companies and make the determination that they needed to move. Even though they were here and even though they may have wanted to stay, that I think about that quite frequently in how our economy is laid out, what it takes to be able to provide a foundation for talented, invested, civic-minded folks to be able to stay. These are community members that were giving of their time, that were giving of their experience, that were willing to share within the community, that understood that they wanted to grow and were regularly being siphoned off by various places, whether it's Silicon Valley or the East Coast, moving to the East Coast was another thing that happened fairly commonly. I bring that into this policy work, those experiences of loss in our community for folks like that. One of our hosts, Kalee Iakina, he's a trustee in OHA and Kalee is one of his various public policy issues is the brain drain, which I mean sometimes we forget but it's happening, it continues to happen and it's not only the brain drain, it's the labor force train, a lot of people are leaving town, especially in COVID and I think one of the big problems of the state is creating a resilient, flexible workforce that can survive COVID, that can renew itself after COVID, that can take the state forward. Is that among the array of issues that you deal with? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely and I would add to that, not only a resilient and flexible workforce but one that I think is rooted in our strengths in Hawaii and that goes back to this idea of when people leave, why is it possible for people to leave and I think it's because at least one element of it is that as a workforce the skills that we are developing or trading on are not ones that are related to our strengths specifically in Hawaii as a community and there are many and I think one of the things that is required is for us in our policymaking role, HIPAA in its policymaking role, Hawaii in general in its policymaking process to connect the dots between what is special about Hawaii, what are those skills that are valuable in the global market and how do we position ourselves as a workforce to be able to offer those skills and continue to invest in our home. And to create businesses, you know mom and pop, when I first started practicing law which was in the early 70s, A, people from the mainland would come and drop resumes in our basket at the front door of our law firm every day, several of them every day, lawyers and people wanted secretarial jobs too. And they, you know, we were forming mom and pop corporations like all day long, every day, every day, everybody wanted to do business, everybody wanted to take a risk, everybody wanted to find a new thread, you know, for their lives and their children and all that, but it petered off and I'm afraid to say that doesn't really exist. There are no resumes, not a lot of resumes anyway, speak of and furthermore, there are not a lot of mom and pops created a lot of mom and pops are going out of business. It's the other way now. And so, you know, to me, the small business and in migration, those are the backbones of our future. Do you study that? Yeah, absolutely. I think we will study that and part of it is one of our near term projects, one of the things that we are immediately focused on has to do with the resilience of Hawaii's economy and resilience of Hawaii's community. And statewide, I think we recognize that there's a, we meaning the collective we, state of Hawaii recognizes that there is a need to do broad engagement across the community about these questions. And that's difficult to engage a diversity of voices into one conversation. And so one of the things that keep us focused on is for those topics that relate to the economy and relate to resiliency and relate to community, what is a framework that will enable a conversation to happen, whether it's over two years or it's needed now? So, you know, what can we talk about immediately? Because we know that action towards that resilient future is needed immediately. So, the issues of labor force, issues of brain drain, issues of small businesses starting up as you were bringing up, all those I think are extremely relevant to understand this conversation about a resilient future. There's, we need to understand, is this a global trend? Is what we are experiencing in Hawaii as it pertains to small business, is that just us? Or is that part of something bigger? And if so, what does that tell us about what we should be doing? Is it, what are our, when we look to our next generation, the people who will inherit and be responsible for this future? What is it that they are, what are they coming in with? What kinds of fears? What kinds of hopes? What kinds of opportunities they see? And I think that broad conversation to connect across those generations, learning from the past, understanding what we're working with right now, and then aiming for converging on a future that is, that sets up our next generation for success. This framework that we're working on is, is going to do its best to tackle all those things and put them all in conversation with each other. Yeah, and one of the big issues I also want to ask you about is, you know, the future of the hospitality industry here. You know, there have been, you know, lots of issues on my, my favorite one is the REIT issue that, that took five years for the legislature to pass a tax on REITs and, and then the governor for reasons not clear vetoed that. And I'm sure it'll, it'll ever happen right now, at least not in the near term. And then, you know, so what you have is REITs owning the hotels, REITs who are not really, not really rooted here. And, and you have an industry that, that, that the whole state depends on. It's a mono economy. And then the legislature and the government has not really made what I would call broad based efforts to diversify. Do you use that old word we used to get so excited about to diversify the economy. And so now we're in a tipping point because the hotels may or may not make it. Some of them have actually gone out of business. And so the question is, are you, are you on that issue too? To me, that's a really serious public policy issue. And the, the answer is not at all clear. Right. One, the, the relating the topic of the visitor industry to diversification, which has been, like you said, our, our refrain for decades. I think that that's definitely, that's definitely a core focus that this question of diversification, what, what's its relationship to resiliency. And the, one of the things I'll offer a personal reflection and I think that our conversation with the community will probably bear out something similar is that, that I think one of the challenges historically with, with our economy achieving the diversification that we've been talking about is that diversification and resiliency are often at odds with economic efficiency. Right. And we have been, our, our language about the economy, our folks in the economy has been on efficiency. And, and it is just not the case that those two things can, can be present at the same time. Right. To, to be diverse may also be to be redundant, may also be to be decentralized, all these things that work against efficiency, but make an ecosystem more resilient and will make an economy more resilient. I totally agree. And so I think that I think we want to be able to offer that into the conversation. I think intuitively communities understand that. And what's needed is what's missing is probably the common language to talk about it so that like economic policy as it currently relates to efficiency where there's lots of strong language to be able to coordinate get everybody on the same page move everybody towards the same kinds of policies. I think providing a common language for the community to, to lift up the experiences that they already have that they already know and understand the mom and pop businesses to speak to what they're seeing with, with a language of resiliency. I think, I think we'll be, my hope is that we'll be able to offer that through, through this conversation and then move towards an economic policy that brings in brings community into the process because there's at the end of the day it's the community that's implementing the policies implemented by the community that has to live it out, live out those rules, build the businesses, build the entrepreneurial vision and the feedback loop between the policies that are made and the complex machinery that, that then filter it out into the world and then how it gets implemented those things that through that move needs to be connected as much as possible. Yeah, but you know what one of the things that I have noticed increasingly is that this is sort of a mirror image of you know the national social environment and that you know although, although it is valuable for us to agree on things and although we do agree on a number of things, maybe in Hawaii we agree on more than in other states and we, and we don't disagree with the same vehemence as in other states but, but the fact is that over time I think we agree on less, it's my perception alone. For example, you know energy and wind, wind energy for example. There's, there's NIMBY everywhere, every time you look at NIMBY and what that reveals to me is that we do not, we do not have a consensus, we do not have a sort of a statewide value on renewables, put it somewhere else, don't touch me, I'm not going to you know compromise or sacrifice anything for this somewhere else and I'm concerned that you know we, we don't have that unanimity that we need to have to achieve these goals you're talking about and let me add one other thought is that government is by definition leadership, it is not only being responsive to constituents, it is also coming up with ideas and, and plans and initiatives and talking to people like you and going forward and implementing those plans, executive means to execute you know take a plan and make it happen and, and I think we've lost touch with that notion so it's all very amorphous and to use your term conversation it's an ongoing you know perpetual conversation with very little action at least in the recent years and I'm concerned that going out of COVID here we really need to have consensus, we need to have a, a general unanimity on lots of things in order to rebuild, reopen and all that. Do you agree, what are your thoughts about that? Well I think the point that you're making about leadership is, is something that's on my mind and, and I think is if, if HIPAA is, can have a focus that through this process, through all the products, through all the research that we do, through all the convening that we do, all the conversations that if one of the outcomes can be leadership development for everyone that we engage I, I think that's one of the greatest contributions that HIPAA can make. One of your, you, you brought up the issue of renewable energy and, and wind turbines and one of the most memorable experiences I remember having from my role at heart talking about sustainability was going to the annual, I think it was the annual Girl Scouts STEM Fest and talking to Girl Scouts from, from around, from around the island and I think these were sixth graders and one of the groups that came up to, to talk to me at my booth for heart was from Kahuku and the, the conversation that we're having is like what's something that you see that's sustainable in your community and what's something you see that's unsustainable in your community and for the girls were like we don't really know but we don't, I'm not sure what you're asking with that question and then I asked them what's something that's happening in Kahuku and they were able to rattle off not only in great detail about the technical issues relating to windmills and the community conflict that's happening but they were able to hold in my opinion both sides of the argument they were able to understand what people were saying were the advantages and what people were saying were the disadvantages and I remember walking away from that conversation thinking I, I don't know about this issue I would be more than happy to delegate whatever happens to these young Girl Scouts because they, they understand it, they get it, they are and they're very thoughtful about it and I think that it's a testament to our educational system which again is, is often criticized and has many responsibilities and struggles I think it's a testament to organizations like the Girl Scouts that cultivate that kind of, that kind of leadership and that, that kind of environment for, for young folks to get support I think it's a testament to the community in Kahuku I think it's a testament to the developers who are actively trying to engage and have a conversation about what they're doing and it's, and it's just a matter of supporting those folks who are, who need to be in the leadership positions and in my opinion that would be those Kahuku youth who will be, who will be living the consequences of, of the decisions that we make today and, and supporting them and, and helping them understand what, how do you approach a difficult decision like this you know how do you, what are the kinds of things to consider, what are the consequences, what do other people do when confronted with the same kind of complex decision and I, I feel very strongly that we're in good hands and our role is to, to support as much as possible. You know I, I just, just hearing you on that and thinking about our conversation today it strikes me that a public, a public affairs organization sort of like HIPAA could actually foment greater thinking and focus on leadership itself on taking the Girl Scouts and, and showing them that yes you, you can be informed but it's not perpetual you have to make a decision and then when you make the decision you have to advocate for the decision and, and then you have to get into a position where your advocacy will actually have an effect on public policy all those things instead of being a bystander instead of just being informed I think we have to, we have to train our community to take it to the next step to reach that unanimity on fundamental points that we absolutely need to go ahead. So my last area of inquiry with you Ben is I like to know how you pick these subjects and the reports that you make the policy recommendations that you recommend where do they come from how, how do they get shaped and focused and articulated and funded for that matter and then what, you know what happens with them in other words I'm looking for the think tank aspect of what you do what do you study and how do you sort of do outreach on it. Yeah great, great questions and I just want to take a second to really echo your point about the role leadership and civic engagement in particular I think that it is a continual and leadership driven process to be able to engage the work that we do in terms of providing information only has value to the extent that folks are willing to to take it up advocate for it and then see it through and so leadership development and civic engagement are really central to what we do. To answer the question about how do we develop projects where do the research topics come from how do we study HEPA having been around for 20 years and me being around for only two months of it you know I am becoming I understand I think I always understood in my application for this job and in preparing for it but I'm really fully starting to understand the the degree to which HEPA has generated a network of respect and good will from from the conversations that it's facilitated and from being in community to listen to the different viewpoints and the different aspects and what that has meant and and for folks that know that understand that and for folks that are meeting HEPA for the first time I think how I envision us developing projects is through that network of partnerships understanding what area of our economy or our governance or community we need to understand better and what what partnerships can align around that that need to provide more insight and information to that and then recognize the opportunity of doing that because we can make a significant policy impact and so through those kinds of partnerships I think starting to to convene research advisory councils going out to our partners and and sharing the work that we're currently doing and having that stimulate more ideas through the the creative and remix process I think that there's I think there's an endless endless list of things that we can be studying and to the extent that we can structure it in a way that that provides meaningful policy outlook outputs then potentially we can scale because there's a lot of research capacity in their community you know the University of Hawaii being a prime example of many talented researchers who who have lots of directions of in-depth inquiry to go but more broadly into our communities people who have deep expertise about things that really matter to our entire community and can be translated into policy when we can get when HIPAA can get networked with those folks and work together on developing research projects that turn into policy outcomes and policy recommendations I think that there will be there's there's no end to what we can be studying and and it's just a matter of how much how we can put projects together you know that software I told you about that I found what tipped me on it I'll tell you what tipped me on it it was testimonials by people who liked it okay and what and how did they present those testimonials by video little one second you know one minute video testimonials about how much this individual liked and used the program and so that's interesting you know it's better than four or five stars and all that it's you know it really helps me see who the people are that are using it and whether I am a kindred spirit to them and whether I can relate to their situation whether I would you know benefit by this as well and then I and I pushed the the scroll down and there were more and then more and then more there were hundreds of them all these little video vignettes about and that and that absolutely persuaded me I had to see more about this product and and what I'm what I'm telling you is I think that you know social media and and the media in general has a huge effect on extending what you're talking about you can have a conversation among the the researchers at UH the the community in general that is involved in this particular initiative and the funders the community organizations some of them are your clientele you know who have money and who can support and fund a given initiative and and you to research that initiative and make recommendations on it but at the end of the day if you want to achieve unanimity on a given point say energy for example you have to reach everybody and therefore my question to you my my last question to you where does the media play in all of this all kinds of media where does it play in extending what you're doing and doing outreach in reaching the community to change the thinking of the community we've seen how how Trump Donald Trump over four years has had a huge effect in playing social media and he will try to continue that but but query you know where do you see it in this positive experience you're involved in and in the need to do sustainability re resilience and reopening here in Hawaii yeah that's a great question and I I love the way you framed it and I and I think what I can offer to that question and the way that we've been thinking about it is that the the media the media connects so many people to issues right that the media is how people experience the you know the the world outside of their immediate view and what I think the media is is most responsible for stewarding is the public narrative about our story right our our story is a community who are we what what has been happening to us what where are we going and what what HIPAA can provide the media is information to to fill in that public narrative here here are the things that we see here are the things that we understand are happening and then it's it's the responsibility of the media to pull that together into something into a meaningful into a meaningful story of who we are and why what we're doing is important we the collective we not the HIPAA we and and they and I think pulling together a hopeful story about where we're going and a story that's focused on our connections to who got us here and then who is going to be inheriting our work I think that's I think that's one of the most important responsibilities that we have because those coordinating narratives have been the source of human success for our entire you know for as I understand it our entire history as a species those stories and those narratives of of what it is that we're doing together are the thing that hold us together so Ben where can I find out more I mean I looked at your website it's really from an aesthetic point of view it is really beautiful it is beautiful but I'd like to find out more I'd like to find out the projects you have worked on I'd like to read some reports and recommendations I'd like to see what you're working on now what you might work on in the future how do I find out about that well the number one recommendation I would have is sign up for our email list you know our website thank you for those comments on the website it is it is undergoing a redesign and and where is that right all of our all of our reports and resources in in this new website context but the signing for the email allows us to stay in touch and then we can do that and as we are able to release more information on our website we'll do so and then we'll be able to communicate by that by that email connection thank you Ben and thank you for this half hour and thank you for for taking the the plunge at HEPA and I hope that we can you know meet again and talk more about what HEPA is doing what it what it likes to be doing and what and what it recommends for you know making Hawaii greater than ever uh Ben Ben Natrovino the president and CEO of the Hawaii Institute for Public Affairs HEPA in Hawaii thank you Ben thank you Jay Aloha Aloha