 Hi, I'm Rusty Calori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. I retired as head coach in 2015 to write a book titled Beyond the Lines to share my experiences about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence, and finding greatness which is what this show is all about. Today's special guest is an extraordinary man, a highly respected leader here in Hawaii, and the president of Zippy's restaurants. He is Paul Yokota, and today we are going Beyond the Chili. Paul, great having you today. Thanks, Rusty. Thanks for having me. I know you for many years because we live at the same condo, and I heard that today you're going to reveal the secret ingredients about the Zippy's chili. You know, Rusty, I like you a lot, but there are just certain things I can't share. Thanks for asking. Thanks for asking. Well, I tried. I tried. So, Paul, like I said, I know you for many years, but can you tell me about the early years of Paul Yokota? Sure. I grew up right outside of town in Pacific Heights in Poa Valley, went to Poa Elementary, grew up playing baseball at Booth Park and going to Poa Stream every day, and I was accepted into Iolani in the fifth grade and graduated from Iolani and enjoyed my time there and then went to University of Hawaii and got a degree in travel industry management and business administration. Great. So, Paul, what's the first job that you've ever had in your life? Okay. That goes a way back. My first job was selling men's clothes. I was a sophomore in high school and I worked at the Ritz men's stores. I'm not even sure if you remember that, but it was at Alamoana and I had a chance to work with some older guys who kept me under their wing and sold men's clothes, so some suits to a lot of shirts, to slacks, socks, ties, you name it. Wow. Interesting. And Paul, you have a fantastic family. I know your family for many years. Your wife, Gwen, and your daughter, Aria, I mean, I've seen Aria grow up, but I want to know, how did you and Gwen meet? You know, I'm very blessed. I was in the hotel industry for many years and she, through her work with Queen's Hospital, was doing dinners at the Prince Waikiki or the White Prince Hotel Waikiki. She and I got to know each other from making arrangements. It turns out that many, many years ago, I had worked with a sister when I was managing Hotel in Maui, but we really didn't connect at that point. Wow. So it was through my work at the hotel and then she and I trained together. She introduced me to a dojo in Kalihi called Chozenji and we got to know each other better than. Well, Paul, you and Gwen are fantastic parents to Aria. I mean, she's a sixth grader now at Yolani. And I also know that you have a passion for singing and playing the guitar, which is so cool. How did that begin? Well, it actually began when I was a young teen. My mom took me to a music store and said I could select any instrument in the store, but whatever I selected, I need to stick with and I picked the guitar. So I had one lesson that was provided with buying the guitar and then I kind of learned on my own and music helped me through high school and through college. I played with bands in Waikiki International Marketplace, the neighbor islands. I got to meet a lot of people through music. In fact, at one point I thought that would be a career, but I realized that I needed to eat every day. So unfortunately, music didn't work out that way, but I enjoyed the interaction with the audience. I enjoyed constantly learning and the interplay between myself and the other musicians in the band. I learned that there's certainly a level beyond me of people who are complete experts and I'll never be a great musician, but I truly enjoy the journey of learning. Who are some of your music idols that you love? Good question. Eric Clapton, I think he's amazing on the electric guitar. When it comes to acoustic music, I like Kenny Loggins. And one of the guitars I owned, I purchased, used because I was told that Kenny Loggins had played it at one point. Whether or not he actually did, it's my story and I'm going to stick with it, but I enjoy playing that guitar. Paul, what leadership positions did you have prior to leading zippies? I spent, oh gosh, decades in the hospitality industry, so I worked initially for Western hotels in Waikiki, Southlake City, Atlanta. I opened up hotels in Maui as well for Western. I moved up the ranks from working at the front desk and through various positions in the hotel to attaining my initial management positions, overseeing the front office and then overseeing the rooms division. And then as I progressed through my career, I eventually attained the position of general manager. And I became general manager when I was with Prince hotels and I spent about a dozen years with them. I managed the hotel in Maui, the hotel on the big island. I managed the hotel in Waikiki. And I eventually was able to rise up to the position of vice president and chief operating officer for Prince Resorts Hawaii. Fantastic. So now as zippies president, what's the history of zippies? I want to know, how did zippies begin? Zippies began as the dream of two brothers, Francis and Charlie Higa. Francis and Charlie had a family business, but wanted to reach out on their own. So they started zippies in Makali. At that point, they had no experience in the restaurant business. They had no experience running their own business, but they were extremely energetic. They were highly motivated. They were genuine people. And because they were so genuine, a lot of people offered to assist. So in 1966, they opened the first location right across from where Washington Middle School is. And we have that today. And they started zippies to illustrate what the local foods are and to express what local flavors are and how it should be served. And to their credit, they worked all the shifts themselves. They constructed all the furniture for the location. They came up with all the recipes. And here we are today. Well, thank God for the Higa brothers. Absolutely. We owe them a debt. And their legacy still permeates our company. So how did zippies get its name? In 1966, when we opened, it was about the time that zip code was being introduced to all the residents of Hawaii. And zip code meant that we were moving ahead, that it illustrates the speed of service. It meant that we're taking a step into the future. And zipies stuck. Wow, interesting. I had no idea. But that's interesting about the zip code. Now, you're also the president of FCH Enterprises. What is FCH Enterprises? First of all, FCH stands for Francis and Charlie Higa. And once the zippies restaurants were started, there were a couple other entities or companies that were opened as well. We have a company called Food Solutions International, which is a USDA production facility and kitchen in Waipio. They provide many of our menu items for our zippies restaurants. So they provide the chili, as you might know, the stews. They provide the gravies. They provide items that we make in large volume. And it's distributed every day to our 24 locations. In addition, they also make retail packages, which are sold in the top retail stores in Hawaii and across the mainland. In addition, we have Napoleon's Bakery, which is a production bakery that provides, of course, the product for our zippies restaurants. But zippies also, I'm sorry, Napoleon's Bakery also provides product that is sold in military bases, sold in big box stores, sold through some of the hotels in Waikiki. And then we have two catering operations. One is a catered experience. And they're the exclusive caterer at the Okinawan Center in Waipio. And then Pomaikai Barrooms right down the street here in Ivele. Yeah. Well, that's a lot. It's a lot. Tremendous team we have. And I'm very blessed and proud to be working with so many committed and dedicated people. Yeah, so talking with you earlier, you love your employees. You love all of your team members. How many employees and how many restaurants for zippies do you have now? We have 24 restaurants, 22 of which are on Oahu. We have one in Kahlui Maui and one in Hilo on the Big Island. We have 2,200 employees. And it's a blessing to me that I get to work with so many people who are willing to share their abilities and their personalities and experiences with me. Yeah, and they seem so happy. I mean, I go to zippies every week. And then that all starts from the top. In terms of leadership and creating a culture. Well, you know, I certainly can't take credit for all that. It's definitely the team that we have. Yeah. The team is into support. The team is into making sure that we help each other out. That's one of our important core values. And they want to do it so that our guests can feel the energy and the fact that we want to do the right things. And we want to do the right things for our customers, our community. That feeling, I think, is throughout our company or our companies. And it's that team that really makes it happen. And speaking of community, Paul, you guys have donated a lot to make a wish, foundation, and some other foundations. Why is that important to you? You know, we are in so many communities from Hawaii Kai to Kaneohe to Kailua to Ewa and Kapolei, Wahiawa, downtown. It's important that we are supporting those entities in all those communities. And be it make a wish, as you mentioned, be it Special Olympics, Kapilani Hospital. We did some work with the American Diabetes Association. It's our way to support our communities. It's also our way, because the donations come from our valued customers. And they come from the efforts of our staff. And our contributions from our company are added to that. But it's our way to make sure that we are supporting everyone around us who have supported us in turn. And a big part of it, too, talking with you, you said that you guys support the local farmers big time. So for our company to be sustainable, it means that we need to support the people that support us again. And so we buy our eggs locally from Iqsa Hawaii. We buy a third of our produce locally as it's available. We buy huge volume of ground beef for our chili. And that's our local beef. We buy our coffee locally as well. You name it. We do our best to support the agricultural industry, because it's important for the state. It's important to make sure that we are doing what everyone should do to support local agriculture. And you are. And it's definitely a win-win situation all around. Paul, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to continue going beyond the chili. All right, beyond the chili. You're watching Beyond the Lines on ThinkTekHawai with my special guest, Paul Yokota. We will be back in a quick minute. Aloha. I'm Stan, the energy man from ThinkTekHawai. ThinkTekHawai needs you. Please help us in our fall fund drive. Every dollar sustains us. Go to ThinkTekHawai.com and click on the Donate button or send your check directly to ThinkTekHawai 904 Street Mall Suite 888. Good lucky number, by the way. Honolulu, Hawaii 96813. Your donation is tax deductible and deeply appreciated. Mahalo. Aloha, my name is Duretian. You are watching ThinkTekHawai. I will be hosting a show here every other Wednesday at 1 PM, and we will be talking to a lot of experts and guests around sustainability, social justice, the future here in Hawaii, progressive politics, and a whole lot more. So please tune in. And thank you for watching ThinkTekHawai. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on ThinkTekHawai. My special guest today is an extraordinary leader and the president of Zippy's restaurants. He is Paul Yokota, and today we are going beyond the Chile. Paul, I heard that you guys are opening up a restaurant in Las Vegas. How's that coming along? It's coming along very well. Our CEO, Jason Higa, determined the initial location. It's in a place called Rainbow in Las Vegas to the South and to the West. Right now, it's vacant land. But we are in the design process. So we're working with a local architect here, as well as an architect in Las Vegas, to come up with the layout for the restaurant and for our commissary. The goal for that initial location is to have our restaurant operation, our fast food operation, and our bakery operation, but then to support it with a commissary. And that commissary is designed to support multiple locations after that. That's going to be so exciting. It's exciting for me, for sure. Paul, I know you have my book. And thank you for reading the book. Of course. I enjoyed it. What did you like about it? What I liked about it was, I particularly like your stories about you and some of the team members that you had and some of the challenges that they ran into and how you helped them through that. I think it's also a great illustration of what it takes to not only handle talent, but handle the human as well. I enjoyed your pros and wisdom. I also enjoyed the fact that you have a sense of humility when you write. In other words, there's so much more to learn. There's so much more to do. So there's a lot about your book that I enjoyed. Well, thank you. Well, great leaders. I mean, they got to keep improving. You can't be complacent. You know all about that. So Paul, what do you think the greatest leaders do? Well, I believe the greatest leaders should always be humble and have the humility to learn. And learning should be a constant. It should be a forever thing. And if leaders are willing to hear from others, others who are expert in things that they are not, if they are open to new ideas, if they are willing to listen, then they can not only learn, but they can change. And change is what is going to sustain any company. You can't stand still today. You need to constantly evolve. You need to constantly be open to what your guests are saying. You need to constantly be open to what your employees are saying. We are certainly not perfect in what we do. But I assure you that we try every day to get better. And the way we get better is to listen and to get feedback and to share opinions and learn. Yeah. And mindset is so important in creating a culture of excellence which you have. And not only just achieving success, but sustaining success. How has Zippies been able to achieve and sustain success for all of these decades? Well, we're fortunate to have a customer, a guest group that is multi-generational and multicultural. So we have items on our menu that represent all the cultures in Hawaii. From our Filipino cultures to Chinese, Japanese, Okinawan, we have things that are of Hawaiian background. We think we have things that are Portuguese. We name it. We reflect the flavors of Hawaii. More importantly, we have a customer base that reflects not only all those cultures, but all the different generations. And we work hard to having something on our menu for everyone that comes through our doors. I love it. If we continue focusing on that, sharing the flavors of Hawaii in the right way, and sharing it to multi-generations, I think we should be around for a while. Yeah, I agree. And Paul, under your leadership, Zippies continues to improve and grow. What are you focused on right now? Well, first of all, I'm not responsible for the success of the company. That comes from the team. And I'm blessed and fortunate to be one of many members of our team. But the reality is that we need to constantly develop new talent. We need to create an environment and an atmosphere where people want to succeed. And they want to learn new things. And they want to contribute what they have to offer. That is the key. And today, we're working on education and development programs. We're working on ways that we can communicate better, as I mentioned before. We're working on looking for people who are motivated and have the personality and skill set to help us into the future. That is the key for us in the long run. Sounds good. What's been a challenge of yours, Paul, in your own life that you have to overcome? I have many challenges, Rusty. Honestly, I have many challenges. One thing that my wife continually reminds me of is to learn how to let go sometimes. And it's tough, because I think I'm totally immersed in what I do. I am totally passionate about making sure that I'm doing the best I can. And that we're operating the best way we can. But sometimes, you just have to be able and willing to step back to regain your focus, to regain your energy, and to let things go. Because as you said in your book, there are certain things we cannot control, but we can control ourselves. And if we take a step back, if we let things go for a while, we can regain that focus and get that motivation to move forward. I like that. It's really looking at the big picture of things and not really getting caught up in the smaller segments that might lead to irritation and frustrations. Now, Paul, everyone defines success in different ways. What is your definition of success? Well, I hope to attain this someday. In light of everything and in light of all the experiences I've had and all the opportunities that were given me, I would like to reach a point in my life where people can say that I was someone they could count on. I was someone that was willing to share what I have as mediocre or as unprofessional or my lack of expertise with whatever had I was willing to share. I hope someday to get to a point where my decisions are made without ego. I want to make sure that I'm constantly learning and because I was constantly learning that I can go out moving up versus going down. Sounds good, yeah. And Paul, I know that you've shared many words of wisdom over the years with your teams. Can you share with me some of those? Sure. Well, one thing I share and I constantly remind myself of is that you cannot hear well if you're talking. So basically it goes, you can't hear if your mouth is open. And I remind myself of that because there's so much I can learn from others, but to learn from others I have to be listening. I have to be open to their sharing. It's easy for us to take over discussion, but we gain nothing from that. We're just listening to ourselves. I want to make sure that I keep my mouth shut so I can listen and learn. Well, like I said in the book, listen first, speak last. Absolutely. And for me, I'm all about honest feedback and open communication. I know you are, too. Now, who is someone that inspires you that you looked at as a mentor? You know, when I was working with Principal Telves, I had the chance to work with Governor Yoshi. He was our chairman of our board for a period of time. And he's a gentleman. And he has an enormous amount of humility and intelligence. And with all his experience and the authority that he holds, he still had that great sense of humility. And I respect the man for that. I think he was a mentor to me because of that. And it's something that I need to continue by myself, that the sense of humility is probably the most important sense you can have. No, I love that. I love hearing that. Now, we all have goals, whether it's personally or professionally. What would you say is a future goal of yours? You know, a future goal of mine would be to get better at the things that I can learn to get better at. Music is one. I'll never get a total handle on it. But I certainly like sharing my music or whatever it's worth. But the more important and primary goal is to take everything I've learned, whether it's from the hotel business, whether it's from the restaurant business, to take everything I learned from working on the mainland, all the neighbor islands, and the interaction I had with Prince Hotel with Japan, taking all of that and being able to offer it to people in high school, people coming up through the ranks in our company, people in organizations that I can share a little bit of wisdom and I don't have much, but if that's a little bit that I have, I'd be happy to share. But I believe I've been fortunate to have a wide perspective. And a goal of mine would be to share that wide perspective. Paul, is there an important lesson through your life that you learned from, like some important lesson? You know, when I was in the hospitality or hotel business, I was moving every two or three years and I gained a lot of experience doing that, but it also made me reflect on what's most important. And when you're moving and you're constantly changing locales, sometimes your priorities get mixed up. I want to make sure I'm there for my friends and for my family. I want to make sure that I hold as a priority my willingness and my ability to get back to the community I'm in. And to that, it was a tough time moving back and forth, but I've learned a lot and now I want to give back from what I've learned. Now, earlier I said that great leaders build other great leaders. How are you helping, in addition to what you said earlier, how are you helping build some other great leaders within your organization? Well, within our organization, we have the chance and the opportunity to take a look at people who are new and perhaps inexperienced in the management ranks and share with them some of the values and the philosophies that'll make them successful. We constantly have people who are joining us out of high school or out of college and they've done a great job in learning the intellectual side but they need a real life experience. So we want to be that good first employer. We want to be perhaps a good long-term employer but for that we need to make sure that we are sharing our core values and we're living our core values and we're identifying those people who take us to the next step. And you are because when I go to Zippies I see a lot of the same team members there for many years and they're so pleasant. I mean, I love that culture. We're fortunate to have people who have committed to us for many, many years. And as importantly, they're willing to share their knowledge and their experience with people who are newer in our organization. To me, that's key. We have experience, we have people who have a new energy and together that team is unbeatable. Yeah, I can see that. Oh, I want to ask you one more question. What gives you fulfillment? What's the most important thing in life? The most important thing in life, I think, is truly learning. Fulfillment comes from realizing you don't know everything but having people are willing to teach. Just from our discussion today and from your book I've learned so much. That gives me fulfillment knowing that there's something out there that people are willing to share and people are willing to teach and that I have the ability to learn from these experts. Well, Paul, we're all learning from each other and you are definitely an extraordinary leader. Oh, thank you so much. I want to thank you for coming on to the show. You definitely go beyond the lines. Thank you so much. I appreciate being here. Thank you, Paul. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii and a special thank you to my clothing sponsor, Ilani Incorporated. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my book is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that Paul and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.