Aloha, - I thought many of you might be interested in hearing a bit of Paul's experience especially since it's so rich in Hawaiian culture via his job here. Enjoy below per Paul!
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| State motto on this gate at Iolani Palace. |
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| Original Kamehameha Schools Building |
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| Feather cape and helmet from late 1700s |
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| Kawaiaha'o Church |
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| Princess Pauahi Chapel on Kapalama Campus |
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| Cultural center on Kapalama Campus |
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| Ke Ali'i Pauahi |
When I first started to look for a job in
Hawaii, I was pretty much willing to accept any reasonable position with any
company who would give me the opportunity to move to Hawaii. I worked with a recruitment specialist and
she gave me a list of places I would most likely have the best luck.
As it turned out, I ended up getting
exactly the type of position I wanted with an organization called Kamehameha
Schools (KS). This was exciting because
I was looking for someone to give me the opportunity to start working as a
database administrator (DBA). In the
last few years, I have studied on my own time to get certified as a DBA but was
working as a data warehouse architect for IHA and really wanted to make the
leap over to being a DBA. Needless to
say, I was very pleased when KS not only was willing to hire a Canadian but
also as a DBA.
Ill briefly explain the history of KS. The first king that unified and controlled
all the Hawaiian Islands was Kamehameha I in 1810. I’ll spare you all the details of the events
that took place after that but Kamehameha’s great granddaughter, Bernice Pauahi
Bishop ended up being the last surviving heir of Kamehameha I.
Ke Ali’I (Princess) Pauahi and her husband
did not have any children. As the last
heir of the Kamehameha dynasty, she had inherited all of the royal lands. When she didn’t have anyone to pass it on to
she put in her will that she wanted to bequeath her vast land holdings to a
perpetuity trust in order to :erect and maintain in the Hawaiian Islands
two schools, each for boarding and day scholars, one for boys and one for
girls, to be known as, and called the Kamehameha Schools.
Princess Pauahi has witnessed the
decimation of her people by disease and poverty. She felt that the only chance the Hawaiian
people had to survive as a once proud race was by education.
The Bishop trust is the single largest
private land owner in the Islands today and is also the nation’s largest
endowment fund of nearly 10 billion dollars.
That is larger than the endowment funds of Harvard and Yale combined.
KS has 3 main campuses (Oahu, Maui, Big
Island) and several preschools and extension programs all throughout the
state. I work at the head office in
downtown Honolulu. I work for a
department called Operations as part of the Information Technology Division.
I won’t bore you with the details of my day
to day but Ill highlight some of the perks of the job that I consider most
valuable to me.
As a mission based organization that has
vast resources, you don’t hear any talk around the office of things like
‘quarterly sales figures’ or ‘stock prices’.
We don’t feel the pressure of how well the most recent software release
is selling or things like ‘market saturation’ or blah blah blah. At the core of this company is just a lot of
really valuable land in a great climate where people love to visit and
live. The absence of this traditional
type of business pressure enables people here to focus on the mission of
helping the Hawaiian children to get a quality education and thereby preserve
the Hawaiian culture. It wasn’t that
many years ago that children were punished for speaking the Hawaiian
language. The language was nearly lost
as were many of the other traditions.
One of our core values at KS is called
‘Ho’omau’ or ‘preservation’. That means
to preserve the legacy of Ke Ali’I Pauahi but also to preserve the Hawaiian
traditions. There is department at KS
that is in charge of providing cultural enrichment to the faculty and staff. Every morning we start the day off in the
beautiful court yard with blowing the conch shell and a pule (prayer) and a
mana’o (short daily words of encouragement) and mele (song). I play the ukelele every morning with a small
group of musicians at these gatherings.
It has been so fun be able to put the ukelele that I bought last year in
Kauai to use finally.
Some other types of cultural enrichment I
have been able to participate in are things like lei making, identifying native
plants and the use of the plant in traditional Hawaiian medicine. In the future, I hope to be able to go with a
group of staff to the big island to plant Koa trees in the dry land forest on
the slopes of Mauna Kea (active volcano).
We are also encourage and provided time to learn the Hawaiian language
as well as use it in our day to day working environment.
Kamehameha Schools is a Christian
organization and the head office is located next to one of the oldest and
easily the most historic churches in Honolulu called Kawaiaha’o Church The
church has been the scene of many royal weddings, coronations and
funerals. Recently, KS celebrated
founder’s day which is Princess Pauahi’s birthday. There was a founder’s day ceremony at the
church and participated in singing in the choir. It was a surreal experience to think that I was singing at a church that has been
the epicenter of so much Hawaiian history.
To make a long story short, Lisa and I have
always felt a very close connection to Hawaii.
I’m sure a lot of people feel the same way because it is very easy to
like Hawaii. Every day at work I have to
pinch myself that I’ve been given the opportunity to learn so much about Hawaii
as well and the opportunity professionally to work as a full time production
DBA. It just feels so unreal that not
only do I get to have all these great opportunities but that I’m basically
working for an organization that was started by the Hawaiian royal family smack
dab in the middle of Honolulu just steps from Kawaiaha’o Church and the Iolani
Palace.
As Lisa mentions in her blog, there are
many modern day challenges to living and working in Hawaii and every day isn’t
like being on a Hawaiian vacation. I’m
pleased to say that my experience so far has grown into so much more than a
Hawaiian vacation. I’m pleased to say
that spirit of Aloha is real and it is alive and well and I’m proud to be a
very small part of helping to ‘malama’ (to protect) and ‘ho’omau’ (to preserve)
the ‘aina (the land) and the Hawaiian culture.
‘Ua mau ke ea o ka aina I ka pono’ -Kamehameha III
(The life of the land is perpetuated in
righteousness)
