For Kelli Chinen, a finance and international business student studying at Shidler College, her college internship was not only thousands of miles from home but it was also during a pandemic that could have derailed her plans to learn about finance abroad.Chinen left for her internship in January 2020 and with the help of alumnus Wee Loke Tang, BBA ’73, Hall of Honor ’18, who is the independent non-executive director of UOB Kay Hian, a global investment bank headquartered in Singapore, Chinen was able to stay until the end of her internship in July. 

Back in January, Alaska Airlines was operating 30 daily flights between four Hawaiian islands and eight West Coast cities, as usual in a typical month, providing passenger service to thousands of kama‘āina and visitors to Hawai‘i. By early April, COVID-19 brought worldwide travel to a screeching halt, disrupting the lives of travelers and Alaska Airlines employees as the company suspended all its flights to the neighbor islands. These days, the airline has a significantly reduced schedule into O‘ahu and Maui to allow for essential travel and the movement of cargo.