Vance Roley, dean of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Shidler College of Business, is a recipient of the Most Admired Leaders award by Pacific Business News (PBN). Roley is one of 27 awardees that span a range of industries, including education, nonprofits, health care and real estate.

Travis Counsell lives his passion for bicycles every day as the executive director of the Hawaiʻi Bicycling League (HBL), a local nonprofit that represents all people who bike for recreation, health or transportation.

A University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa faculty member has become the first U.S. recipient of the Asia Pacific Tourism Association (APTA) Founder’s Award, which recognizes a scholar or industry leader who has made significant lifetime contributions in advancing tourism research and/or industry practices in the Asia Pacific region.

More than 325 University of Hawaiʻi students have become the first residents to move into the new state-of-the-art Residences for Innovative Student Entrepreneurs (RISE) student housing facility for the fall 2023 semester. The state-of-the-art building opened in August 2023 on the site of the former Atherton YMCA and is expected to transform the entrepreneurial ecosystem at UH’s flagship campus.

The Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation has given $200,000 to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s RISE—Residences for Innovative Student Entrepreneurs—project, a world-class innovation and entrepreneurship center coupled with student housing being built on the site of the former Atherton YMCA across from the flagship campus.

The world’s most promising doctoral students in the field of accounting gathered at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa for the third annual Hawaiʻi Accounting Research Doctoral Institute (HARDI), June 2–20.

Recent Shidler College of Business graduates Stefani Sakamoto, Lydia Jun, Joan Martinez, and Kaylee Miki thought they had experienced everything college has to offer. And then they joined the Manoa Consulting Case Competition (MCCC) team. 

The Shidler College of Business at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa celebrated its 62nd Business Night on May 4 at the Sheraton Waikiki, hosting more than 400 students and business professionals for an evening of mentorship and networking, professional development and recognizing deserving students for their scholastic achievements. 

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Shidler College of Business’ School of Travel Industry Management (TIM) held its 21st annual Celebrate a Legacy in Tourism gala on April 13, at the ʻAlohilani Resort Waikiki Beach. The event is the largest fundraiser in support of the TIM School, with proceeds benefiting student scholarships.

Jay H. Shidler, BBA ’68, an alumnus of the Shidler College of Business at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, has donated an additional $5 million in cash to the college. This latest contribution adds to Shidler’s $117 million gift made in 2017, $69 million in 2014, and his first initial gift of $25 million in 2006, all in cash and real estate ground leases. 

The 23rd annual Executive Vineyards event raised a record $65,000 for the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Shidler College of Business. Held at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on March 9, a sold-out event of more than 600 guests enjoyed an evening of networking, sampling delicious items from local restaurants and tasting a variety of wines and spirits with the iconic Diamond Head and Waikīkī Beach in the backdrop.

More than 100 alumni gathered on February 5 at Aloha Beer Company, founded by Shidler alumnus Steve Sombrero, MBA ‘94, for the inaugural Asian Field Study Reunion, sponsored by the Asian Field Study Association. The evening was packed with catching up with old friends, sharing stories, enjoying music and delicious food and drinks. Asian Field Study directors K.K. Seo, Jack Suyderhoud and Ben Bystrom relived the program's history and some lucky guests won fabulous prizes from the raffle.

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s School of Travel Industry Management (TIM) in the Shidler College of Business received a $500,000 gift from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to support students who enrolled from Hawaiʻi high schools. The gift establishes a new scholarship that will assist juniors and seniors who demonstrate financial need and leadership abilities, with a preference for students of Native Hawaiian ancestry.

When Courtney Ro, BBA ‘12, was a student at Shidler studying management and accounting, she was busy preparing herself for her post-college path, which would include her first job out of college at Ernst and Young and then running her own bookkeeping business in 2017. She couldn’t have imagined it at the time, but the flexibility of setting her own schedule would allow her to help her husband, Zachary Villanueva, also a UH Mānoa alumnus (BA ‘15), sell handcrafted (?) ice cream while he was still working a full-time job. Now the pair operate Sage Creamery, scooping out flavors like strawberry fields, kiawe honey lavender and haulolo.

When Maura Mizuguchi, BBA ‘83, made the decision to earn her accounting degree after thumbing through the help wanted ads in the newspaper, she never looked back. She worked diligently at earning high grades and being involved in extracurricular activities to earn a position at PricewaterhouseCoopers. She successfully landed at the firm and eventually moved to the mainland. Since then, she’s worked at several Fortune 100 companies and is now the chief accounting officer of Cetera Financial Group.

Eva Kam, BBA ‘99, spent her childhood watching her father, Kwock Yum “Johnson” Kam open and grow the first L&L Hawaiian Drive-Inn on Liliha Street in 1976 with “Aunty Margaret,” the mother of his future business partner, Eddie Flores, Jr., BBA ‘70. She recalls that her father recruited friends, family, employees and customers to help grow the business and expand to seven locations over 10 years. On a 1991 family trip with Flores, the idea of franchising the company came up and the partners began. In the 1990s, Johnson Kam started to recruit employees to work in locations on the neighbor islands and in 1999, the first mainland location was opened as L&L Hawaiian Barbecue in Cerritos, California. 

The newly modernized Roland and Evelyn Casamina House of Finance Undergraduate Student Leadership Center was unveiled during a blessing ceremony held on January 6 at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Shidler College of Business. The $250,000 renovation was made possible due to the generosity of alumnus Roland Casamina, BBA ’76, founder and CEO of House of Finance, Inc. and founding president of the Filipino Community Center, and his wife, Evelyn, who is co-founder of House of Finance, Inc.

School of Travel Industry Management (TIM School) alumnus Ren Hirose, BBA ‘85, is no stranger to supporting his alma mater. His latest gift of an endowed $50,000 scholarship, called the Ren Hirose Family Endowed Scholarship, adds to his contributions over the years to the college and its students. As a Maui native and Baldwin High School graduate, Hirose’s scholarship will preference students from Maui high schools to give them opportunities to attend the TIM School to prepare them for promising careers in the tourism and hospitality industry.

Shidler College of Business Assistant Professor Caroline Fry published a new study in the March 2022 issue of Organizational Science. Her paper, titled “Bridging the Gap: Evidence from the Return Migration of African Scientists,” outlines her recent research. The study examined the impact of researchers who returned home to Africa following masters and doctoral training at Top 20 institutions in the United States as part of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded program. The research follows HIV-related researchers based in African institutions and measures the influence of a scientist returning to their institution following training in the United States.

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Shidler College of Business’ annual scholarship luncheon event made its in-person return at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on November 7. The event brought together student recipients and scholarship donors. It gave students the opportunity to meet and thank the donors, and share how their gifts impacted the students’ education.

Two major efforts begin today tied to the University of Hawaiʻi Residences for Innovative Student Entrepreneurs (RISE) project. Applications open for leasing at RISE, which is slated to open in fall 2023, and scholarships for 50 UH students interested in innovation and entrepreneurship through the Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship (PACE) PACE Leaders program.

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Shidler College of Business hosted its 2022 Hall of Honor Awards on Thursday, October 13, at the Sheraton Waikīkī to celebrate four distinguished business leaders and alumni. The event also raised $340,500 in support of the Shidler college.

A cookbook, picture books and podcasts are some of the ways University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa business students are raising awareness about the global fight against climate change. The projects were part of Instructor Constancio Paranal III’s summer 2022 marketing course called “Imagination, Entrepreneurship” in the Shidler College of Business.

The U.S. News & World Report released its “America’s Best Colleges” for 2022-2023 on Sept. 11, ranking the Shidler College of Business at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa 13th on its list of top international business programs, up one spot from 14^th on the previous ranking. Additional colleges making the list included New York University, Georgetown University, UC Berkeley, University of South Carolina, University of Michigan and Washington State University.

Ben Godsey knows how important entrepreneurs are to Hawaiʻi’s economy. As the president and CEOof ProService Hawaii, one of Hawaiʻi’s largest outsourced human resource providers, he counts more than 2,000 local small businesses as clients—most of them entrepreneurs.