Ken Char is one of those influential leaders in Hawaiʻi tourism who didn’t start out on a tourism career track. In fact, following World War II, he earned a degree from the University of Hawaiʻi and then a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania and in 1951 he began his career with Castle and Cooke, one of Hawaiʻi’s Big Five companies.
Ken had the foresight to see that tourism would be the leading industry in Hawaiʻi’s future and realized that successful airlines would be critical for success. In 1959, Aloha Airlines tapped Ken’s managerial talents and he became Administrative Vice President for Aloha and – one year later – Executive Vice President for the airline. The job was a challenging one, and Ken was instrumental in turning the finances around from a million dollar deficit to a three million dollar profit. Fueled by that success, Ken was named president of Aloha in 1965 and presided over the expansion of its services.
Ken retired from Aloha in 1981 after twenty two years of service. But retirement didn’t last long. Following the first ever post-war dip in visitor arrivals, Ken was recruited as president of the Hawaiʻii Visitors Bureau (HVB) with a charge to develop more consistent funding for the organization and revamp its marketing programs.
Ken’s passion for tourism prompted him to work for the establishment of the University of Hawaiʻi School of Travel Industry Management. He served as Chairman for the TIM School Advisory Board as well as for the Board of Governors for the East-West Center. His commitment to the School continues to this day through the Kenneth F.C. and Aileen Char Scholarship and sponsorship of a professional program for tourism studies for travel professionals from China.
Jerry Hulse was a “gentleman traveler” who turned his love for travel into a successful career as travel editor for the Los Angeles Times. Hawaiʻi’s tourism industry owes a huge debt of gratitude to talented writers like Jerry Hulse who have been able to capture the magical allure of the islands.
Jerry joined the Times in 1952 as a crime reporter, but worked his way up to become the paper’s travel editor in 1960. The timing was fortuitous for Jerry and for Hawaiʻi tourism. Jerry’s extraordinary writing talents produced weekly travel columns at one of America’s leading newspapers … just as statehood and the introduction of jet aircraft increased interest in travel to Hawaiʻi. When Jerry began writing about the islands, there were just about 300,000 annual visitors. By the time he retired, Hawaiʻi was welcoming more than 6 million … and one out of every five of them was from California.
Jerry’s credibility as a travel writer came from his uncompromising ethics and style that was both poetic and honest. As for his ethics, unlike many of his travel writer contemporaries, Jerry did not accept complimentary travel and lodging when he wrote his stories. Everything was on the Times and every story was clear of any conflict of interest. As for the poetry and honesty of his style, here is his last piece for the Times from Kauaʻi, where he retired:
“It is dawn, and save for the sound of ocean waves washing beneath my window, my world is as silent as a shining star. Last evening it rained so that today the sky is as blue as a young girl’s eyes. All would be well if only that infernal rooster would stop crowing at midnight.”
If there is one person who can be credited with reconnecting Hawaiʻi’s tourism industry with the Hawaiian culture it is Dr. George Kanahele. Energetic, charismatic, and determined, George relentlessly promoted the idea that tourism and the Hawaiian host culture not only could co-exist … but could thrive together.
George developed a remarkable intellectual foundation for his vision for Hawaiʻi and its tourism industry. Educated at the Kamehameha Schools, he received his Masters degree at Brigham Young University, and his PhD at Cornell University with scholastic honors.
George was a world traveler, living in Japan, Indonesia and Germany. His travels allowed him to master numerous languages and to develop an appreciation for the world’s cultures.
He co-founded the Hawaiʻi Entrepreneurship Training and Development Institute, The Waiaha Foundation, and the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association. These organizations continue to reshape Hawaiʻi tourism, building on the concepts that he developed.
George was equally effective working with government, industry, and the Hawaiian community. His book Kū Kanaka incorporates his theories … and his 1994 report, Restoring Hawaiianness to Waikīkī got down to specifics, with 143 recommendations for restoring Hawaiian culture to the state’s best known visitor destination. He coined the term “Hawaiian sense of place” that is now part of the lexicon.
George consulted with many industry leaders. His clients were global: the United Nations, Hawaiʻii State and County Governments, major hotel chains, Queen’s Medical Center and Disney. George had a talent of educating while entertaining, something he referred to as “edu-taining.” His impact continues to this day in the careers many successful business leaders that he trained.
The revitalized Waikīkī embodies George’s vision of a culturally rich Hawaiian experience — a lasting tribute to his legacy.
Kanae Kobayashi was born into the family hotel business, founded when his father and uncle opened the 10-room Kobayashi Hotel in 1892 to accommodate Japanese immigrants. Although the hotel was accidentally destroyed in the 1900 Chinatown fire, the Kobayashi family started over.
At the age of 10, Kanae was sent to Japan to study, eventually earning a business degree from the University of Waseda. During the war he served as an interpreter for the army until 1946 when he rejoined the family business. In post-war Hawaiʻi, Kanae and his brothers, Hichiro and Tatsukichi, built the business from a single hotel into an enterprise that included three retail travel agencies, a wholesale outbound tour operation, ground handling, an inbound tour option operation, and ground transportation on Oʻahu , Hawaiʻi, and Maui. As Hawaiʻi tourism grew and evolved, so did the company.
In 1963, Kanae left the family hotel and travel service business in the control of his brothers to open the Waikīkī Grand Hotel and take over management of the Kaimana Beach Hotel. Kanae became a founding partner, and later President, of Hawaiian Pacific Resorts which became one of the largest chains in the islands. HPR built resort properties across the state including Queen Kapiʻolani, Hilo Lagoon, Kona Lagoon, Maui Beach, and Kauaʻi Beach resorts. After retiring from HPR, Kanae in 1989 returned and assumed control of the growing family businesses operating tour and ground transportation companies.
In addition to his contributions to Hawaiʻi’s travel industry, Kanae became an active member of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and many other Japanese organizations.
The Kobayashi family legacy lives on with two of Kanae’s sons, Michael (President) and Peter (Vice President) and his youngest brother Tatsukichi (Director) managing Kobayashi Travel Service. All are very active in the business.
Bob Rinker graduated from the School of Hotel Administration from Cornell University in 1952. While there, he was the Dean’s Assistant and Managing Director for the Hotel Ezra Cornell. He made such an impression on his classmate, W. Dudley Child, Jr., that he was immediately hired as a manager in the Child’s Inter Island Resort business. Bob managed the Naniloa Hotel and the Kona Inn on Hawaiʻi island before settling on Kauaʻi in 1953 to manage the Kauaʻi Inn.
Once he was established in Hawaiʻi’s tourism industry, his career became a tour of the islands – and, indeed, the Pacific region. He was hired away from Inter Island to join Gus Guslander’s Island Holidays hotels in 1955, where he opened the Maui Palms Hotel. In 1957 Bob moved to Oʻahu where he and a group of investors bought the Pali Palms Hotel on the Windward side.
Bob applied his deep knowledge of hotel operations and his many political connections to the Hawaiʻi Hotel Association, where he served as Executive Vice President from 1968 to 1974. These were growth years for the industry, and the Hotel Association was instrumental in working with the industry and government to develop Hawaiʻi as a world class tourism destination.
In 1974, Bob’s horizons expanded internationally when he joined Tokyu Hotels International, the parent company of Pan Pacific hotels. His work took him and his family to Japan and Singapore.
Bob was a supporter of the School of Travel Industry Management from its inception. He and his wife Margaret frequently hosted groups of students at their home to celebrate the holidays.
In the years when Hawaiʻi tourism was growing at a rapid rate, Pete Wimberly was hard at work inventing a style of resort architecture that was creative, exotic, and imaginative. His landmark projects helped define Waikīkī tourism and created a Hawaiʻi-based business designing resorts around the world.
Pete came to Hawaiʻi in 1940 at the age of twenty-four as a journeyman architect, working at Pearl Harbor. After the war he set up a partnership with Howard Clark, and the new firm landed the job of renovating and refurbishing the Royal Hawaiian Hotel for post-war vacationers. As his career developed, Pete took on a wide range of resort projects … everything from the monumental Sheraton Waikīkī Hotel to the quintessentially tropical Coco Palms Resort on Kauaʻi. Some of his other signature designs include the Hyatt Regency Waikīkī, the Kona Hilton, and Sheraton Maui.
Pete was naturally suited to be a Hawaiʻi architect. He came to work in shorts, short-sleeved shirts and sneakers without socks in an era when the “Big Five” companies dressed up. He loved the outdoors and developed a skill for auto racing. His island mentality extended into the design of his buildings. His love for Hawaiʻi’s tropical environment also meant that he had a dislike of air conditioning. His buildings were noted for their flowing indoor-outdoor spaces and the use of Hawaiian materials and motifs, such as thatch bamboo, lava rock, and tropical landscaping.
While many of Pete’s signature projects are in Hawaiʻi, he developed a name for himself as a creative force in the Pacific region. Pete and two other Hawaiʻi tourism pioneers – Earl Thacker, and Bill Mullahey – held court and hatched plans nearly every morning over breakfast at the Royal Hawaiian dining room. He traveled the Pacific with Pan American Airways executive Mullahey looking for new areas for resort development. In order to stimulate interest in the Pacific region, Pete and Mullahey were instrumental in founding the Pacific Asia Travel Association in 1952.
Pete Wimberly’s legacy lives on through the work of Wimberly, Allison, Tong and Goo – a globally recognized company which remains a leading architectural firm, designing creative hotels and resorts in the Pacific and around the world.