Business & Communication

It was an honor to hear from Mr. David Tumilowicz, Vice President of Public Relations, Communications, and Brand Management at Kaiser Permanente Hawaii.

Mr. Tumilowicz began his presentation with some personal stories and shared important lessons he learned throughout his career. He has a wide range of experience in different areas of business which includes working as an adjunct professor at Chaminade University and Hawaii Pacific University, and Vice President at PacificBasin Communications. Here are some lessons that stood out to me:

1. Work ethic—after working as an adjunct professor, Mr. Tumilowicz shifted careers and worked for Hawaii Designs by John Martin where he built boats. It is with this company where he learned the importance of work ethic. “The more boats he produces, the more money he makes.”

2. Team work—at some point, Mr. Tumilowicz worked as a Sales Manager/Marketing Director at Broadband Interactive Television. Here, he learned the value of teamwork. “Behind every successful company is a team that communicates and works together as one.”

3. Believe in your employees—during his time as a publisher for Hawaii Business and Hawaii magazines, Mr. Tumilowicz was faced with obstacles while dealing with limited staff to work with. He knew firing people wasn’t an option, so he took a different approach instead. He created an environment where people can express their true and absolute potential.

4. Trust—in his current position at Kaiser Permanente Hawaii, Mr. Tumilowicz focuses on the word “trust.” Learn how to trust others because at a certain point, you are not the expert anymore. “Be best friends with the CFO!”
Mr. Tumilowicz ended his presentation with a talk on the greatest attribute of a good leader. He says, “All leaders are influencers, but it is how you choose to influence others that makes you a good leader. How do you influence in a positive way?”

Written by: Hogan Entrepreneurs Program student, Kaleen Terayama
Speaker Session with David Tumilowicz 3/21/18

It was a great pleasure to hear from Dr. Jeffrey Yu, President and CEO of KinetiCor, an early stage medical device company currently focused on motion-correction technologies for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Its technology is useful for patients who are unable to control their movements during a scan.

Required by his parents to attend medical school, Dr. Yu discovered the need to follow his true passion. Interested in technology, Dr. Yu was highly encouraged by one of his close mentors to enroll at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, a top research and academic center. There, he succeeded finding his passion in radiology. In relevance to this experience, Dr. Yu stressed the importance of having a great mentor who can provide guidance in finding your passion.

Dr. Yu expanded his knowledge by learning about business. Working as a Diagnostic Radiologist at Queen’s Medical Center, Dr. Yu took the liability of learning everyone’s job, which gave him the insights on how to operate a successful business. Through this experience, Dr. Yu shares his lesson to never be afraid to hire people better than you. Know your own strengths and weaknesses.

He also applied his education and work experience to his current role at KinetiCor. He spoke about Technology Assessment and demonstrated KinetiCor’s mission of “improving the quality of medical imaging” by assisting in the innovation of Perceptive Motion Correction for MRI scan procedures.

Dr. Yu’s presentation showed that everything done in business, its products and services must have legs valuable for future need.

Written by: Hogan Entrepreneurs Program student, Christian Ortiz
Speaker Session with Dr. Jeffrey Yu 3/14/18

It was an honor to learn from Mr. Ray Tsuchiyama, CEO of Tsuchiyama & Associates. Mr. Tsuchiyama is a seasoned business operations executive and adviser to fast-growth startups, established Fortune 500 corporations, and federal government. He specializes in market entry and expansion in Japan and Asia-Pacific.

Mr. Tsuchiyama’s presentation was about “Living and Working Globally.” He spoke about corporate and international life in relation to entrepreneurship, and showed us a list of the most important things to consider if you dream of living abroad. The list includes planning, having endless curiosity, flexibility, risk-taking, and being open to new perspectives. He also built his talk on the ongoing theme of the semester: leadership.

According to Mr. Tsuchiyama, “good managers make people believe in them; good leaders make people believe in themselves.” This left Hogan students with a call to action. We were also challenged to find our brand! A brand is the way you want people to perceive you. What is it that you want people to think when they hear your name? Then, think of ways of what you need to do to make people perceive you in such way. Mr. Tsuchiyama added, in order to increase your brand, you must plan and become knowledgeable on the subject you wish to be associated with your name.

Written by: Hogan Entrepreneurs Program student, Sarah Cervantes
Speaker Session with Ray Tsuchiyama

It was an honor to hear from Mr. Ian Kitajima, Director of Corporate Development for Oceanit, a global engineering and innovation company.

Mr. Kitajima spoke about Oceanit and its four areas of focus—space and defense, engineering, life sciences, and information systems. We learned that Oceanit is a diverse company consisting of about 160 scientists and engineers with 75% of staff having Masters or Doctorates degree.

As a company focused heavily on innovation, Oceanit has funded many interesting products which includes a Hostile Fire Detecting System which can sense high speed events like a gunshot and can use to spot snipers, Passive Boot Drying System which can dry a pair of wet boots in six hours, and Nature’s Sensors which guides ants to sniff drugs and certain chemicals. One of their unfortunate innovations was a Synthetic Virus which can target solid tumor cells to deliver drug treatment. This is an unfortunate innovation because funding for this project was ceased.

He also spoke about Oceanit’s adaptation of Stanford’s Design Thinking philosophy. This philosophy is designed to get people to think in a different way; spending more time figuring out what a customer needs up front rather than jumping to the solution. Most startups fail because they create products and provide services no one wants.

Mr. Kitajima provided us with a few tips of advice which he learned throughout his career:
1. Marry the right person.
2. Have a direction, not a destination.
3. Make things people want instead of making people want things.
4. Learn how to connect with customers.
5. Be enthusiastic.
6. Find your passion along the way. Regardless of the circumstances, you will find success if you stick to your passion.

Mr. Kitajima ended his talk with a question worth thinking about: “With enough time and money, you could build anything. So the real question is if you built it, would it matter?”

Written by: Hogan Entrepreneurs Program student, Brian Denton
Speaker Session with Ian Kitajima 3/7/18