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Communication

School of Business and Communication Receives Reaffirmation Accreditation

May 17, 2021

IACBE logo

Chaminade University is proud to announce the International Accreditation Council for Business Educators recently granted reaffirmation of accreditation to all the University’s School of Business and Communication business and management programs for seven years.

“We are honored to have been granted reaffirmation of IACBE accreditation for seven years. It’s a testament to the School of Business and Communication’s rigor and high academic standards and something only made possible by the incredibly hard work and dedication of our faculty, staff and students,” School of Business and Communication Dean Bill Rhey said.

“The accreditation process is rigorous and includes not only a months-long self-evaluation, but a comprehensive independent peer review. The reaffirmation of IACBE accreditation means our School is continuing to meet nationally recognized standards of academic quality and public accountability.”

In achieving reaffirmation of accreditation, the School had to show it was meeting compliance with nine critical IACBE accreditation principles, including those dealing with quality assessment and advancement, resources for programs and innovation in business education. 

Chaminade President Lynn Babington said the reaffirmation of accreditation is incredibly well-deserved and underscores the School of Business and Communication’s commitment to providing a hub for excellent, relevant and innovative business and management education in the islands.

“Across its undergraduate, graduate and certificate programs, the School of Business and Communication demonstrates an unwavering commitment to not only excellence but continuous improvement and growth,” Babington said. “Congratulations to the entire School for this and special thanks to Dr. Rhey and his team for their tireless efforts to ensure quality programming while continuing to think outside of the box to meet existing and emerging community needs.”

Indeed, the School of Business and Communication is preparing to launch its new One Year MBA program this Fall. The innovative offering, with a hybrid schedule that includes Saturday instruction and online coursework, is geared toward working professionals seeking to take the next step in their careers.

The program is built on a “business for good” philosophy that encourages community partnership. The School also offers a host of other programs, including undergraduate degrees in Business Administration, Communication, International Studies and more. Its traditional MBA program includes several timely concentrations—from Healthcare Administration to Science and Technology Innovation—that allow students to pursue their passions as they seek to maximize their positive impact.

Posted by: University Communications & Marketing Filed Under: Business & Communication, Featured Story, Institutional Tagged With: Accounting, Business Administration, Communication, Management, Master of Business Administration

Service in Action, A Peace Corps Volunteer’s Story

March 12, 2021

“When I’m older, I want to join the Peace Corps.”

Her uncle’s stories of the Peace Corps, living in a faraway place called Togo (West Africa) among people very different from him yet who became lifelong friends, had captured the imagination of Alice Potter ’18, a precocious 4-year-old. It was in her blood. 

Potter and her family grew up in California while her father worked as a software engineer, and they also spent years living abroad, in Italy, Germany and France. Returning to the United States for college was never part of Potter’s plan; however, her mother did an internet search for colleges in the U.S. “with a good record of acceptance and graduation rates,” and Chaminade University of Honolulu popped up. The positive reviews about Chaminade’s student-to-faculty ratio, affordable tuition, overall quality, coupled with its location and Hawai‘i’s mild weather, all sounded very appealing. Her mother told her that if she got in, she would be going to the Marianist university. And to Potter’s surprise, the acceptance letter came. She was anxious to be going back to the U.S. and of all places the most remote 50th state.

There’s no place like Hawai‘i

Intimidated at first, she soon made new friends and began thriving in Chaminade’s customized learning experience. She also shared its values of serving the community by volunteering at the  Waikīkī Aquarium. Aside from her studies, Potter also fell in love with Hawai‘i’s marine life and flora and enjoyed learning about the islands’ rich history. “Never before had I encountered a place so profoundly connected to its people like in Hawai‘i,” she says.

Living her dream of joining the Peace Corps
Alice Potter '18 with her counterpart in the Peace Corps
Alice with her counterpart Mrs. Irma

Potter graduated with a bachelor’s in communication degree with an environmental studies minor in 2018. At age 23, ready for a new adventure, she jumped at the opportunity to live her dream and join the Peace Corps. Because she spoke conversational French, Potter had hoped to be assigned to Africa specifically in Senegal; however, there was an opening to teach English in Southeast Asia. She had lived in a variety of places, yet she remembers experiencing culture shock when arriving in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country with more than 267 million people with a Muslim majority. She was immediately struck by the language barrier and the lack of personal space in this bustling yet conservative, spiritual society.

The Peace Corps helps new volunteers acclimate to their new country through an intensive two to three months Pre-Service Training (PST) program. Potter explains this included language lessons, cultural classes, as well as learning about Peace Corps procedures and the country’s rules and local customs, providing the skills and knowledge you need to thrive on your own. During this time, she lived with the first of three host families. 

“My host family during PST was especially kind, patient, helpful and accepting, and I became very close to them,” Potter says. Her host family warmly welcomed her into their home, introducing Potter to many delicious Indonesian dishes, such as sate (marinated meat skewers), cap cai (stir-fried vegetables sometimes mixed with meat), nasi goring (fried rice) and rawon (beef soup), which became her favorite. Potter was relieved that one of her host twin sisters, Dhea, spoke English, helping her with the transition and translating for her twin, Adhe, and their parents. 

Once her assignment began, Potter lived with two other host families: a single mother with grown children, a driven career woman who worked as a caterer for weddings and funerals, as well as a seamstress and a make-up artist; and a young couple who introduced her to carp rearing, bird catching and coffee time. A neighboring family acted as her “mom and dad” when Potter needed adult assistance and they took her on day trips.

Teaching is learning

Potter was assigned to a vocational training high school near East Java, where she taught English to 15 to 18-year-old students, 85 percent of them male and the rest female. School was held seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with extracurricular activities held on Saturdays. Potter says she taught two or three classes each day; class periods were two hours long for sophomores and juniors and one hour for seniors. The school offered career paths for students in fields such as auto mechanics, electrical work, computer work and broadcasting.

Alice Potter '18 with her students while in the Peace Corps

“Most of the time my students called me ‘Mister,’ or ‘mbak’ or ‘kak,’ which is equivalent to saying young miss or older sibling,” explains Potter. “I was the youngest teacher at the school,” she adds.

Halfway through her service, Potter was riding her bicycle back to school after a lunch break when she was hit by a motorcycle from behind. “Even though I was wearing a helmet, I had a pretty serious concussion. A piece of asphalt got inside one of the helmet vents and cut my scalp,” she says. “I also had cuts on my upper lip, under my eye and the edge of my forehead and some gashes along the right side of my face, arms and legs. Fortunately, I only needed stitches,” she adds.

The Peace Corps kept her in the capital for a few weeks for regular check-ups at the hospital. When she returned to school, she smiles as she remembers how the entire community—her host family, students and teachers—all offered to drive her home so she wouldn’t have to walk. “Student after student kept begging me to ride home with them,” she says with a laugh. The community was close-knit, reminding her of her ‘ohana at Chaminade. 

“The insight I gained from the students was invaluable,” she readily admits. As a teacher’s assistant, Potter adds she learned so much more from her students than she could have ever imagined. “My students taught me patience and acceptance. They also taught me to acknowledge the cultural differences of education in Indonesia versus in the U.S. and that young adults, no matter where you are in the world, want to be heard. It was amazing to watch them blossom,” Potter says. Their hospitality and intelligence impressed her day in and day out.

Potter learned to speak English, French, Italian and German while growing up and could now count Bahasa Indonesian as her fifth language. 

A lasting impact
Alice Potter '18 with her fellow faculty members while in the Peace Corps

The Peace Corps profoundly changed Potter’s life. She learned the importance of keeping an open mind and welcoming others from different backgrounds with appreciation and understanding. While the Peace Corps may not be for everyone, Potter believes everyone could benefit from broadening their perspective by experiencing other cultures. “Immersing yourself in a different country with a foreign language and culture will humble you, and you’ll learn so much about yourself,” she confesses. “The Peace Corps was a beautiful, eye-opening experience that made a lasting impact,” she adds.

Potter keeps in touch with her first host family and hopes to go back to Indonesia as soon as it’s safe to do so. Saya meninggalkan sesuatu istimewa. “I left behind something special,” she translates.

What’s next?

After her 27-month stint in the Peace Corps, Potter moved back to California. Today, she continues to serve youth by teaching part-time in an after-school program. What’s next for Potter? She hopes to put her communication degree to use and strive toward her next goal of becoming a producer or film director.

Posted by: University Communications & Marketing Filed Under: Alumni, Business & Communication, Featured Story, Natural Sciences & Mathematics Tagged With: Communication, Environmental Studies Minor

Coming Full Circle

March 10, 2021

Kristine Stebbins ‘87 remembers completing a long list of internships as a Communication undergraduate at Chaminade, including the one that would launch her whirlwind career and eventually bring her back to the islands for an executive role created expressly for her.

Kristine Stebbins '87, senior vice president and director of digital experience innovation and technology at Bank of Hawai'i

Stebbins was recently named senior vice president and director of digital experience innovation and technology at Bank of Hawai’i. The position is an opportunity for the longtime marketing entrepreneur—who has been breaking ground in the industry for decades—to come full circle, returning to the place where she met her husband, attended college and began to build her marketing philosophy.

She described her work at Bank of Hawai’i as “one of those awesome roles.”

“I have the opportunity to look five years down the line at the ways we’re planning to build these amazing digital experiences,” she said, adding that digital innovation is an exciting and growing area of the banking sector that has been put on a fast-track because of the pandemic. “Today when you’re looking at marketing in particular, you need to think of yourself as a marketing technologist.”

Stebbins said her projects at Bank of Hawai’i have allowed her to bring her marketing and digital innovation expertise to bear to create excellent digital customer experiences. Stebbins joined Bank of Hawai’i full-time after previously serving as a consultant for the company, including on a key digital transformation project that helped put the institution on the right footing for the pandemic.

In other words, she was designing for the future.

And that was a role she was completely comfortable with. After all, Stebbins likes to say the only constant in marketing is change. Every five years or so, there’s a big disruption in the industry—the kind of seismic shifts that companies can learn to dread. Great marketing strategy, she says, is about harnessing those moments and using them to create new opportunities to reach customers.

“The pandemic has been a moment where it’s basically made digital interactions in banking a requirement,” she said. “So we’re trying to build out digital experiences that bring humans together.”

Her message to young marketing professionals is one she learned early on, too, including as a Chaminade student: Be ready for those moments of disruption by embracing adaptability and change.

A start in Hawai’i—and at Chaminade
Kristing Stebbins '87 at her Chaminade graduation

Indeed, change has defined some of the biggest moments in her life.

Stebbins secured her first position in marketing with an internship, which she acquired through Chaminade, at top-rated advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather. She worked in their Honolulu office and got hired shortly after graduation. It was a dream come true.

It was also far from the life she’d imagined for herself just a few years earlier.

Stebbins had first come to Hawai’i with no intention of staying. She was visiting for the summer to spend time with her brother, who was in the Navy. Stebbins would take the bus into town and then back to Makakilo. And it was at a bus stop at Ala Moana Center that she met her future husband.

Kristine Stebbins '87 with her husband John Stebbins

She’d asked him for directions and the two ended up spending the day together. And then summer together. When it came time to head back home to Texas, she did—and he followed. John Stebbins ended up driving her to the East Coast to drop her off at college and then going back to the islands.

A semester later, it was Kristine Stebbins who was knocking on his door. She’d transferred to Chaminade University and he enrolled a short time later. They were both taking classes together and would graduate within a year of one another. They married in 1988 at Seabury Hall on Maui.

Stebbins says she is still grateful to have transferred to Chaminade, and not just to be closer to her husband-to-be. She said Chaminade offered a more individualized experience and gave her access to opportunities she wouldn’t have gotten anywhere else. She counts her experiences at the University as central to setting her up for success and can still rattle off the names of some of the professors who served as her Chaminade mentors, including Communications Professor Dr. Mary Jude Yablonsky.

In addition to an internship at Ogilvy & Mather, Stebbins also worked at Chaminade’s student newspaper and the radio station and secured an internship at Hawai’i Public Television. She says of her mentors at Chaminade, “Obviously, they stuck with me.” Speaking to Chaminade Magazine, she added, “They were so supportive. They really guided me and encouraged me to get that real-life experience.”

Kristine Stebbins '87 with Dr. Mary Jude Yablonsky
Kristine Stebbins ’87 with Dr. Mary Jude Yablonsky

Experience, she said, that was invaluable. It gave her an opportunity to apply what she’d learned in classrooms in a real-world setting—doing everything paid employees were doing—and she was hooked.

After graduation, Stebbins and her husband stayed in Hawai’i for several years, building their careers.

And then they headed to the mainland, moving to new cities—San Francisco, New York City, Seattle—as new opportunities emerged. Stebbins worked as global account director for IBM, senior marketing manager at Microsoft, and as a marketing consultant to some of the world’s biggest brands.

She also started her own marketing company, which she later sold.

All the while, the two maintained a strong connection to Hawai’i, especially after their daughter was born. (She’s now a junior in high school.) John Stebbins still has family in the islands, and this is where they one day saw themselves returning. They didn’t think it would be quite so soon, Stebbins said.

But then, as she often says, embrace change—because it’s inevitable.

During the pandemic, Stebbins started to assess her life and her work. She realized she’d been doing the work she wanted to do already, with Bank of Hawai’i. Fast forward several months and they were offering her a position, a new digital innovation role at the company created just for her.

She joined the bank in September, taking the first step in transitioning her family back to Hawai’i.

‘The world is definitely changing’

In addition to a passion for marketing, Stebbins is committed to helping the next generation. She believes strongly in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education programs, especially those targeted at young girls. She’s even coached a Robotics team for the Girl Scouts.

Stebbins is also proud to work for a Hawai’i company with a strong commitment to diversity—and no shortage of women in executive positions. Things weren’t always that way in executive suites, she said, and in some places they still aren’t. In fact, Stebbins recalls that when she first started out at Ogilvy & Mather she couldn’t speak at meetings with major clients even when she was a topic’s expert.

“You laugh now because it’s so outrageous but is indicative of the experience in terms of how far we’ve come,” she said, adding that there have been many times in which she was the only woman in a boardroom. Her advice if they underestimate you: Let them—so you can prove them wrong.

“Quite frankly, I’m pretty smart and I know what I’m talking about,” she said, adding young women entering the business now may not face all the same barriers she faced but will undoubtedly face some of them. “You need to be confident in your abilities. It’s all a matter of being true to who you are.”

Plus, she added, “The good news is the world is definitely changing.”

And Stebbins is all in for that.

Posted by: University Communications & Marketing Filed Under: Alumni, Business & Communication, Featured Story Tagged With: Communication

Radio CUH Receives Grant

March 9, 2021

Student Ronni Gallegos in the Radio CUH studio

It’s a place for students to find their voice. For poets to slam, DJs to jam and loyal listeners to tune in.

In November 2011, Radio CUH started streaming 24/7 thanks to a handful of passionate faculty members and students who understood the value of an independent college radio station. Nearly 10 years later, the station is still going strong, broadcasting to listeners in Hawaii and around the globe.

And now the station is also getting some national recognition.

The College Radio Foundation recently named Radio CUH as a recipient of its Bret Grant Award, designed to help support college radio programming. The $2,000 grant can be used for equipment, licensing, continuing education or other expenses.

Tom Galli, a senior lecturer in Communication at Chaminade, helps oversee the radio station’s management. He said Radio CUH was the brainchild of Communications Professor Cliff Bieberly. “The technology to do streaming music was really ramping up. An online-only radio station was a possibility,” Galli said. “It was also something that our students were in interested in and would bring up.”

After a few tests, Radio CUH was officially launched on November 15, 2011.

The initial music library consisted of a few professors’ CD collections. At first, just a few students participated. Fast forward a decade, and Radio CUH has a library of over 100,000 songs and is getting an average of 500 new songs a week from music distributors. It’s also gained a loyal following, with fans tuning in from as far away as Nevada and Micronesia to hear DJs take to the microphone.

Galli described the station’s programming as “eclectic.”

Professor Tom Galli in Radio CUH

“Students play what they want. We have a wide range of genres, much of it very new,” he said, in a recent interview. “Part of the promise of college radio is that there’s no commercial pressure so the idea of adhering to consistency of programming is somewhat anathema to the ideal.”

In addition to music, Radio CUH has teamed up with professors and departments on special projects.

Every year, for example, the station partners with the English department to stream a slam poetry festival presented by Chaminade and Kaimuki High students. Several professors have also worked with the station on special pre-recorded readings of poetry or personal essays exploring certain topics.

Galli said the number of student DJs fluctuates each semester.

Students can participate in their free time or learn there as part of a three-credit elective (COM361). Prospective DJs can expect hands-on training on the system and a test to ensure they understand the responsibilities and liabilities the radio station is subject to. COM361 is offered every semester.

“College radio is supposed to be an alternative to commercial radio and our DJs embody that,” Galli said. The station’s DJs, he added, “can practice skills to make them more effective presenters, expand their musical horizons, record demo reels if they seek a career in broadcasting, and have a good time.”

Posted by: University Communications & Marketing Filed Under: Business & Communication, Featured Story, Institutional Tagged With: Communication, Grants

Making Lemonade Out of Lemons

February 16, 2021

Like many of us, Blaze Mancillas’ 2020 didn’t go quite as he had planned.

The pandemic meant that the actor and comedian, a 2009 graduate of Chaminade, wasn’t able to audition as much as he had hoped, couldn’t do many comedy shows or other events and had to spend more time than he ever has in his (somewhat cramped) New York apartment.

But lockdowns and COVID precautions didn’t keep Mancillas from staying busy.

In fact, his work as a host on app-based music trivia game show “SongPop Live” earned him a 2020 Webby Award, which honors the “best of the internet” in everything from websites to apps. He also launched a podcast, called “Let’s Get Lit” that combines two of his loves—comedy and literature. 

Mancillas’ Webby Award

Reached on recent day, Mancillas was hopeful about 2021 would bring.

As the number of COVID infections in New York declined, auditions have slowly resumed—and he’s looking forward to new opportunities. He said that after a very difficult year for everyone, he’s grateful for what he has and is charged up to seek out new ways to hone his acting chops and share his comedy.

Mancillas scored a hosting role on “SongPop Live” before the pandemic started. When the city shut down, he was sent home with a lot of technical equipment and instructions on what to do next. He and the other three hosts finished out their work for the game show from the comfort of their living rooms.

It was a transition for Mancillas, who said before the pandemic he rarely spent much time at all in his apartment. Instead, he would always be out in the city—enjoying all that it has to offer. But he made the most of it and in October launched his new must-listen podcast, in which he reads from a classic book (the first season features “War of the Worlds”) and invites comedians on to offer commentary.

The podcast is already getting some buzz, including in Paste Magazine and on the Comedy Cake website. Mancillas describes it as a chance to actually read those books you were supposed to read in high school, with some great comedians to join you to keep things light and keep you laughing.

In a recent interview, Mancillas remembered his time at Chaminade fondly.

It was there that Mancillas discovered his love of acting. He scored leading roles in Chaminade productions of “The Elephant Man,” “Amadeus,” “Pippin” and “The Pirates of Penzance,” to name a few. From Chaminade, he headed to New York to study acting at Columbia University. He graduated with a Master’s in Fine Arts from Columbia in 2012, and has been building his career ever since.

In addition to doing stand-up comedy and hosting for “SongPop Live,” Mancillas has appeared on TV episodes, commercials and done motion capture acting for video games. He’s interested in doing more on-screen acting work but also wants to continue to build his chops as a game show host, he said.

Mancillas with Bro. Gary Morris

At Chaminade, Mancillas was a communication major with a minor in performing arts. He credits three mentors—Music Professor Tim Carney, Father Robert Bouffier and Brother Gary Morris—with recognizing his talent, helping him muster the courage it takes to get out in front of an audience, and then challenging him to apply for graduate school on the mainland.

“They left a profound impact on me,” he said. “They were really wonderful.”

Mancillas is also thankful to Chaminade for giving him the space to find his passions—and not just in acting. At the university, Mancillas was also on the cross country and golf team, and was an announcer for basketball games. “I was running all over the place,” he said, adding that Chaminade helped him grow as a person and an artist. “There are lots of opportunities to try different things.”

To learn more about Mancillas’ work, including his new podcast, head to his website.

Posted by: University Communications & Marketing Filed Under: Alumni, Business & Communication, Featured Story, Humanities, Arts & Design Tagged With: Communication, Performing Arts

Pushing Boundaries: Sushi with Attitude

September 8, 2020

Remi Kohno '15

At Chaminade University, we talk a lot about adaptation and change—educating for adaptation and change is one of the five core tenets of a Marianist education. The concept is woven throughout our curricula, and our students learn about the importance of embracing change and adapting to meet it as they move through our programs.

Adapting to change is something that is very familiar to Remi Kohno ‘15. She came to Chaminade University from Pasadena, California to play basketball and major in elementary education. But after her first year, she realized neither of those were the right fit. She didn’t like the competition she found on the basketball court, and teaching wasn’t her passion. So she quit the basketball team and switched her major to communications with a focus in marketing.

Her junior year brought even more change when she joined the Hogan Entrepreneurial Program. It quickly started pushing her out of her comfort bubble, and it altered the way she reacted to pressure. 

“I saw all these great people join the Hogan program and I wanted to be just like them,” recalls Kohno. “Hogan definitely pushed my boundaries, which was nice. It really helped me grow as a person, both professionally and personally.”

Students who are accepted into the Hogan Entrepreneurial Program spend one or two years learning what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur. They mingle and network with some of Hawaii’s biggest business leaders, they travel, they participate in internships and they work with industry leaders to design their own business plans and fine tune their public speaking abilities.

The program helped Kohno break out of her shell and become more confident in her abilities to lead and engage.

One moment in particular stands out in her memory. Every Wednesday evening, Hogan participants gather to welcome and learn from a guest speaker from the Hawaii business industry. Guests range from Mattson Davis, the former president and CEO of Kona Brewing Co., to Chuck Cardinal, a former Colonel in the United States Army and the former Chief of Staff to a WWII Commander.

On this particular night, the speaker was Eddie Flores, Jr., the founder of L&L Hawaiian BBQ. Flores has an inspiring story—he’s the son of immigrant parents and the eldest of seven children. His family moved to Hawaii from China when he was a young child. His father worked as a janitor and his mother worked as a restaurant cashier and dishwasher. He himself struggled with a learning disability growing up that kept him behind in school. But as a young man, he worked hard, ultimately earning enough money to buy his mother a restaurant, in what would become the first L&L location. His restaurant chain now has over 200 locations and in 2019 it was ranked as the No. 1 Asian food franchise by Entrepreneur. 

Kohno had been designated as the evening’s notetaker, which meant it was her job to document Flores’ speech and at the end of the evening, stand up to present a recap to her classmates while Flores watched on.

She was just a little intimidated. “You’re listening and engaging, but you’re also taking notes so that you can structure it into a recap and presentation,” remembers Kohno. “After [Flores] was done, I had to go up in front of the whole class and do a quick overview of what was most important. It was nerve-wracking. But then I got to give him a lei, which was nice and helped alleviate any tension.”

Remi Kohno '15 at the American Advertising Federation’s Most Promising Multicultural Student program

Kohno’s senior year, right after returning from a semester studying abroad in France, one of her professors recommended her for the American Advertising Federation’s Most Promising Multicultural Student program. She was one of only a handful of students selected from across the nation to participate in the intensive immersion program, designed to connect diverse up-and-coming advertising talent with some of the largest advertisers in the nation. She once again found herself at the airport, ready to embrace the unknown, this time in New York City.

Luckily, she had learned how to network and interact with business leaders through the Hogan program. “We got to meet a ton of people and tour their facilities and headquarters,” says Kohno. “It was an opportunity to connect with businesses and send them your resume, and hopefully get a follow up interview to help jumpstart your career after college.”

Through all of the change and opportunity that came her way at Chaminade, Hogan taught Kohno to remain calm and collected, and cool under pressure. Through Hogan and her professors, she learned to see challenge as opportunity. It’s something that has served her well after college, particularly today.

Remi Kohno '15 with her family—Sushi With Attitude

Before COVID, her family ran a small restaurant stall called Sushi with Attitude at a night market in Los Angeles. While she has a full-time job at NBC during the day, she helps them on the side. When the pandemic shut down the market, they had to completely rethink their strategy and their focus. With Kohno’s help, they converted the business into a cloud kitchen model, meaning they are operating completely on delivery apps without a storefront, and launched a new product: the sushibi. It’s a combination of sushi and musubi.

“We wanted to offer musubi, but a lot of people in Los Angeles don’t know what they are,” says Kohno. “We also wanted to be able to show up in the sushi category on delivery apps—it is one of the most used keywords. So we rebranded our musubi to be sushibi to bridge the gap.”

The business has received a bit of media attention as a result, and Kohno’s Hogan training has come in useful.

Remi Kohno '15 and her family being interviewed for their family business, Sushi With Attitude

“Hogan helped me learn to speak and structure what I’m going to say, which has helped a lot with media interviews,” says Kohno. “I recently interviewed with KTLA news. I was really nervous because it was live, but it was nice to be able to do something that I wasn’t really comfortable with, and Hogan taught me how to do that.”

Kohno attributes much of her recent success to Hogan and the opportunities she had at Chaminade. “Definitely Hogan, all of the professors I had at Chaminade and being part of the American Advertising Federation, they have all helped me grow into this role that I have right now.”

She works full-time as a manager in paid social media at NBC. And only five years after graduating from college, she feels like she’s almost landed her dream job.

“I love what I do at NBC. They’re a really great company,” says Kohno. “I want to continue to grow and become a director, and continue to be knowledgeable about all the various platforms and their nuances and updates. That is my dream goal. I think I’m almost there.”

Posted by: University Communications & Marketing Filed Under: Alumni, Business & Communication, Featured Story, Hogan Entrepreneurial Program Tagged With: Communication

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