Hogan Entrepreneurs Program

Chaminade Students Register 67 New Voters

November 26, 2018 by University Communications and Marketing

A team of Hogan Entrepreneurial Program students took to the Chaminade campus in early October to register students, faculty and staff to vote. Over the course of a week, the volunteers registered 67 new voters.

Before heading out, Hogan students met with Corie Tanida, executive director of Common Cause Hawaii to learn more about voter registration in Hawaii. She also provided the students with handouts and sample scripts to prepare them for their outreach efforts.

Hawaii has the lowest voter turnout in the country and the students sought to change that. “We live in a democracy,” says Maddeline Smith ‘20, a Chaminade student majoring in business administration and one of the student volunteers. “It is our right to vote, and we need to exercise that right.”

All completed voter registration forms were hand delivered to the City and County of Honolulu Office by Hogan Program staff.

Kicking Off a Year of Business

October 15, 2018 by University Communications and Marketing

Chaminade staff, faculty and community partners joined together to welcome nearly 40 new Hogan Entrepreneurial Program students at the Pacific Club on October 10.

The Hogan Entrepreneurial Program provides an entrepreneurial certificate to Chaminade’s juniors, seniors and graduate students. Students in the program spend a year taking classes and hearing from weekly guest speakers to learn the principles of starting a business.

“Our motto is doing business things that make social sense and doing social things that make business sense,” says Dr. John Webster, director of the Hogan Entrepreneurial Program. “We ask our students to take this motto seriously, and they do.”

The program’s annual kick-off event allowed students a chance to meet with members of the business community and hear from keynote speaker Leslie Wilcox.

President and CEO of PBS Hawaii Leslie Wilcox pulled from her well-respected career in news and media to present the new entrepreneurs with five leadership takeaways:

1. Cultivate a simple mindset
2. Respect team smarts
3. Be willing to accept advice and constructive criticism
4. Develop battle-hardened confidence
5. Be fearless

After the address, attendees enjoyed a beautiful outdoor reception where students had a chance to network with and meet Hawaii business leaders.

Congratulations to our 2018 Hogan Entrepreneurs, we can’t wait to see what you achieve over the next year!

Touch a Heart Wins First Place at This Year’s Hogan & American Savings Bank Nonprofit Business Plan Competition

May 2, 2018 by University Communications and Marketing

Touch a Heart’s Ho’oulu ‘Aina Enterprises was awarded the first place prize during this year’s Hogan and American Savings Bank Nonprofit Business Plan Competition.

Held every other year for nonprofits in the state of Hawaii planning to start new ventures, the Nonprofit Business Plan Competition aims to encourage excellence in nonprofit planning and help make new and innovative social enterprises a reality, as well as stimulate public interest in the nonprofit sector. Hosted by the Hogan Entrepreneurs Program, the competition exemplifies the program’s motto, “Doing business things that make social sense. Doing social things that make business sense.”

Touch a Heart is an organization dedicated to preserving and enhancing the dignity of the homeless and disadvantaged in Hawaii. Their winning business plan outlined how Ho’oulu ‘Aina Enterprises aims to yield net profits to help sustain the Ho’ololi Food Services Internship Program by adding unique Hawaii products to the nonprofit’s existing social enterprises. The new products will include ‘ulu (breadfruit), kalo (taro) and kiawe (mesquite).

The Ho’ololi Food Services Internship Program helps men and women become fully employable while building up the participants’ confidence and hope. The Internship accepts six interns at a time and over the course of 12 weeks provides the interns with culinary skills and paid on-the-job-training. Participants also receive mentoring, resume writing assistance, and interview coaching. Upon completion of the program participants have the option of beginning their professional career in the food industry, continuing their education at a Community College or becoming a paid apprentice in one of Touch a Heart’s Food Service Social Enterprises.

For the last five years American Savings Bank (ASB) has partnered with the Hogan Entrepreneurs Program in support of the competition. During this year’s ceremony ASB’s FVP, Director of Communications and Community, Michelle Bartell, spoke on the importance of the competition, “[This competition] really encourages entrepreneurship in the nonprofit industry. It really enables local team leaders to make an even greater positive impact on our communities. She added, “We [ASB] really believe that Hawaii needs to diversify our economy. We need, especially in the nonprofit sector, to come up with innovative and sustainable new ways to approach our most pressing community challenges.” The Hogan and American Savings Bank Nonprofit Business Plan Competition provide nonprofits the funds to do just this.

Before announcing this year’s finalists Dr. John Webster, Director of Hogan Entrepreneurs Program, spoke on the importance of supporting the nonprofit sector, “This sector delivers countless services which are simply not provided by government or private sector. This sector is often as entrepreneurial as the for-profit sector.” He continued with, “Our aim therefore has been to make a modest contribution by helping some of those nonprofit organizations which are showing unusual entrepreneurial promise.”

The runner ups in this year’s competition included, Common Ground Collective: Maui’s Administrative & Mobile Farming Services in second place, Kauai North Shore Community Foundation: Help Me With My Homework in third place and Kids Hurt Too Hawaii: HI Rising in fourth place.

2018 Nonprofit Business Plan Competition finalists included ALEA Bridge, Bizgenics Foundation, Hawaii HomeOwnership Centerand Pop-Up Labs for Science.

Life Lessons from VP of Public Relations, Communications, and Brand Management at Kaiser Permanente Hawaii

March 23, 2018 by University Communications and Marketing

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

Finding Your Passion in Business

March 16, 2018 by University Communications and Marketing

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

Living and Working Globally

March 14, 2018 by University Communications and Marketing

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