Ahupua`a

When I came to Hawai`i in January 2001, like many other Hotel General Managers before me, I had very little knowledge about the 50<sup>th</sup> state, its people and its culture and customs.  I assumed that leading a hotel would generally be the same as it is on the mainland, with me telling people what to do and hopefully teaching them a few things along the way.  I had some faint knowledge of a slight change in dress code from my previous stint in Scottsdale, Arizona, exchanging a suit, shirt and tie for something they call an Aloha Shirt, not tucked in but loosely hanging from the shoulders straight down outside the slacks (I was pretty certain that no serious business could be conducted dressed this way).  Beyond that, however, I really had no idea what to expect, particularly since I left Scottsdale on a few days notice and therefore did not have much time to study up on Hawai`i.

I vividly remember February 1^st of that year.  I had flown to Maui a couple of days prior and checked into a hotel called Kea Lani Hotel, Villas and Spa, a place I had never heard of before.  I had specific instructions to “lay low” for a few days and wait and see what would happen.  Fairmont was in the process of buying the hotel from the previous owners in what eventually would turn out to be the most expensive U.S. hotel transaction of the year, but we didn’t really know if the sale would go through, as these things often fall apart literally at the last minute.  Even though there were many Fairmont corporate officials on property, they wanted me to fly under the radar just in case the sale did not happen and I would return to Scottsdale to continue with my job there.

On that first day of February around 8am, the transaction was signed off on in Honolulu and Fairmont purchased its first major hotel outside the North American continent in what was termed Fairmont’s first international sun-resort (even though Acapulco was already part of the portfolio). I got word that it was “show time” and that there would be an all-employee meeting in the hotel’s ballroom at 2 in the afternoon.  February on Maui is the busy season, and the hotel was almost completely sold out, with dozens of loyal return guests and 650 employees, many of them employed by the hotel since opening in 1991, all waiting to see what would happen next.  Everyone was rather apprehensive, as this was the first time that the hotel had changed ownership, and it traded hands from what was basically a family-run single hotel business to become part of a growing company headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with ambitions to become a world-leader in the luxury hotel business.

At 2pm, I went to the ballroom and everyone in our company, from the Chairman to the Senior Vice President Human Resources, from Public Relations to Sales, from the General Counsel to the person in charge of Acquisitions, was assembled to roll-out our vision and values and plans for the hotel to the 650 employees who had gathered.  Once the ballroom was full, we started our presentations, with videos and slide shows, with music and speeches, and everyone told those employees how glad Fairmont was to be there and how we would honor what they had created and try and do a good job with them and for them. Finally, I stepped onto the stage as the last person to be introduced and I looked at the room full of people from every imaginable corner of the Pacific rim, from Thailand, the Philippines, Korea, China, Japan, from Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Micronesia, local Hawaiians, as well as from many parts of the United States and from many Canadian provinces.  I stared at all of them and they all stared at me, trying to figure each other out and trying to determine what we were all dealing with.  I too gave my speech and told everyone how pleased I was to be there and how much I was looking forward to teaching them all I knew; never imagining how the roles would really be turned.

At the end of the session, I stood by the door, shaking hands and meeting some of my new co-workers in person, when a fierce looking, dark-skinned mature gentleman with tattoos on his arms came to me, grabbed my hand and shook it with what must have been the firmest handshake I had ever experienced, and said “Mr. Luedi, I am Kimokeo Kapahulehua, and I will take you out on an outrigger canoe”.  Then he left and little did I know that I had just encountered a true Hawaiian kupuna (elder) who would change my life in more ways than I could ever have imagined.

A couple of months later, Kimokeo came to my office and reminded me that we had to go paddling, which led to the fundraising regatta I talked about last week.

As Kimokeo continued to interact with me, in a relationship that was very unusual (I was the General Manager and he was the hotel’s limousine driver), I was taught some of the most basic Hawaiian principles of life and community.  In our state, kupuna are held in high regard for their knowledge and experience from a lifetime of learning and living life, and sitting with one of them to “talk story”, to listen to them tell us how it was in the old days and how things were done, still holds lots of value and in many cases could make life in today’s world a whole lot easier, as that is is truly what life is all about.  One of those lessons learned is the concept of Ahupua`a – the way land was divided when the Polynesian settlers came to our islands around 800 A.D.  Towns at that time were not located horizontally along the ocean, in lower elevations or in the mountains; communities were divided in slivers of land stretching from the ocean (where the community was the widest) towards higher areas and eventually would reach a point on top of a mountain, for example Mauna Kea.  This community had access to the ocean and all that it had to offer, as well as lower-laying areas to farm and the mountains high up with their forests for wood and quarries for rocks to make tools. This land division was the ultimate model of sustainable living as everyone only fished for their own use, planted and harvested enough for everyone in the community, and only cut trees down for the wood that was needed.  There was no overfishing, no depletion of the soil’s nutrients due to over-planting, and no deforestation and erosion of soil.  Western contact changed all of that, and villages were created along the water, or in the mountains, and people had to start to trade for fish and wood, for harvested goods and rocks, and pretty soon over-consumption started to take its toll.  Today, everyone is talking about environmental stewardship and a sustainable lifestyle, but we know that it had been sustainable for a long time before land ownership changed it all.

As Kimokeo was teaching me, he broke down any barrier that had existed in my mind what the role of a hotel general manager in our state is all about. It is not so much about using all of the knowledge that has been accumulated over several years in the business (which is important), but about allowing others to teach you and to put that knowledge into the context of running a hotel.  The hierarchy in any business here always includes the leader in title (such as a General Manager), but also those that are the accepted leaders in the community (such as the kupuna).  It also includes those with great cultural knowledge who may not hold the highest “rank”, but have knowledge far beyond the actual job they are doing, just like Kimokeo.  I jokingly said many times that if Kimokeo would tell me to set the hotel on fire, I would do so as I had learned that he has the wisdom and knowledge to guide us along the right path.  Others who have taught me and guided me over the past ten years have included a wonderful gentleman on our Island of Hawai`i, Kaniela Akaka Jr., who is considered to be the resident historian of Mauna Lani Resort and our ahupua`a called Kalāhuipua`a, and who is also a person of great respect and influence to me, even though technically he is employed by another hotel.

Another such person is Kumu (teacher) Keli`i Tau`a, one of Hawai`i’s most prolific cultural perpetuators, from the Island of Maui.

I met kumu (as he is referred to in short) through Kimokeo when I asked him in August of 2002 if he could give me a short oli (chant) so that I could memorize it and then present it to our staff at our annual holiday party in December.  Kimokeo told me not to worry about a thing and that he would give me something.  Some time went by and didn’t hear anything. September, October and then November, nothing, and finally around Thanksgiving, Kimokeo came with a piece of paper with a chant and a tape recording of what seemed an impossibly lengthy chant of thanks to the universe, all prepared for me by kumu.  Kimokeo let me know that kumu did all of this for me and that he wanted to make sure I did a good oli in front of 600 invited employees and guests.  What he didn’t consider was that I had at that point about two weeks left to study, repeat, prepare and then perform.  I first abandoned the whole idea, but was told by Kimokeo, rather sternly, that it would not be polite to have kumu go through all the trouble and then not perform.  This prompted me to spend a couple of frightened days of memorizing in the weeks leading up to the party.  The president of Fairmont Hotels and Resorts at the time, a gentleman by the name of Chris Cahill, was visiting the property for a business meeting and had decided that afternoon that he would attend the party.  Kimokeo was there as well, and as a guest he brought with him Kumu Tau`a; all of that created a couple of the most stressful hours in my entire life for me. Regardless, I stood up there on stage and performed my very first oli in public, with only one small mistake (which nobody but kumu realized), and everyone loved it and that marked the beginning of my involvement with Hawaiian chants.  Today I think nothing of it when I open a meeting by blowing the pu (conch shell) and perform a chant, and I have a whole collection of various size shells that I can use, alone or with a group of blowers.

Every business in Hawai`i has such individuals on staff, and they all add tremendous value to one’s life.  At The Fairmont Orchid, Hawai`i, one such individual is Uncle Kalani, one of our beach ambassadors (the politically correct, gender neutral term for a beach boy, our state’s quintessential “aloha” job).  Uncle has been a beach boy all his life and at our hotel for many years.  He has great knowledge and is respected by all, including myself and I look up to him and learn from him every day that I see him. I hope that you will have the chance one day to meet Uncle, Kaniela, Kimokeo or even Kumu and I promise you, you will never forget them.

Me ke aloha, a hui hou,

Chris

P.S.  Practice update: we were on the water four days this week, getting closer and closer every day to our first race.