To the moon: Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce looks to next 50 years

KAUPULEHU — As West Hawaii moves into the future, local business leaders say it’s crucial the state and region use its resources and look for opportunities to grow, cultivate and launch the industries of tomorrow, including those that literally shoot for the moon.

That’s the idea behind the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce’s new Future Focus Initiative, announced Friday at the Chamber’s Annual Membership and Installation Luncheon, held at the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai.

“It’s not enough to just say ‘All right, our kids grow up here and they go work in the hotels,’” said Porter DeVries, chair of the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce board of directors. “Every generation should be doing better than the last one, and if we’re going to do that, we have to be creative and innovative and thinking about what the future’s going to look like.”

This year marks the Chamber’s 50th year, making it an opportune time to look back at where the local business community has been and where it’s headed in its next 50 years. The Future Focus Initiative, DeVries said, will include a Steering Committee and Young Professionals Leadership Council and, through research and interviews with stakeholders, start developing answers to the question of what those next 50 years ought to look like.

Entrepreneur and activist Henk Rogers spoke in his keynote address about how essential it is for Hawaii to be a place where future industries, particularly in the sectors of science and technology, can thrive.

Rogers is the founder and chairman of Blue Planet Foundation, focused on moving Hawaii to clean energy, and is also the chairman of the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems, a nonprofit focused on promoting Hawaii as a place for the business of space exploration.

“We cannot just live in the past,” Rogers told the crowd at the end of his speech. “We have to plan for the future of our children.”

And part of that includes making Hawaii an attractive place for business. Rogers referenced rankings that have put Hawaii among the worst states in the country to do business. CNBC ranked the state second to last in 2017 and 2016 and last in 2015.

“And that has to change,” Rogers said. “We can’t spend the rest of time being number 50.”

Essential to the state’s future, he said, is the Thirty Meter Telescope.

“If we don’t get the TMT, everybody backs off,” he said. “Everybody who wants to do anything with technology in Hawaii backs off.”

But Hawaii’s future isn’t just in looking at space. Rogers also shared his vision of cultivating Hawaii’s role in extending humanity’s reach into space as well, which includes a proposed MoonBase prototype to be built on Hawaii Island to demonstrate the feasibility of building on the moon using lunar materials.

Rock on the moon and Mars, he said, is similar to lava rock in Hawaii, meaning the island offers researchers a unique opportunity to learn how to build structures on the moon by learning how to build them in Hawaii first. That’s especially important given the cost of sending any materials to the moon.

Already, he said, PISCES has figured out how to heat moon dust to a temperature where it binds together and becomes stronger than concrete.

“The way I look at it is you’ve got all these billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos building airplanes and nobody’s building airports,” he said. “Well, let’s have Hawaii be the guys who know how to make airports on the moon or a MoonBase on the moon.”

Rogers noted that nothing would even need to necessarily launch from Hawaii, the state only has to develop the technology and intellectual property.

DeVries said Rogers’ address lines up with their approach to considering the area’s future.

“Everything that he had to say, especially about the moon, that’s leveraging a competitive advantage that we have here,” DeVries said. “And when we do something here that can’t be done anywhere else as well, we’re really creating a lot of value and a lot of benefits for the future.”

And when it comes to those future industries that can be incubated or kicked off locally before being launched on a larger scale, he said, “that’s something that we as a state can offer the world.”

Chamber’s Pualu Awards

Business Innovation: Tom Greenwell, Greenwell Farms

Community Education: Sandra Dawson, Thirty Meter Telescope

Culture & Heritage: Dr. Momi Naughton, North Hawaii Education and Research Center

Environmental Awareness: Tina Clothier, PATH (People’s Advocacy for Trails Hawaii)

Visitor Industry Marketing: Phoebe Barela and Karen Rose, VASH (Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii) Hawaii Island

Chamber Member of the Year: Elizabeth Elkjer, Sustainable Island Products