Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 6, Number 9, 1 September 1989 — OHA hires new economic, health officers [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA hires new economic, health officers

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has new officers for the Eeonomie Development and Health & Human Services divisions. OHA's new Eeonomie Development Officer is Linda M. Colburn, former executive director of Aina Kupaa O Maili, ine., the city's transitional housing project known as "Maililand". A graduate of the Kamehameha Schools and Lewis Clark and College in Portland, Oregon, Colburn has wide and diverse experience in eeonomie development, business consulting, and as proprietor of her own business. She served as project coordinator of the Hawaiian Business Development Project, Eeonomie Development Specialist for Alu Like's O'ahu Island Center, managed the sales division of Pahala Typewriter Services and the shoppingdivision of Datek, ine. She owns ProCheck Hawaii, a firm providing consulting services to hotel chains, restaurants and other loeal businesses. - CoIburn said she is looking forward to new and progressive programs at OHA. She called her new position a real, wide-open opportunity. There are a number of areas in whieh she expects to focus her attention. One is to strengthen the position of the Hawaiian entrepreneur in the community by "fortifying the position of Hawaiianmade products in the market here." Colburn said she will be looking for ways to expand the distribution of goods and services by Hawaiians into foreign markets. Another of her goals is to have OHA to generate its own ineome, possibly utilizing an OHA "for profit" entity whieh has been on the drawing boards for some time. Colburn explained that legislative allocations do not provide the full spectrum of funds required to address the needs of the Hawaiian community. If OHA ean generate funds whieh ean be expended without legislative restrictions the increased flexibility would make OHA more responsive to its beneficiaries. Arthur Manoharan Dr. P:H. now heads the Health and Human Services Division. A native of Tiruchirapalli, India, Dr. Manoharan earned his medical degree at Madras University. He also received diplomas in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in Industrial Health from the Royal College of Physicians of London and Royal College of Surgeons. Dr. Manoharan was awarded a Doctor of Public Health Degree in occupational medicine by Columbia University in New York. He has held professorships at Columbia Univer-

sity in the School of Public Health and at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He held associate professorships at UH, Manoa, and at Boston University School of Medicine. He was visiting scholar at Harvard University and lecturer at the Singapore University School of Medicine. In addition to his academic career, Manoharan has served as medical director of Harlem Hospital Center in New York City; medical officer of Health in Kuala Lumpur; assistant health officer of the Singapore Health Department and consultant to the World Health Organization, UNICEF, Agency for International Development, the Peaee Corps and other national and international organizations. He has published over 20 health-related papers in medical and other journals. At OHA, Manoharan says he hopes to act as a catalyst, stimulating increased awareness and interest among Hawaiians in improving their own

health. Manoharan says the nutritional choices people. make have a direct impact on their susceptibility to diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other illnesses whieh disproportionately affect Hawaiians. The early Hawaiians, he says, had a well developed sense of environmental health and a thorough understanding of ecology. He would like to see a revivial of interest in these subjects among today's Hawaiians. He expressed a strong interest in what he called the spiritual and mystical understanding of health by Hawaiians and said these factors play an important role in their well-being. Finally, Manoharan said that improvement in the health of Hawaiians cannot take plaee in isolation. He says good physical health goes hand in hand with better education, cultural development and political self determination.

Linda Coburn

Arthur Manoharan