Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 16, Number 1, 1 January 1999 — Hao & Trask: New trustees with experience, vision [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Hao & Trask: New trustees with experience, vision

B y Paula Durbin

ĪRUSTEE LOUIS Hao is hardly new to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. From 1984 to 1992, he served OHA as Moloka'i/Lāna'i trustee. But his service was cut short when his employer, the County of Hawai'i, transferred him to Maui, whieh made impossible a bid for reelection to represent the Friendly Isle. When the Maui seat opened up, Hao decide to go for it, and he won handily, becoming only the second trustee reelected to the board after sitting several years out (the first is Trustee-at-Large Frenchy DeSoto). Given his election to both the Moloka'i and Maui seats, it might eome as a surprise to people who don't know him that Louis Hao is a son of the Big Island. He was born in Kona, of paniolo stock, and he graduated from Hilo High School in 1954. A gifted athlete, he went through the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa on a basketball scholarship. "Without that," he said, "I would have ended up in the military." Instead, he earned a degree in sociology with a minor in recreation. For fīve years, he worked for the Honolulu City and County's Department of Parks and Recreation, mainly on the Windward Coast. During that time, he married and became the father of four daughters. In 1965, Trustee Hao enrolled in Indiana's Ball State University. As an employee for the Indiana State employment Service, he spent six years working his way through two master's degrees before returning home to successive political appointments - first by Governor John Burns to the Department of Human Services on Moloka'i, then by Maui Mayor Elmer Cravalho to direct Maui's Department of Parks and Recreation - followed by the stint in the civil service that took him back to Moloka'i. Currently, he is the executive assistant to the managing director for the County of Maui, but he expects to phase out of this position into retirement within the next year. With two terms and a six-year interruption in service behind him, Trustee Hao returns to the board with a unique perspective. "Back then, we were struggling just to exist. Our challenge was just to demonstrate we were legal," he said, recalling his first two terms. "We made do with what we had," he added, referring to OHA's small investment portfolio whieh provided $6,000 in seed money for the entrepreneurship program begun on Moloka'i and now conducted statewide through Alu Like's Business Development Center. As chair of the Eeonomie Development Committee during his previous tenure at OHA, Trustee Hao also oversaw the establishment of the Native Hawaiian Revolving Loan Program with matching federal funds.

OHA has undergone many changes since he was last here, Trustee Hao acknowledges. "Today, OHA is mueh more sophisticated," he said. "Trustees are respected and OHA is seen in the community as a major player. I never figured we would be at this point, settling back payments as opposed to defending our right to exist. It's mueh more optimistic here now, and the future looks very promising." ■

0FFICE OF Hawaiian Affairs voters elected only one brand new trustee to office in November, Trustee-at-Large Mililani Trask, but they gave her 29,656 votes - more than any OHA candidate has ever received in any election. "I felt very happy," she said of the count, "very affirmed. I took it as a clear sign of support from the Hawaiian people and an endorsement of my politics."

Trustee Trask is well-known as a founder and the former kia'āina of Ka Lāhui Hawai'i, as well as for her previous activism, something you could almost say she cut her teeth on. "The Trasks have a long history of involvement in loeal politics, with an emphasis on Native Hawaiian rights," she explained. "We were raised with it." When she graduated from Kamehameha Schools in 1969, the civil rights movement was taking on new dimensions in California. Not surprisingly, as a University of Redlands freshman, Trustee Trask jumped into the fray. Back then, she was a committed environmentalist, smdying ecological and agricultural issues, but that changed when she took off for a semester to join Cezar Chāvez in his efforts to organize migrant labor into the United Farm Workers. "One day, we all got sprayed with chemicals from a crop duster," she recalled, "and I decided the focus could not just be environmental. It had to be people." Chāvez became a major influence on Trustee Trask. "He strongly believed that all political movements begin with the grassroots," she said, "that complex issues ean be understood at the grassroots level if they are framed in terms of human rights. That's what I learned fromhim." Coincidentally, Chāvez' son Fernando was Trustee Trask's law school classmate at the University of Santa Clara. Onee she graduated, Trustee Trask took the normal route to a private law practice through a stint as a prosecutor. Along the way, she spent a year as the attorney for OHA's Board of Trustees, developing policy guidelines and manuals. But she also continued to pursue her humanitarian interests. Eventually she was drafted into the Indigenous Women's Network to craft an international human rights standard for native peoples and represent the organization at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. Since then, she has constantly been in the international spotlight. Her work abroad has included projects with Guatemalan Indian advocate and Nobel laureat Rigoberta Menehu and with the late Mother Theresa. Trustee Trask has used her international exposure to bring attention to the plight of Native Hawaiians, but, she said, she plans to keep her sovereignty agenda separate from her work as a trustee. For years an outspoken critic of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, she feels voters will hold her, as an elected trustee, to the platform on whieh she ran. "I think they will eome back in four years and ask what I accomplished and if I didn't accomplish my platform, why not?" she said. "I'm somebody with a long history of disagreements with members of this board, but I had to make a ehoiee to get elected and walk in here and, regardless of the past, get them into dialogue focusing on the office. As problems eome up, I'm just telling people we have to get the work done." ■

Louis Hao Bom: Kona, Hawai'i 'Ohana: Hao, Alapai, Kaholo, Kaiawe, Kuahine Hawaiian language: Understands well, speaks some Education: Waiākea Elementary School; Hilo High School; B.A. in sociology, University of Hawai'i; M.A. in counseling and M.A. in sociology, Ball State University, lndiana. Profess»onal experience: 35 years with the Honolulu City and County, Indiana State Empioyment Services, Maui County and the State of Hawai'i Poiitical offīces: OHA Moloka'i/Lāna'i trustee, 1984-92 Hobfaies/interests: Fishing. diving, golf, Hawaiian music Favorite Hawaiian song: "Ku'u Ipcf'

Mililani Trask Bom: Honolulu, O'ahu 'Ohana: Trask, Haia, Cooper, Akana, Chang Hawaiian language: Basic understanding Education: St. Ann's School; Kamehameha Schools; B.A. in poliheal scienee, San Iosē State; J.D„ Universily of Santa Clara. Professional experience: 20years as an attorney with the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney. in private law practice and with the Gibson Foundation Political offices: Kia'āina, Ka Lāhui Hawai'i Hobbies/interests: Hiking, international human rights Favorite Hawaiian song: "Kaulana nā Pua"

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PHOTOS: PAULA DURBIN