The Boy from Kaʻū
10th generation Native Hawaiian. Retired Navy Captain, combat veteran, 28 years active duty. Author of The Promise I Made.
My Biography
I was born in Honolulu and raised in Pāhala — a small sugar plantation town in the Kaʻū district of Hawaiʻi island. My ancestors made landfall at Ka Lae, South Point, more than a thousand years ago. I am the tenth generation of my family to walk that shoreline.
I left the island at seventeen. In 1988 I flew to San Diego for Navy boot camp...my first time on the U.S. mainland. I would not return home for 32 years.
While on active duty, I flew combat missions over Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1996, and Iraq and Afghanistan in 1998. I logged more than a thousand hours of strategic reconnaissance against China, Russia, and North Korea — off their coasts and overland across the DMZ. I served on the bridge of the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) during her maiden deployment to the Western Pacific and Persian Gulf in 2006. I deployed with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) in 2010. I took command of a Navy squadron in 2011. In 2016 I deployed to Baghdad, during the height of ISIS invasion into Iraq, as senior advisor to the Iraqi Minister of Defense. My final assignment was Commanding Officer of NIWC Pacific — the Navy’s largest research and development center on the West Coast.
I retired on September 1, 2020, started a small information technology services company, Akamai Intelligence LLC, co-founded a Quantum X-Ray startup to inspect AI microchips, Quantheon Inc., and established a 501(c)3 nonprofit Native Hawaiian Organization (NHO), The Malama Ka’u Foundation...and came home to the work that was waiting.
The Record
A life is more than a list of milestones. But the milestones tell you where the story bends.
1970
Born in Honolulu
10th generation Native Hawaiian. Raised in Pāhala, in the Kaʻū district of Hawaiʻi island, by kūpuna who taught me that ʻāina is not real estate and kuleana is the measure of a person.
1988
Boot Camp, San Diego
Seventeen years old. First time on the U.S. mainland. Enlisted as an “undesignated E-1” and the beginning of a Navy career that would last almost three decades. E-1 to O-6.
1989-1995
College + Flight School
Jacksonville University (Jacksonville, FL), Navy Flight Training (Pensacola, FL), Jet Training (San Diego, CA), SERE school (Warner Springs, CA)
1996
First Combat Flights
Flew first combat mission over Bosnia-Herzegovina. Two years later, over Iraq and Afghanistan. Received an individual Air Medal for combat performance over Basrah, Iraq. Logged over 100 aircraft carrier arrested landings.
early 2000
The Western Pacific
A thousand hours of strategic reconnaissance flights against China, Russia, and North Korea – across the Sea of Japan, the East and South China Seas, and overland across Korea’s DMZ.
2004
Operation Phantom Fury
Flew combat missions over Fallujah, Iraq, in support of US Marines during one of the bloodiest battles during the Iraq war.
2006
USS RONALD REAGAN (CVN 76)
Drove the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier during her maiden deployment to the Western Pacific and the Persian Gulf. Qualified as Conning Officer and Officer of the Deck (Underway).
2011
SQUADRON COMMAND
Assumed command of a Naval aviation squadron. Title 10 authority. Led squadron on five (5) Expeditionary Strike Group deployments, including combat operations against the Houthis in Yemen (2009) and relief operations off the coast of Japan as a result of the Fukushima nuclear incident in 2011.
2016
Baghdad Deployment
15 months, boots-on-the-ground, combat deployment. 2016-2017. Senior advisor to the Iraqi Minister of Defense during the height of ISIS invasion into Iraq and the liberation of Mosul city.
2020
NIWC Pacific & Retirement
Final command: the Navy’s largest R&D center on the West Coast. Responsible for over 5000 government civilian engineers, scientists and military personnel. Retired September 1, after 28 years and 6 months of active duty service. Came home to the work that was waiting.
TODAY
The Mission
Founder, Akamai Intelligence LLC, an 8(a) small business. Co-Founder, Quantheon Inc., a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB). Chairman, Mālama Kaʻū Foundation, a nonprofit Native Hawaiian Organization (NHO). Building a dialysis clinic in Kaʻū — in memory of my father.
The Promise Is the Mission.
I did not arrive at this fight by accident.
28 years in the United States Navy taught me things that cannot be learned in a classroom. What those years produced was knowing how a government system works from the inside, how to navigate the bureaucratic machinery without being consumed by it, and how to keep the mission visible when the paperwork threatens to obscure it.
I am going to need every bit of that experience for what comes next.
What I’m up Against
Building a dialysis clinic in Kaʻū sounds simple. It is not.
Two (2) corporations control the American dialysis industry, one headquartered in Europe and the other in Tennessee, collecting tens of billions in government reimbursements every year. They are not incentivized to change that. Every independent community clinic built by someone like me is revenue they do not collect. If Kaʻū succeeds, it may inspire other rural communities to do the same. That is exactly what they cannot allow. Their lobbyists are well funded and their political influence is not passive.
Then there is the State of Hawaiʻi. Before any new healthcare facility can open, the state requires a Certificate of Need, a CON approval. In practice, CON laws protect existing providers from competition. The same duopoly contesting my application has the legal teams and political relationships to slow walk that process indefinitely.
I am one person fighting a billion dollar industry and a state regulatory process that was not designed with Kaʻū in mind.
But I know where I come from. The people of Kaʻū do not quit. We never have. My father needed dialysis and there was no clinic close enough to reach. He is gone now. I made him a promise and I will keep it, against every corporation, every lobbyist, and every bureaucratic obstacle, until my last breath.
Imua!