Growing up with Hawaiian Electric

Call it fate, but I ended up working at Hawaiian Electric with one of my besties from college. Teri Theuriet and I met while we were staffers at Ka Leo o Hawaii, the campus newspaper at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. It was, well, a long time ago.

Our career paths led us into local newsrooms, several jobs on the continent, then back home. Eventually we both ended up in the communications department at Hawaiian Electric. It just happened.

We also ended up having children the same year. Teri was still on the mainland when she welcomed her twins, Sachie and Joshua, and I was already back in Hawaii when Jake was born. No, we didn’t plan to have kids in the same year. Again, it just happened.

When Teri moved back home with her family, our kids met for the first time when they were maybe 2 or 3. She was working remotely (way before telecommuting or hybrid was legit), managing comms for a hospital, and I was running my own restaurant.

Teri would join Hawaiian Electric first, then I landed a job with the company a few years later. Our kids have literally grown up with Hawaiian Electric — camping out in our offices when they were little and volunteering with us throughout the years. They’ve donned Hawaiian Electric T-shirts for a range of company activities: Holiday parades, energy fairs, cultural festivals and even worked a booth where dogs got “temporary tattoos” (at a Pawina event benefitting Guide Dogs of Hawaii).

In other words, they’ve grown up embracing the value of giving back to our community.

Sure, they need to do a certain number of hours of community service for school. But over the years they’ve learned that volunteerism at Hawaiian Electric is not required — it’s simply our kuleana, or responsibility.

In 2025, about 2,800 employees together with family and friends volunteered 9,297 hours across 202 community events such as emergency preparedness-focused education and native planting/green breaks to reduce wildfire risk; serving meals at the Institute for Human Services; participating in charity walks, holding school supply drives and joining inclusion and belonging activities such as Pride Power festivals, among many other activities.

Simply put, community service has been part of our kids’ upbringing as they’ve grown up with Hawaiian Electric.

And now they’re about to graduate from high school. Where did the time go?

While all three of them are headed to different universities, I’m sure they’ll still find time to volunteer at Hawaiian Electric events during their breaks. After all, they’re part of our Hawaiian Electric ohana.

They’ve evolved just as Hawaiian Electric has — adapting to new and changing environments, overcoming challenges, giving back to our community.