Born, raised and educated on the islands of O'ahu and Moku o Keawe, Hawai'i. In September of 2019, I joined the City and County of Honolulu's Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency (CCSR) as the Climate Resilience and Equity Manager. Prior to this role, I have 15 years of professional experience around the world in the hospitality & travel industry for multinational cruise lines, private aviation companies and hotel chains within operations, sales, marketing, sustainability and events. Since returning to my island home, the past 11 years have been dedicated to re-cultivating root relationships and repurposing that international corporate experience to be of service to reshaping and redefining community wellbeing from a place-based, culturally-centered perspective.
In 2016, I founded Conscious Concepts, a social enterprise in service to ʻāina (nature) and arts initiatives providing community organizing, project management, public programming and place-based travel curation. I have been dedicated to re-cultivating community resiliency and wellbeing from the roots up through the practice of regenerative relationships and truth telling. In the spirit of radical collaborations, I continue to cultivate the practice of interweaving corporate and grassroots, island and global perspectives in holistic approaches in centering equitable emergent solutions genuinely reflective of and appropriate to people and place. I have been an ongoing advocate and educator in sustainable tourism, dedicated to the rehabilitation and healing of our primary forms of true waiwai (wealth): ecological, cultural, social and spiritual wellbeing.
I was fortunate to grow up traveling the world as a “Pan Am baby” having parents that worked for Pan American Airlines. I was just as fortunate to grown up as a keiki o ka ʻāina (child of the land), surfing, raising and riding horses, dancing hula, stewarding land and growing food. Although we were never rich financially, my 'ohana (family) invested in wealth through experiences and relationships that allowed me the privileges I benefit from today. As a multi-ethnic islander and diasporic woman, I have never been comfortable with linear boxes of identity or binary interpretations of belonging. Being raised in indigenous values and ancestral knowledge, I look at diversity as an invaluable strength, based on the laws of nature and an incredible asset to true resiliency.
In 2016, I founded Conscious Concepts, a social enterprise in service to ʻāina (nature) and arts initiatives providing community organizing, project management, public programming and place-based travel curation. I have been dedicated to re-cultivating community resiliency and wellbeing from the roots up through the practice of regenerative relationships and truth telling. In the spirit of radical collaborations, I continue to cultivate the practice of interweaving corporate and grassroots, island and global perspectives in holistic approaches in centering equitable emergent solutions genuinely reflective of and appropriate to people and place. I have been an ongoing advocate and educator in sustainable tourism, dedicated to the rehabilitation and healing of our primary forms of true waiwai (wealth): ecological, cultural, social and spiritual wellbeing.
I was fortunate to grow up traveling the world as a “Pan Am baby” having parents that worked for Pan American Airlines. I was just as fortunate to grown up as a keiki o ka ʻāina (child of the land), surfing, raising and riding horses, dancing hula, stewarding land and growing food. Although we were never rich financially, my 'ohana (family) invested in wealth through experiences and relationships that allowed me the privileges I benefit from today. As a multi-ethnic islander and diasporic woman, I have never been comfortable with linear boxes of identity or binary interpretations of belonging. Being raised in indigenous values and ancestral knowledge, I look at diversity as an invaluable strength, based on the laws of nature and an incredible asset to true resiliency.