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Maui%20County
The Maui 10
Who’s the county’s most powerful player?

by By Anthony Pignataro

December 28, 2006

RANK    PREVIOUS    COMPANY



   

1                 

1             

Dowling Co.

   

2                 

3             

Weinberg Foundation

   

3                 

5             

Monsanto Hawai`i

   

4                 

6             

Maui Electric Co.

   

5                 

7             

Makena Resort

   

6                 

4             

Maui Land & Pineapple Co.



   

7                 

2             

Alexander & Baldwin



   

8                 

8             

Tesoro Hawai`i

   

9                 

9             

Wailuku Water Co.

  

10              

10             

Hawaiian Telcom





SAY IT AIN’T SO, DUDE!



Very bad news for our state’s biggest agricultural firms this week,

and you can sum it all up with this Honolulu Advertiser headline, which

ran Dec. 20: “Forget sugar—in Hawai`i, pot’s king.” That’s right, man:

marijuana is now the crop of choice in our state’s fields. According to

figures calculated by marijuana public policy analyst (no, I had no

idea such jobs existed either) Jon Gettman, in 2006 farmer or farmers

unknown cultivated 2.38 million pounds of grass to the tune of $3.82

billion. Now that’s what economists call a high value crop—stats from

the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that last year Hawai`i’s farms

produced 2.02 million tons (not pounds) of sugarcane, which was valued

at about $63 million. Pineapple production saw just 212,000 tons

produced, but brought in $79 million. Of course, Gettman may just be

blowing smoke—“We have no way to verify his conclusions because we

don’t collect the data,” state agriculture statistician (unfortunately,

such jobs do exist) Mark Hudson told the Advertiser.





JUST NOT A&B’S WEEK



According to the Dec. 22 online version of Pacific Business News,

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Horizon Lines, Inc. just elected Norman

Mineta to its board of directors. Mineta, for those of you who don’t

watch the news with a ferocity bordering on fanaticism, was both

President George W. Bush’s Secretary of Transportation and President

Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Commerce. He’s also vice chairman of Hill

& Knowlton as a former vice chairman of he defense giant Lockheed

Martin. Horizon Lines is, of course, the second biggest shipping firm

that sends freighters to and from Hawai`i, A&B’s Matson being the

biggest. Given Mineta’s impressive Washington credentials and obvious

lobbying power, we’ll just have to see how long Matson stays on top.

MTW