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

by By Anthony Pignataro

May 10, 2007

RANK   PREVIOUS   COMPANY



  

1             

1           

Alexander & Baldwin

  

2             

2           

Maui Land & Pineapple Co.

  

3             

3           

Tesoro Hawai`i

  

4             

4           

Dowling Co.

  

5             

5           

Weinberg Foundation

  

6             

9            Monsanto Hawai`i



  

7             

6            Hawaiian Telcom



  

8             

7           

Goodfellow Brothers

  

9             

8           

Maui Electric Co.

 

10           

10           Wailuku

Water Co.





GENETICALLY MODIFIED POWER



Haven’t heard much from genetically modified organism

(GMO)/herbicide manufacturer Monsanto lately, but they benefit this

week from news that University of Hawai`i researchers have expanded

their GMO work on “bananas, tomatoes, petunias and lettuce,” according

to the Apr. 30 Honolulu Advertiser.

Genetically modified, disease-resistant petunias? My God, man, do you

think the world is ready for them? Can you imagine what would happen if

something went wrong and a super petunia began multiplying? It’s simply

too frightening to contemplate. But I digress: opposition to GMOs

around the world has been steadily growing for years—focused intently

on the fact that scientists still can’t be certain of the long-term

health effects caused by tinkering with DNA—but if UH is charging

headlong in making disease-resistant fruits and vegetables, then

Monsanto and its various super corn and soybean seeds can sit back and

relax.





TERRIBLE TWOS



Oh Hawaiian Telcom—will the fun never end? “We’re turning the corner,” HT CEO Mike Ruley said in the May 1 Advertiser.

“We’re investing literally hundreds of millions—not millions—but

hundreds of millions in technologies… to generate new levels of

customer service and a new level of customer experience.” Turning a

corner? Is he serious? Carlyle Group took over the company two years

ago—that’s a hell of a corner to be turning, Mike—and customer service

has been pretty crappy ever since. In fact, the Advertiser

couldn’t resist putting a graph of HT complaints alongside their story:

in the 15 months since January 2006 (data for March and April of this

year isn’t available), Hawaiian Telcom has failed to meet its goal of

responding to 85 percent of customer complaints within 20 seconds for

14 of those months. Basically, the company barely met the goal that

first month, and has been struggling to return ever since. Things were

so monumentally fouled up in May 2006 that customer service reps

responded to a mere eight percent of complaints within 20 seconds. But

Ruley says all that is a thing of the past. And when the Advertiser stops printing graphs of your complaint response times, we’ll believe it. MTW