You could say that Dustin Shindo is a man who’s always looking for the next big thing. The consummate entrepreneur, just 34 years old, has already created four companies from the ground-up — everything from a local brewery to a clean energy technology company with $1.6 billion in contracts— all with the purpose of making a difference in the world.

Shindo founded Mehana Brewing Company in 1995 and a travel activity company called Activitymax in 1999 (which he later disbanded). He is chairman of Kai Sensors, a wireless heart rate and respiration sensing company he co-founded in 2007 and he is the chairman, president and CEO of the clean energy company, Hoku Scientific, Inc., which was established in 2001.
It is at Hoku Scientific where Shindo’s energy is most focused these days.

With a game created on the pretense of stacking building blocks coupled with a passion for entrepreneurship, one local man has constructed a video game software empire for himself. Chances are that no matter what style of video game system or game genre, Henk Rogers of Blue Planet Software has had a hand in developing some part of the technology that provides hours of entertainment for you or your children.

Most don’t know this, but Blue Planet Software was founded right here in Honolulu and is one of the world’s most successful software gaming developers. However, it was a long road to arrive at that point for Rogers. “Business downturns are tough when you’re not a public company with deep pockets. Having to close companies or otherwise let people go who have become your friends is really hard,” says Rogers.

Simplicity is not a word you’d think to use when talking about technology — especially wireless phone service technology. But “simplicity” is a mantra that extends to every part of the business for “new kid on the block” Mobi PCS, the only locally operated wireless network in Hawaii.

When company president and CEO Bill Jarvis formed Mobi PCS four years ago (formerly known as Coral Wireless), he knew that they would never have as many resources as the competition. He knew that his competition — national in scope — had a head start of nearly two decades and outspent them by a huge margin.
Jarvis recalls the early days of Mobi PCS as being rather lonely.

“I remember sitting at my kitchen table (before we had an office), working on the project and wondering how I was going to build a wireless telephone company from the ground up in 12 months or less with several national carriers who wanted to kill me,” he says.