GREAT-1(12) Reso 22-178 APPOINTMENT AND REMOVAL OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS (RESOLUTION 22-178, RELATING TO THE APPOINTMENT OF ROGERENE "KALI" ARCE AS DIRECTOR OF AGRICULTURE) (GREAT-1(12))
I am writing to you in support of the appointment of Rogerene "Kali" Arce to the position of Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. Already, Kali Arce has proven herself worthy of the role of Director of Agriculture. I have been consistently impressed with her knowledge, attention to detail, attentiveness and genuine passion to improve Maui County's agricultural future. Kali Arce brings her decades of knowledge, years of schooling and deep community understanding to her work, and we are lucky to have her as a candidate for the Director of Agriculture position. I fully support her appointment, and hope that you join me to support Reso 22-178 to appoint of Rogerene Arce as Director of Agriculture for Maui County.
Attached please find my Testimony Supporting the Appointment of Rogerene Kali Arce as Director of Agriculture.
Testimony Supporting Approval of Rogerene Kali Arce Appointment
Appointment Position: Director of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, Maui County
My name is Mr. Alton S. Arakaki, a retired County Extension Agent for the Cooperative Extension Service, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, CTAHR, in the University of Hawaii, Manoa. I served in this position during the period of agriculture transition from pineapple plantation to what we call today a diversified agriculture industry. I retired in December 2018 after serving in this position on Moloka’i for 36 years. I am providing this testimony in support Rogerene “Kali” Arce appointment for the Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. I’ve known Rogerene Arce, “Kali”, for more than quarter of a century.
Today you the Maui County Council is about to sharing similar iconic moments with me. About 29 years ago, in 1993, my colleague, Glenn Teves and I were faced with whether or not we should select a newly college graduate named Rogerene “Kali” Arce to fill a vacant Agriculture Extension Agent position in our Cooperative Extension Service office on Moloka’i. Our concern was whether we were being fair to Kali’s professional career to be the first FEMALE AGRICULTURE Extension Agent in University of Hawaii’s, at that time 86-year Land Grant history and to be swept into a heavily male dominated agriculture extension agent profession and would be required to work directly with a male dominant farming community. Yes, there were female Extension Agents, but they were all in the Human Resource profession, so Kali would be the first. In the end of we decided that she had the academic background, core values, personal character and strong supportive attitude toward the role of agriculture to the sustainability of Hawaii and towards the farmers in the industry. We selected her for the position. We also decided to provide Kali with all the guidance to help her navigate through the profession and farm production community. And finally, we decided to give her all the rope she wanted to take to develop her own extension program that would successfully address the needs of her farmer clientele. And indeed, she took all the rope given to her and excelled.
Today you too will be embarking into iconic moments. It is an iconic moment that the people of Maui County have given birth to a new Agriculture Department, the first in all Hawaii’s County governments. And now you are about to engage another iconic moment in deciding whether Kali to serve as our first Director for the Agriculture Department. What better way than to approve the appointment of Kali that will bring 30 years of excellent experience gained from working in both public and private agriculture institutions to start the new County of Maui, Department of Agriculture. What better way than to give the Department of Agriculture a good start with a female leader that have nurturing leadership style but a “imua”, “lets move forward” expectation of herself and every team member around her.
In 1993 she started her agriculture career with a public institution, CTAHR, Cooperative Extension Service. She was hired as an Extension Agent to provide agricultural education for Native Hawaiian Homestead farmers on Moloka’i in all agriculture commodities. A tough job. I won’t discuss her accomplishments with the Cooperative Extension Service, something you will find and read in her resume. Instead, I would like to provide you with my experience in the reaction from the Hawaiian Homestead farmers and community she worked with for 17 years when she decided to leave the UH, Cooperative Extension Service, in 2010. Like you, you can measure your success in your work by the response you receive from you constituents. Extension Agents can also measure the degrees of success of their program by keeping close contact with their clientele and receiving feedback from them. When she announced her resignation from her Extension Agent position the reaction from the homestead farmers, teachers, government agriculture agencies and non-profit organizations were all of concerns, regrets and at lost of 17 years of professional agriculture relationship they developed with her. Farmers expressed concerns about losing the agriculture production educational program she developed and the many tailor-made projects she conducted with them on their homestead farms. Teachers expressed regrets that the school will be losing their support for their gardening projects and Kali’s youth value-add entrepreneurial project call “Radish Patch Kids”, government agencies, most were off-Moloka’i, express regrets and lost of Kali that provided them with contacts and broad professional understanding of the Hawaiian Homestead agriculture community on Molokai. She was well-liked and respected by her homestead farmer clientele. Her professional relationship she developed with her farmers was an indication of her skills in developing, managing, acquiring resources for her educational programs that were meaningful, applicable and met the needs of her farmers. Any concerns about her being a female in a male dominant profession and agriculture production industry never came up.
More than 1500 years ago the first group of Polynesians set foot in Hawaii. Their voyages weren’t just to satisfy their exploratory curiosity, but rather to find new lands to settle and establish a civilization. To satisfy their nutritional and survival needs the carried on their voyaging canoe were propagation material for 24 different plants and pigs, chickens and dogs. The fastest maturing food plant in the group was sweet potato, which under good growing conditions today would take 90 to 120 days to mature. Original settlers would have to plan for this. It is believed that ancient Hawaiians consumed 7-9 pounds of taro or carbohydrate plants per day. That means at peak population on the Hawaiian Islands, they harvested 5.6 to 9 million pounds of taro every day, and produced everything for their food, shelter, clothing and medicinal needs. By the time Captain James Cook arrived on the Islands in 1778, and during the period of the American Revolutionary War with the British, native Hawaiian existing independently in Hawaii for 1200 years, with a well established and sustainable civilization and a population that would almost rival what we have today. Somewhere in the 1200 year of independent existence in Hawaii, ancient Hawaiians were so confident in their sustainable food production and survival system that they found it was not necessary to hold on to the knowledge of long open ocean navigation and voyaging skills that brought them to Hawaii in the first place. That skill and knowledge was lost. Not until 1976 did we re-learned ancient Hawaiian open ocean navigational skills through Hokulea voyages. The challenges we face today, is can we duplicate what the ancient Hawaiians accomplished in sustaining a civilization in Hawaii for the next 1000 years? Will we ever be able to give up necessities of depending on open ocean voyaging to deliver our food, shelter, clothing and medicinal to sustain our lifestyle in paradise in the middle of the Pacific? While we take great pride in our new discoveries and advancement in the sciences and technologies that have contributed to extending our life span and comfort, I would say we would be hard pressed to duplicate what the original settler of our islands accomplished in sustaining a civilization for the next 1000 years by ourselves. But I feel we have no choice but to try. In fact, we are moving closer to Japan on our tectonic ride than we are toward the mainland where get greater majority of our goods to sustain our lifestyle in Hawaii. During the corona virus pandemic, the United States found that it was a national security risk to outsource the production of goods that are necessary to sustain a healthy nation and now initiating big changes in our supply manufacturing chain in our Made in America campaign. We in Hawaii should be well aware of our situation in the middle of the Pacific and feel a sense of great vulnerability in our security.
Maui County has started to meet the challenges ahead of us by creating close to home the Agriculture Department. Your next step is to appoint Rogerene Kali Arce, a native Hawaiian, a Kamehameha High School graduate, a Hawaiian Homesteader on Moloka’i, who has the academic background in sustainable agriculture and will bring to the Department 29 years of agriculture experience from working in both public and private agricultural institutions. She is someone that understands the value of agriculture and role it plays in sustaining health island communities and its importance towards the diversification our overall economy that today heavily dependent on service-based industries. For these reasons I support the appointment of Rogerene Kali Arce to become the first Director of Agriculture in the County of Maui.
Thank you for allowing me to provide you my supportive testimony on behave of Rogerene Kali Arce in her appointment as Director for the County of Maui, Agriculture Department.
I am writing to voice my support of Rogerene Arce for the position of Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. I have known Kali for many years, and am proud to say I have learned a lot from her. Kali has a very practical way of looking at issues and helping find resolution while removing personal bias. She has a strong background in agriculture, including many various types of production, which I believe will make her a strong balanced representative of the agricultural community overall. Kali has always been a strong advocate for doing what is right and has a strong sense of responsibility for her community and the environment. These are qualities which come through in everything she does. I also believe that as a woman and a mother Kali possesses a view that is shared by so many in agriculture in that not only must we be productive, but we must be responsible stewards, putting back more than we take and educating the future generations, not just on how to farm, but also how to take care of the earth. For these reasons and many more, I wholeheartedly support Kali as the first appointee for this new position.
Aloha Council Members,
I am writing in support of the appointment of Rogerene "Kali" Arce to the position of Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. As a part of the Molokai community, Kali Arce has always been community minded and agriculture focused. She has worked with a large part of our islandʻs Ag community in her previous roles. She has been such an asset to Sustʻāinable Molokai's Ag Experience Program and done so much for the Molokai agricultural community through her former employment at UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR).
We are so excited to support this nomination and also commend Kali Arce for her efforts on Molokai and beyond.
Please support her nomination Kali can begin in this great role for all of Maui County.
Mahalo,
Katy Mokuau,
ʻUmeke ʻAi & Climate Change Team, Sustʻāinable Molokai and part of DHHL Hoʻolehua Homestead Mokuau ʻohana
Highly recommend Kali Arce for the position of Director of Agriculture for Maui County. Her expertise in all areas related to farming on a large scale operation to helping establish a backyard operation give her the creditability to lead this office. We have first hand knowledge of her expertise as she helped us 22 years ago establish a 2 acre tropical grove which started with 150 fruiting tropical trees.
Viola and Weldon Wichman
Kuulei’s Mahiai
Hoolehua,Hi
Aloha Council Members,
I am writing in support of the appointment of Rogerene "Kali" Arce to the position of Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. I have had the pleasure of working with Kali through Sustʻāinable Molokai's Ag Experience Program, where I learned just how hardworking, professional, and motivated Kali can be. I am also aware of her outstanding work for the Molokai agricultural community through her former employment at UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR). I believe the knowledge, passion, and dedication she will bring to this position will benefit Maui Nui and its various agricultural stakeholders. I hope the Council will support her nomination so Deputy Director Weston Yap and Kali can begin the great work ahead of them.
Mahalo,
Jamie Ronzello
Food Sovereignty Program Director
Sustʻāinable Molokai
My name is Piilani Augustiro and I am in support of the appointment of Rogerene "Kali" Arce to the position of The Director of the Maui County Dept of Agriculture. I have known Kali for over 10 years, and have worked with her for about 5. I am excited for her and what she is able to bring such as her knowledge in ag, and in natural resources and conservation practices. In regards to natural resources she was instrumental with the installation of agroforestry planting of 11 miles of native Hawaiian trees that increased plant biodiversity that also attracted native pollinators such as the Koa Butterfly. This project won an international award. In conservation practices, she designed and installed a one acre native pollinator habitat that had walking paths and educational signages. This also served as an outdoor classroom for STEM activities. Kali has served in various community groups and organizations, that I feel has helped mold her to be great in her future position as Director, and I know that her passion will also help her do great things within our community as well as our County. Thank you
I have worked with Kali for more than 25 years as a member of my board of directors with the Molokai-Lanai Soil & Water Conservation District, as a partner in projects with UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR), as Executive Deputy Director with Molokai Land Trust, a lecturer with UH Maui College - Molokai, and just within our island community. Kali is reliable, knowledgeable, trustworthy, hardworking, friendly, independent and always strives to find solutions. She cooperate well within a team setting and is a leader when called upon. I firmly believe that Kali will fit perfectly in this position to promote the management of an agricultural system that addresses Maui County needs.
I have worked with Kali for more than 25 years as a member of my board of directors with the Molokai-Lanai Soil & Water Conservation District, as a partner in projects with UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR), as Executive Deputy Director with Molokai Land Trust, a lecturer with UH Maui College - Molokai, and just within our island community. Kali is reliable, knowledgeable, trustworthy, hardworking, friendly, independent and always strives to find solutions. She cooperate well within a team setting and is a leader when called upon. I firmly believe that Kali will fit perfectly in this position to promote the management of an agricultural system that addresses Maui County needs.
I am in support of Kali Arce to the position of Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. I have worked with Kali for over 10 years in the Ag Sector and as a Board of Director for Hikiola Cooperative. I support her nomination.
I have known and worked with Kali for well over a decade in the agricultural sector. As a Molokai Farmer, and also as President of the Molokai Farm Bureau, I offer support to Kali Arce and her new role with the Maui County Department of Agriculture.
I am writing in support of the appointment of Rogerene "Kali" Arce to the position of Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. Kali has been taking the time to meet with various agricultural stakeholders to learn about the issues in the ag sector. She has shown an eagerness to help, and she seems very genuine and professional. Her and Deputy Director Weston Yap have really hit the ground running in their new positions and I think they will do a great job leading the Department as it gets up and going. They seem to really balance out each other's strengths and so far all of the folks that I have spoken to about them seem very pleased, after meeting them. I think Kali has the vision to see the potential in growing agricultural opportunities here in Maui County and the drive to make them happen. I hope the Council will support her nomination so they can get started on some very important work for our community.
Aloha Council Members,
I am writing to you in support of the appointment of Rogerene "Kali" Arce to the position of Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. Already, Kali Arce has proven herself worthy of the role of Director of Agriculture. I have been consistently impressed with her knowledge, attention to detail, attentiveness and genuine passion to improve Maui County's agricultural future. Kali Arce brings her decades of knowledge, years of schooling and deep community understanding to her work, and we are lucky to have her as a candidate for the Director of Agriculture position. I fully support her appointment, and hope that you join me to support Reso 22-178 to appoint of Rogerene Arce as Director of Agriculture for Maui County.
Mahalo nui,
Lauren Nelson
Makawao, HI
Attached please find my Testimony Supporting the Appointment of Rogerene Kali Arce as Director of Agriculture.
Testimony Supporting Approval of Rogerene Kali Arce Appointment
Appointment Position: Director of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, Maui County
My name is Mr. Alton S. Arakaki, a retired County Extension Agent for the Cooperative Extension Service, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, CTAHR, in the University of Hawaii, Manoa. I served in this position during the period of agriculture transition from pineapple plantation to what we call today a diversified agriculture industry. I retired in December 2018 after serving in this position on Moloka’i for 36 years. I am providing this testimony in support Rogerene “Kali” Arce appointment for the Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. I’ve known Rogerene Arce, “Kali”, for more than quarter of a century.
Today you the Maui County Council is about to sharing similar iconic moments with me. About 29 years ago, in 1993, my colleague, Glenn Teves and I were faced with whether or not we should select a newly college graduate named Rogerene “Kali” Arce to fill a vacant Agriculture Extension Agent position in our Cooperative Extension Service office on Moloka’i. Our concern was whether we were being fair to Kali’s professional career to be the first FEMALE AGRICULTURE Extension Agent in University of Hawaii’s, at that time 86-year Land Grant history and to be swept into a heavily male dominated agriculture extension agent profession and would be required to work directly with a male dominant farming community. Yes, there were female Extension Agents, but they were all in the Human Resource profession, so Kali would be the first. In the end of we decided that she had the academic background, core values, personal character and strong supportive attitude toward the role of agriculture to the sustainability of Hawaii and towards the farmers in the industry. We selected her for the position. We also decided to provide Kali with all the guidance to help her navigate through the profession and farm production community. And finally, we decided to give her all the rope she wanted to take to develop her own extension program that would successfully address the needs of her farmer clientele. And indeed, she took all the rope given to her and excelled.
Today you too will be embarking into iconic moments. It is an iconic moment that the people of Maui County have given birth to a new Agriculture Department, the first in all Hawaii’s County governments. And now you are about to engage another iconic moment in deciding whether Kali to serve as our first Director for the Agriculture Department. What better way than to approve the appointment of Kali that will bring 30 years of excellent experience gained from working in both public and private agriculture institutions to start the new County of Maui, Department of Agriculture. What better way than to give the Department of Agriculture a good start with a female leader that have nurturing leadership style but a “imua”, “lets move forward” expectation of herself and every team member around her.
In 1993 she started her agriculture career with a public institution, CTAHR, Cooperative Extension Service. She was hired as an Extension Agent to provide agricultural education for Native Hawaiian Homestead farmers on Moloka’i in all agriculture commodities. A tough job. I won’t discuss her accomplishments with the Cooperative Extension Service, something you will find and read in her resume. Instead, I would like to provide you with my experience in the reaction from the Hawaiian Homestead farmers and community she worked with for 17 years when she decided to leave the UH, Cooperative Extension Service, in 2010. Like you, you can measure your success in your work by the response you receive from you constituents. Extension Agents can also measure the degrees of success of their program by keeping close contact with their clientele and receiving feedback from them. When she announced her resignation from her Extension Agent position the reaction from the homestead farmers, teachers, government agriculture agencies and non-profit organizations were all of concerns, regrets and at lost of 17 years of professional agriculture relationship they developed with her. Farmers expressed concerns about losing the agriculture production educational program she developed and the many tailor-made projects she conducted with them on their homestead farms. Teachers expressed regrets that the school will be losing their support for their gardening projects and Kali’s youth value-add entrepreneurial project call “Radish Patch Kids”, government agencies, most were off-Moloka’i, express regrets and lost of Kali that provided them with contacts and broad professional understanding of the Hawaiian Homestead agriculture community on Molokai. She was well-liked and respected by her homestead farmer clientele. Her professional relationship she developed with her farmers was an indication of her skills in developing, managing, acquiring resources for her educational programs that were meaningful, applicable and met the needs of her farmers. Any concerns about her being a female in a male dominant profession and agriculture production industry never came up.
More than 1500 years ago the first group of Polynesians set foot in Hawaii. Their voyages weren’t just to satisfy their exploratory curiosity, but rather to find new lands to settle and establish a civilization. To satisfy their nutritional and survival needs the carried on their voyaging canoe were propagation material for 24 different plants and pigs, chickens and dogs. The fastest maturing food plant in the group was sweet potato, which under good growing conditions today would take 90 to 120 days to mature. Original settlers would have to plan for this. It is believed that ancient Hawaiians consumed 7-9 pounds of taro or carbohydrate plants per day. That means at peak population on the Hawaiian Islands, they harvested 5.6 to 9 million pounds of taro every day, and produced everything for their food, shelter, clothing and medicinal needs. By the time Captain James Cook arrived on the Islands in 1778, and during the period of the American Revolutionary War with the British, native Hawaiian existing independently in Hawaii for 1200 years, with a well established and sustainable civilization and a population that would almost rival what we have today. Somewhere in the 1200 year of independent existence in Hawaii, ancient Hawaiians were so confident in their sustainable food production and survival system that they found it was not necessary to hold on to the knowledge of long open ocean navigation and voyaging skills that brought them to Hawaii in the first place. That skill and knowledge was lost. Not until 1976 did we re-learned ancient Hawaiian open ocean navigational skills through Hokulea voyages. The challenges we face today, is can we duplicate what the ancient Hawaiians accomplished in sustaining a civilization in Hawaii for the next 1000 years? Will we ever be able to give up necessities of depending on open ocean voyaging to deliver our food, shelter, clothing and medicinal to sustain our lifestyle in paradise in the middle of the Pacific? While we take great pride in our new discoveries and advancement in the sciences and technologies that have contributed to extending our life span and comfort, I would say we would be hard pressed to duplicate what the original settler of our islands accomplished in sustaining a civilization for the next 1000 years by ourselves. But I feel we have no choice but to try. In fact, we are moving closer to Japan on our tectonic ride than we are toward the mainland where get greater majority of our goods to sustain our lifestyle in Hawaii. During the corona virus pandemic, the United States found that it was a national security risk to outsource the production of goods that are necessary to sustain a healthy nation and now initiating big changes in our supply manufacturing chain in our Made in America campaign. We in Hawaii should be well aware of our situation in the middle of the Pacific and feel a sense of great vulnerability in our security.
Maui County has started to meet the challenges ahead of us by creating close to home the Agriculture Department. Your next step is to appoint Rogerene Kali Arce, a native Hawaiian, a Kamehameha High School graduate, a Hawaiian Homesteader on Moloka’i, who has the academic background in sustainable agriculture and will bring to the Department 29 years of agriculture experience from working in both public and private agricultural institutions. She is someone that understands the value of agriculture and role it plays in sustaining health island communities and its importance towards the diversification our overall economy that today heavily dependent on service-based industries. For these reasons I support the appointment of Rogerene Kali Arce to become the first Director of Agriculture in the County of Maui.
Thank you for allowing me to provide you my supportive testimony on behave of Rogerene Kali Arce in her appointment as Director for the County of Maui, Agriculture Department.
Alton Arakaki
Aloha Council Members,
I am writing to voice my support of Rogerene Arce for the position of Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. I have known Kali for many years, and am proud to say I have learned a lot from her. Kali has a very practical way of looking at issues and helping find resolution while removing personal bias. She has a strong background in agriculture, including many various types of production, which I believe will make her a strong balanced representative of the agricultural community overall. Kali has always been a strong advocate for doing what is right and has a strong sense of responsibility for her community and the environment. These are qualities which come through in everything she does. I also believe that as a woman and a mother Kali possesses a view that is shared by so many in agriculture in that not only must we be productive, but we must be responsible stewards, putting back more than we take and educating the future generations, not just on how to farm, but also how to take care of the earth. For these reasons and many more, I wholeheartedly support Kali as the first appointee for this new position.
Thank you for taking time to review my testimony.
Jill Coombs
Please appoint Kali.
Aloha Council Members,
I am writing in support of the appointment of Rogerene "Kali" Arce to the position of Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. As a part of the Molokai community, Kali Arce has always been community minded and agriculture focused. She has worked with a large part of our islandʻs Ag community in her previous roles. She has been such an asset to Sustʻāinable Molokai's Ag Experience Program and done so much for the Molokai agricultural community through her former employment at UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR).
We are so excited to support this nomination and also commend Kali Arce for her efforts on Molokai and beyond.
Please support her nomination Kali can begin in this great role for all of Maui County.
Mahalo,
Katy Mokuau,
ʻUmeke ʻAi & Climate Change Team, Sustʻāinable Molokai and part of DHHL Hoʻolehua Homestead Mokuau ʻohana
Highly recommend Kali Arce for the position of Director of Agriculture for Maui County. Her expertise in all areas related to farming on a large scale operation to helping establish a backyard operation give her the creditability to lead this office. We have first hand knowledge of her expertise as she helped us 22 years ago establish a 2 acre tropical grove which started with 150 fruiting tropical trees.
Viola and Weldon Wichman
Kuulei’s Mahiai
Hoolehua,Hi
Aloha Council Members,
I am writing in support of the appointment of Rogerene "Kali" Arce to the position of Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. I have had the pleasure of working with Kali through Sustʻāinable Molokai's Ag Experience Program, where I learned just how hardworking, professional, and motivated Kali can be. I am also aware of her outstanding work for the Molokai agricultural community through her former employment at UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR). I believe the knowledge, passion, and dedication she will bring to this position will benefit Maui Nui and its various agricultural stakeholders. I hope the Council will support her nomination so Deputy Director Weston Yap and Kali can begin the great work ahead of them.
Mahalo,
Jamie Ronzello
Food Sovereignty Program Director
Sustʻāinable Molokai
My name is Piilani Augustiro and I am in support of the appointment of Rogerene "Kali" Arce to the position of The Director of the Maui County Dept of Agriculture. I have known Kali for over 10 years, and have worked with her for about 5. I am excited for her and what she is able to bring such as her knowledge in ag, and in natural resources and conservation practices. In regards to natural resources she was instrumental with the installation of agroforestry planting of 11 miles of native Hawaiian trees that increased plant biodiversity that also attracted native pollinators such as the Koa Butterfly. This project won an international award. In conservation practices, she designed and installed a one acre native pollinator habitat that had walking paths and educational signages. This also served as an outdoor classroom for STEM activities. Kali has served in various community groups and organizations, that I feel has helped mold her to be great in her future position as Director, and I know that her passion will also help her do great things within our community as well as our County. Thank you
I failed to leave my name on my testimony.
I have worked with Kali for more than 25 years as a member of my board of directors with the Molokai-Lanai Soil & Water Conservation District, as a partner in projects with UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR), as Executive Deputy Director with Molokai Land Trust, a lecturer with UH Maui College - Molokai, and just within our island community. Kali is reliable, knowledgeable, trustworthy, hardworking, friendly, independent and always strives to find solutions. She cooperate well within a team setting and is a leader when called upon. I firmly believe that Kali will fit perfectly in this position to promote the management of an agricultural system that addresses Maui County needs.
I have worked with Kali for more than 25 years as a member of my board of directors with the Molokai-Lanai Soil & Water Conservation District, as a partner in projects with UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR), as Executive Deputy Director with Molokai Land Trust, a lecturer with UH Maui College - Molokai, and just within our island community. Kali is reliable, knowledgeable, trustworthy, hardworking, friendly, independent and always strives to find solutions. She cooperate well within a team setting and is a leader when called upon. I firmly believe that Kali will fit perfectly in this position to promote the management of an agricultural system that addresses Maui County needs.
I am in support of Kali Arce to the position of Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. I have worked with Kali for over 10 years in the Ag Sector and as a Board of Director for Hikiola Cooperative. I support her nomination.
Denise Kawano
I have known and worked with Kali for well over a decade in the agricultural sector. As a Molokai Farmer, and also as President of the Molokai Farm Bureau, I offer support to Kali Arce and her new role with the Maui County Department of Agriculture.
Nathaniel Oswald
I strongly support the appointment of Kali Are as Director of Agriculture.
Aloha Council Members,
I am writing in support of the appointment of Rogerene "Kali" Arce to the position of Director of the Maui County Department of Agriculture. Kali has been taking the time to meet with various agricultural stakeholders to learn about the issues in the ag sector. She has shown an eagerness to help, and she seems very genuine and professional. Her and Deputy Director Weston Yap have really hit the ground running in their new positions and I think they will do a great job leading the Department as it gets up and going. They seem to really balance out each other's strengths and so far all of the folks that I have spoken to about them seem very pleased, after meeting them. I think Kali has the vision to see the potential in growing agricultural opportunities here in Maui County and the drive to make them happen. I hope the Council will support her nomination so they can get started on some very important work for our community.
Mahalo,
Jennifer Karaca