What does it mean to lead? What does it mean to be the guiding hand that steers the course of a people, a nation, an Imperium? What does it mean to truly shoulder the burden of rulership? For 10,000 years, a sole institution comprised of just 12 individuals has governed the Imperium. They, across the many generations, have been charged with all the greatest decisions of state guiding our species through its many trials and challenges. No greater power existed within the many layers of the Imperium's seemingly endless web of bureaucracy, for these are the individuals who interpret the will of a god. From the Golden Throne, the Emperor rules, but not materially. These 12 are his regents, his intermediaries, his stewards, who, by utilisation of their Emperor demanded roles, interpret his word and his law to enact his rule. Consider that burden. Consider the sheer weight that must place upon all two human shoulders. I dare say you cannot even imagine the scope. To even attempt to assay the Imperium's population would drive a man insane, let alone having to consider each and every one as a soul in need of rulership, guidance, and protection from the myriad of threats to their existence. What would having that power do to someone, I wonder? There is an ultimate paradox of power possessing the ability as it does to a noble and corrupt in equal measure, contingent on the being who wields it, and what they wield it for. To be a simple mortal in charge of the life of an entire species, well, rarely in the history of our race has that been a thing. To that end, one proposes a two-part study into the nature of those that preside over the fates of you and I, encompassing both their early history and the stunning events of recent times that have shaken the foundation of such an ancient institution to its core. Know then that this is a record of the Twelve, the pinnacle of the Senatorum Imperialis from whence all power flows. The High Lords of Terra The High Lords of Terra are a group of twelve individuals upon which the responsibility of ruling the Imperium in the God-Emperor's stead has been placed. It is they who are charged with the interpretation of his will, and it is they who make the decisions that guide the fate of every single soul in his immortal majesty's domain. Upon their word move the countless armies and navies of the Imperium, by their writ do the wheels of holy bureaucracy levy the Imperium's dues from its innumerable subjects, and by their attentions are the hands of the Imperium steered through its trials and tumults. The High Lords form the pinnacle of the Senatorum Imperialis, or by its full name, the Lord's temporal, martial, and eclisiacal of the most divine and righteous Imperium of mankind. While the Senatorum is, as diverse a collection of the Empire's most powerful individuals, can be imagined, representing as they do every aspect of his Imperial Majesty's realm, the twelve highest are drawn from only the most select of the Imperium's most powerful bodies, and while the Senate total may advise, it is ultimately upon the will of the High Twelve, as they are colloquially known, that all business turns. While ostensibly any member of the Senatorum can rise to become a member of the Twelve, there are certain organizations within the Imperium whose sheer size or utter importance to the functioning of Imperial affairs make them permanent members of the Council, with the leaders of each representing them at the Senate's table. These are nine in number, and the offices are as follows. The Master of the Astronomican, Lord of the Hollow Mountain, to whom falls the care of the Emperor's light itself, the holy beacon by which all human ships sail the tides of the warp. The Master of the Administratum, they who count the books, fill the ledgers, file the forms, by whose hand the Imperium ponderously but inevitably turns. The Inquisitorial Representative, the delegate of the Ordos Majoris and Minoris, they who speak for the secret watchers that shield the souls of humanity. The Patronoval Envoy of the Navis Nobility, representative of the secret and secluded households of the Navigators. The Fabricator General of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Lord of the Red Planet and Master of all Humanities' Machines. The Ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum, Holiest of Holies, patron of the Church of the Emperor Deified. The Grand Provost Marshal of the Adeptus Arbitets, Supreme Enforcer of the Lex Imperialis and the Emperor's Peace. The Grand Master of the Aficio Assassinorum, the Hidden Knife of the Imperium and Keeper of its most supremely lethal human weapons. And finally, the Grand Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, to whom falls the cultivation of those damned and blessed psychers that bear the words of the galaxy across the gulfs of space and time. The remaining three seats are typically filled from a collection of other organizations, perhaps less omnipresent than the above, but no less vital. Although the power of these offices has waxed and waned over the council's ten-thousand year history, members of the High Twelve have been drawn from any number of the following at any one point in time. They are as follows, the Chancellor of the Estate Imperium, the Speaker of the Chartist Captains, Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Navy, the Lord Commander of the Segmentum Solar, the Captain General of the Adeptus Custodes, the Lord Militant of the Imperial Guard, the Cardinal of the Holy Sinod of Terra, the High Abyss of the Adeptus Arbitus, the Commandant of the Scholar Progenium, the Lord Consible of the Sinopticon, and the Mistress of the Terran Catacombs. One role that may be considered a wild card of sorts, primarily due to recent events, is the Lord Commander of the Imperium, the supreme military authority within the Empire, second only to the Emperor himself. Originally held by the Primarch of the Seventh Legion Astartes, Rogald Dorn, this was laterally ceded to the Thirteenth Legion Primarch, Rebut Gulliman, in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy and the Emperor's Ascension. Armed by the Primarch, during his extended regency over the course of the scouring, the title laterally passed to mortal men, who nevertheless retained the ceremonial name of the Lord Gulliman in honor of the fallen Primarch after his mortal wounding and placement in Stasis. In addition to being the commander of the entirety of the Imperium's armed forces, the preeminent nature of the role necessitated it serving additionally as the Chairman of the High Twelve. Until the aftermath of the War of the Beast, when owing to the severe failings of its last mortal title holder, Udin-Makt Udo, the role was abolished permanently. Or at least ostensibly so, but this must be elaborated upon in a later record. The history of the High Lords and the Augusta body that they represent stretches to the foundation of the Imperium itself, as do many of its most domined roles. The earliest incarnation of the High Lords were known as the Magisters Temporal, originally seeing their foundation as the civilian arm of the Emperor's military regime upon Terra during the late stages of the Unification Wars in M28. The Magisters were a temporary wartime measure to oversee the rebuilding of large swathes of Terra devastated by the wars and the regimes they had deposed. They were ultimately replaced by the Lord's civilian, who in turn, were overseen by the four High Lords civilian. In those early days, the four High Lords were the Chancellor of the Estate Imperium, Pelops Dravigor, the Master of the Administratum, Naum Retravia, the Grand Provost Marshal, Uoma Candawire, and the Lord Militant of the Imperial Armies, Cleesan Wea. The civilian rulership crisis, instigated by Provost Marshal Candawire, elaborated upon in one's own record upon the history of the Unification Wars, was in many ways the Imperium's first real governmental challenge, and precipitated a period of Imperial history where the civilian government was once more placed under the direct rulership of the military regime. During the Great Crusade, the High Lords civilian saw the scope of their rules broadened immensely, nonetheless, with the spreading of the Imperium beyond the bounds of the Sol system. They were now set to overseeing not just a planet and its satellite, and numerous orbital plates, but an entire galaxy, with more and more systems and planets being added to the Emperor's temporal domain daily. The High Lords civilian persisted as an entirely subservient body to the War Council, for the aftermath of the Ullinor Crusade in 0000 M31, and the Emperor's tectonic reforms. With the mightiest Xenos Empire yet extant within the galaxy conquered, and the deliverance of mankind's manifest destiny of galactic dominance at hand, the Emperor retired to Terra to complete his greatest work yet, naming as Warmaster his Primarch son Horus Lupakal of the 16th Legion Lunawolves, and placing the War Council under his supreme command, albeit with a new caveat. The War Council would now only oversee military affairs, with the newly created Council of Terra presiding over the actual day-to-day Imperial proceedings. The formation of this body was not without contention, rather there was quite a lot of it, especially from the more belligerent of the Primarchs, including Demon Russ of the 6th Legion, and Pertorabo of the 4th, who decried the petty rule of bureaucrats as besmirching their honour and sacrifices, respectively. To them and those who felt similar, the replacement of the direct rule of the Imperial household with a vast body of representatives, both elected and directly appointed, none of whom had ever so much as held a las rifle, let alone led a crusade to reclaim the heavens. Such a move could not be countenanced. Despite the vociferous objections of many of his sons and generals, the Emperor was adamant. Not only would the Council of Terra help focus the Imperium's various branches to their duties, be it military or administrative, the body would also be the first foundation of a true civilian government, meant to pave the way for the ultimate renouncement of the supreme power of the Primarchs themselves. For the Emperor's vision to come to fruition, it must be baseline humans, not transhumans, upon whom the burden of rulership should fall. It should be noted, however, that this must not be seen as a return to the true democracy, such as it was known to have existed in the ancient past of old earth. With the Emperor guiding by his hand the fate of the entire species, such a noble goal could not be considered. He still very much held the reins, no matter how many of his new Council could be considered fairly elected. Malkador the Sigillite, as the Emperor's right hand, was appointed First Lord of the Council, in addition to his role as Regent of Terra during the Emperor's sojourn deep within the Imperial dungeon in his laboratoria. The original four roles of the High Lord's civilian saw many, many additions, including amongst others, the High Lord of the Imperial Chancellery, the Master of the newly developed Astronomican, the Captain General of the Ligio Custodis, Constantine Valdor, and the Chirurg in general. Both the Sigillite and the Captain General remained members of the Emperor's War Council, reinforcing the separate but inherent subservience of this new body, but at the same time granting it an authority that no other Imperial civilian organization had ever wielded. In addition to the day-to-day governing of the realm, the expansion of reconstruction and integration programs on newly compliant worlds, the upholding of the auspices of the Imperial truth, and the overseeing of newly forged trade corridors and crown corporations, the Council of Terra is perhaps best remembered, in some cases infamously, for being the first to implement the Tithe, a bureaucratic designation of the Administratum that determined the quantities of raw materials, either natural or human, that an Imperial world must supply to the Empire to meet their commitments to the cause of the species. This Tithe took in a sum total of a world's productivity and applied the most rigorous of demands, including everything from simple minerals and crops, to the human contribution to the Exertus Imperialis, to the horrible levy of psychers for the black ships of the adeptus astra telepathica. As has often been the case throughout the history of our species, taxation was not met with delight, quite the opposite. The Primarchs who remained openly opposed to civilian rule decried the move as overly ambitious, stating that it placed too much of a burden upon thousands of worlds already struggling to simply meet reconstruction timelines that had been meted out rather cruelly by the Administratum. The planetary governors of these worlds, desperate under the best of circumstances, were similarly furious, openly stating that the demands placed upon them by distant terror were liable to ruin their tenuous grasp on civil rule and push their worlds into a state of open rebellion. Numerous Historicors of latter years, and indeed several contemporary Remembrancers, have posited that this apparent overreach was a facet in the rebellion of the War Master, and the defection of almost half the Imperium to his banner during the Horus Heresy. While such a thing is of course a subject of a record in its own right, one should note here that if these chroniclers were in any way worth their salt, they would be aware the taxation for the sake of the furtherance of a society's aim and goals is older even than the cogitators they pen their works upon. To speak of it as if it is some new tyranny in and of itself, childish ignorance. The Council of Terror continued its existence throughout the wartime years of the Great Heresy, albeit in a role that functioned more as damage control than anything else. With the War Master's hordes abroad across the void, it fell to the Imperium civilian rulers to maintain as much order amongst the general population as they could, with a sizable portion of this being reduced to refugees and war victims. They were, to their deepest credit, instrumental in maintaining order on terror during the crisis, in implementing the binary succession, and in defending civilian interests during the siege itself. In the aftermath of the Heresy and the Emperor's ascension to the Golden Throne, the Primarch Rogaldorn abdicated his responsibilities of Lord Commander of the Imperium to his brother, Rebut Gulliman, as mentioned earlier. Gulliman's reforms of the Imperium, sweeping though they were, all were intended to repair a fundamentally broken and rudderless empire in the aftershocks of the greatest conflict in human history. Despite his own position, one of his most strident aims was the removal of the Astartes, and indeed transhumans in general, from all aspects of the highest echelons of Imperial rule. Despite the Primarch's their Astartes, and laterally the Custodes, being the true genetic inheritors of the Emperor's lineage and ultimate goals, the damage of a full-scale Astartes war was everywhere, and had brought untold ruin to the realms of man. The majority of Gulliman's moves here must be viewed through that lens, of a Primarch aware that only his own gene-forged capabilities and talents could save the Imperium his father had built, but also painfully aware that it had been transhumanist creations like him that had brought it so low. The Codex Astartes, the sundering of the Legionnaires Astartes into the various chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, the self-removal of the now penitent Ligio Custodes from active duty, these were the beginning. But it was in the creation of the Senatorum Imperialis that Gulliman truly sought to instill civilians at the head of the Imperium. To the highest twelve of the Lord's temporal, martial, ecclesiarchal, of his most divine and righteous Imperium of mankind, now fell the task of interpreting the Emperor's will in his stead, and while Gulliman would guide these first High Lords in their initial years, he would be an ever looser hand upon the tiller. These first twelve were largely drawn from the bodies that had made up the Emperor-created Council of Terra, although with notable differences, such as the removal of the Captain General of the Ligio Custodes, with the disappearance of Constantine Valdor, the abolition of the post of First Lord of the Council, with the death of the Sigillite, and the secondment of the Chirurgian General, to be now replaced by a more powerful personage. The Administratum wielded the most power in those early days, central as it was to keeping the wheels of the Imperium turning, but it was soon to be rivaled for power by the Adeptus Ministorum, enshrined as the first official state church of the Imperium. While the rivalry was initially quite politically fraught, especially as the last bastions of the Imperial Truth died with the Emperor's secular dream, church and Administratum eventually reached an equilibrium, becoming close allies in power, twin heads at the top table, sharing, as it has been rightly noted by some, a similar institutional view on such feared human qualities as open-mindedness, innovation or individuality. The history of the High Lords in the 10,000 years since formal enshrinement can be considered to an acolyte of such things as a history of human power in a microcosm, for the Senatorum has at one point or another embodied the full spectrum of virtues and vices of the species, shepherding the Emperor's flock from triumph to disaster to victories to catastrophes, the cataloguing of which would simply be impossible in a single record. Certain notable highlights exist, the names of those who excelled or failed, ringing truly loudly. The War of the Beast is perhaps the most infamous example, a horrific testament to the folly of petty politicking and the hideously venal ambition humans are capable of, not to mention being one that ended with a literal coup from the office of the Grand Master of Assassins, Draken Vangoric, despising as he did the ineffectual and corrupt High Lords that had delivered untold suffering through their inactions and incompetence. Thousands of years later, the fallibility of the highest offices of the Imperium were once again laid bare by the seizure of both the role of Master of the Administratum and High Ecclesiarch by Goge Van Dyer, he moved that forced the hand of the then Fabricator General of Mars, Gastaph Hediatrics, to call upon his fellow High Lords to execute the prospective tyrant. Van Dyer's retaliation saw the full dissolution of the High Twelve, and during his subsequent reign of blood in the Age of Apostasy, the Senatorum ceased to be. Only the downfall of Van Dyer led to its re-establishment, undergoing its most sweeping reforms since its foundation to ensure that such a situation could never re-occur, including the formation of a new Ordo Majoris of the Inquisition, the Ordo Hereticus. On and on the histories go, reeling off the names of luminaries long dead, yet all of whom were titans of their times, for whatever their failings, we must remember that they were, and yet are, the most select of the select, precious dozens amongst the literally uncountable decillions of humanity in this galaxy of ours. For all the sundry inadequacies they may display, do not fool yourselves into believing them all to be simpering idiots. For a seat at the highest of tables could not be held by any save those who are quite literally unmatched at what it is they do. Many have been venal, corrupt, narcissistic, power, hungry, vicious, psychotic, sociopathic, uncaring, and simply vile. Several have quite lightly been utterly mad. But for all these traits they rose above their own scheming and plotting and deviousness, to a position of supreme executive power, to become the hand that guides the tiller of the species through troubled waters. It was they who coordinated every response to every heretic rampage, Xenos invasion, and arch enemy crusade. It is they who have by their guidance allowed the Imperium to withstand rebellions, civil wars, uprisings, and schisms. Yes, they have failed. The Imperium endures because of they. And I can say from the point of view of one who has read the histories that were it not for the high twelve, the Imperium would simply cease to have been millennia ago. It is, however, quite possible to be supremely talented at skilled and completely and utterly detached from all that any sane human would call, say, the conscience, morality or empathy. A positive of the high twelve, so utterly removed from the common herds of humanity by virtue of everything from wealth to office to simple intelligence, are just that removed. Should their actions to save billions harm thousands, then that is the price they have elected to pay with the human coin they deal in. As abominably callous as it may be, we are cattle to them, but numbers on vellum, line items to be moved around, added to, subtracted from, or simply stricken. They deal in matters so completely beyond the scope of the quadrillions of people they share the throne world with as to be frankly ludicrous. The average Terran has a lifespan of four decades. They may live for centuries. The average Terran may never leave the corridor into which they were born, may never see the choking air outside the hive stack they dwell in, while the High Lord may sail the stars, command whole sectors to move upon a whim, and see first hand that which threatens the soul of every single human in existence. The average Terran may know nothing more than how to accomplish their labor duty, and the sundry prayers beaten into them by the electrogolds of their scollum ecclesiarchy disciplinars. While the High Lord will ken the entire scope of the Imperium's history, and be privy to secrets that would shatter a mortal mind a thousand times over, were it not for their sheer force of will to rule, to lead, to decide. We decry them as tyrants, monsters, murderers, and a hundred other titles just as bad or worse. Perhaps they are. But they are also all we have, and they are the best of us. Throne, they truly are the best of us. What does that make us? Truly damned or delivered? Well, the Imperium yet endures. I suppose that must count for something. Until such a time as I may return to this subject, with an update upon the present situation of the High Lords of Terra in the aftermath of the Hexarchy, Ave Imperator, Gloria in Excelsis Terra. Help keep the lights running, and the scripts flowing.


Aloha and welcome to Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We'll show the broadcast every Thursday from 2 to 2.30 from the very high tech studios of Think Tech Hawaii here in Halalula Hawaii. We broadcast out of the Pioneer Plaza here in downtown. We're a show that focuses on success stories of businesses in Hawaii, as with most locations in the country. There are challenges of doing business here, but we have some very successful people that have overcome those challenges. They have created very successful companies, and they have also become successful themselves. We also bring on the show, occasionally, organizations that help support the small business community and to help the owners become more successful, which is today our program is the Chamber of Commerce Young Professionals. Emily Kleiner has been on the show before, and so she's a recurring guest, and we're always glad to have her here. She's the Vice President of Programs for the Young Professionals at the Chamber, and then we're lucky to have, after two years of effort, I might add, to have Jacob Noah on the show today, who is the incoming chair of the YP program, or the Young Professional Program at the Chamber. So, Jacob and Emily, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having us back. Ladies, first, you do the Young Professionals as kind of a volunteer type of thing, and you've been a member there for a while, but in real life, and the way you pay the bills, is you work at the Pacific Business News. I do. I'm the Director of Events and Promotions at PBN. So, we handle, you know, Pacific Business News has a very large events program. We do about 50 a year. So, I handle that as well as some of our community partnerships, some of our marketing. It's a very busy schedule. You know, doing one event a week is huge. Just about. We actually have an event tomorrow, our Best Workplaces event. So, I'm constantly busy. It is, and I guess that doesn't show any signs of slowing down. PBN is known for doing these events. However, you've got a little change coming up in your life here, too. I do. As you know, my husband's in the military, and as a result, we are actually being moved to Washington State. So, unfortunately, that means I'm going to be leaving Hawaii in a few months. Right, and you've been here for a while, though, right? I have. I moved here about four years ago. I've been extremely blessed to be working with PBN, and I'm really disappointed that I have to leave. I love Hawaii. The community here is unlike really anywhere else. The business community, the nonprofit community. It's just a wonderful place to work and live, and it's really unfortunate we have to move, but I'm sure that I'll find some new adventures. Well, I'm sure. Washington is a big place, and I'm sure there's a lot going on. And does the owner of PBN have an operation up there, too? We do. So Pacific Business News is one of 43 journals across the country. So we have a similar sister publication in most major cities, one of which is Seattle. So there might be some opportunities to collaborate there. Well, if they were really smart, they would make an opportunity available for you. Thank you. So we'll keep our fingers crossed for you. Now, Jacob, you've been involved with young professionals really pretty much from the get-go, right? Since 2011. It's been about six years now. So, yeah, you've been there. You certainly know the program. Yeah. And you have been involved. You've kind of moved around, and you've taken different roles. And now you're actually in line to take over and be the man. Yeah, definitely. Really excited, actually. As the incoming chair for 2018, I got a lot of shoes to fill and a lot of expectations to meet, but I'm pretty excited. Well, if anybody could do it, you can. I mean, you just got done being involved with the membership, right? Yep. So I've been the membership chair for the program for about, I think, two years. We grew from 140, and now we have about 270. Wow. And our goal is to hit 300 by... So you've doubled the membership then under your umbrella during your term that you were there? Well, it's definitely the team. The team at the YP program has put together. We are pretty strong, and our foundation is definitely... It's been a motivating factor for that growth. Very good. Yeah, Jacob's been just wonderful at the program and really engaging the members. So it's been really great to watch him work. That's good. And that's what it takes to build and keep those members, is to get that engagement going and to buy in and make it really valuable. But just for a second to close a loop on Jacob, you also do something in real life to pay the bills. What is that? And that's something new, too, right? Yeah. For almost four months now, I've been with Simplicity HR by Altress as a consultant there. So we strive to solve a lot of issues and problems with employers, with their payroll, workers' comp, HR, and benefits. So it's been a new environment, but it's something that I've been comfortable with within the past six years, again, when I started with HMA about six years ago, I was kind of in the same capacity with dealing with a lot of employers and managers and owners. So it's something that I'm very comfortable in, but yet very excited with my new employer now. Well, it's a great opportunity because as a small business advocate, I can tell you that the HR and the payroll and that whole area and all the reporting requirements and all the laws, I mean, it's a big challenge and it takes a lot of effort for those business owners to stay on top of it. So everything you can do to simplify that and make it easier for them has got to be of great value. Yeah, of course. So, but very good. Let me go ahead and just ask how and why did you both get involved in the YP program at the Chamber of Commerce?  You've been there for about four years? I started as a member of the Chamber of Commerce about three years ago, actually. The Chamber had been, I think the program had been going on for a few years at that point and I'd found a lot of value in attending. One thing that I think young professionals really want and really strive for is that networking connection and some of those leadership training opportunities that you can't find in your organization, as you know, the state of Hawaii is mostly small businesses. And so a lot of companies don't have the opportunity to have a lot of these impactful trainings that large companies might be able to offer. For their employees. Exactly. So there's going to be some younger employees that go to work for the companies and they're going to be limited to what they can learn in those companies, but this provides a platform for really growing that. Absolutely. So when I joined the YP as a member, I found that the programs were extremely helpful. There were topics on leadership, public speaking, networking, all sorts of different topics that young professionals can really use in their day-to-day work. And then about a year later, I joined as a steering committee member running the professional development series. Those are small classes that are designed to teach you some of those skills and they're taught by leaders in the community. This past year, we launched our mentorship program, which I run as well. That's been a very successful program where we bring in about 10 to 12 executives for one-on-one mentoring over a five-month period with our members. Very good. And so how did you personally benefit from being involved and active in the YP? In numerous ways. One of which, though, was, of course, the networking. I was able to meet individuals in industries that I would not normally meet in my day-to-day life. It was really eye-opening to meet some of these people and really able to make connections on a different level than I would at even a typical Pacific Business News event or another industry event because these are so focused on young professionals. So there's this added layer of calm for when you're interacting with everybody. Well, and some of the programs you've done are not huge numbers.  It's very true. Our typical event, well, it depends, of course, on the style, but we have events that range for as small as 5 to 10 people to as large as several hundred. But that allows you, if you're someone that's new to the community, you've just moved here, maybe you're a student or this is your first time working in the business community to get in and start having these trainings, start meeting people in a much less high-pressure situation. Now, Jacob, you've been involved for six years and you've worked your way around different organizations and I know that for full disclosure purposes, Jacob and I used to work together at HMAA and we were a big supporter of the young professional program from the chamber when I was there. So I used to go to a lot of these events with Jacob and the rest of the YPs. But you joined for what reasons and what value did you get out of it? I think for me it was really important to find a connection and when it comes to starting, whether it be starting a new job or being in a new work environment, I think it was really important for me to put myself out there and I think for anybody at any age putting yourself out there is pretty nerve-wracking. So being a part of an organization that, whether it be age-wise or career-wise that are very relatable, it made me very comfortable in meeting new people but also setting higher expectations for myself when it came to growing in my career and also my personal life as well too. Do you feel that you've grown personally as a result of being engaged and involved? Yeah, definitely grown in many ways, I think, since the younger years. But it's definitely enhanced my ability to really see the future not only for myself and my workplace but also the business community in Hawaii. I think seeing a lot of my friends, I'm a local boy here, you know, I was born and raised here and I haven't really lived far, for much too long, so I've been around this area for quite some time and I do see there being a need for people in my demographics or my age range even similarities in workplace as well to connect and be involved and be engaged with a program. Any program, whether it be cultural or business-minded, I think it's a huge leap for anybody. And I think there was also an opportunity for you to, you know, I guess, sharpen your leadership skill, your management skills a little bit because you're involved in trying to coordinate the activities of many people and groups and that's something that maybe, you know, in your job you wouldn't have been able to learn as quickly because you may not have a lot of managerial responsibilities early in your career so getting involved in an organization like this where you do have to coordinate activities and people, it gives you that added experience. I'll tell you this much, being a part of the program has really inspired me in more ways than one. Not only inspired myself when I meet executives, CEOs, presidents and owners of businesses, but also to see the memberships that come through, the type of members that come through our program has really been inspiring for us to, you know, see bigger and better for our program similar as Emily, that's why I decided to not only be engaged, but also give up more time in volunteering for the committee members and I went from events and now chair elect for next year in 2018. Congratulations, I think it's about time. Yeah, thank you.  Who knows? But is there anything that you're going to try before you go? Is there anything in your bucket list that you want to take care of? Yeah, I mean, what we talk about specifically with the Chamber, of course, there's a lot of programs that I've been really honored to be a part of that I'm very excited to see the direction they're going. We're very lucky to have a really great steering committee and so I have no doubts that the programs will continue to thrive. We do have some great plans in place, you know, we knew always that and so we certainly plan to have all of the programs planned out before I leave for the entire 2018 through 2019 year. So that would make it easy for someone to come in and kind of take over that role and just kind of execute what you've already set up. That's the idea and, you know, I would say for young professionals that are looking to get involved, joining a board or working with a non-profit or something like the Chamber and we do have opportunities to have a really great way, like you were saying, to get some great leadership training that you might not get in your company. You'll be able to make some really impactful decisions that involve programs that you can see with your own eyes but things that you wouldn't necessarily get to deal with in your own company. So I would really recommend for young professionals to get involved when they can. Well, and here's a sidebar comment and we're going to have to go on a break in a minute here but then we'll be back but if I was going to learn how to do something new and maybe not be that good at it, maybe screw it up a little bit, I'd rather do it somewhere other than my job if that makes sense. It does. It's an opportunity for people who don't have the experience to come in and learn and get that experience and not, you know, be too intimidated that, you know, if they did something wrong, they got fired over because it is a volunteer organization and it's not going to be perfect and a lot of people got to get that experience somehow. It's very true and you're not working in a silo. There's a wonderful committee there so you would be working with people so if you do make a mistake that there's always somebody there to kind of help you figure through it. Well, we're going to take a short break right now. This is business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We're talking with the young professional group over the Chamber of Commerce the two leaders over there and when we come back we're going to drill down a little bit more into the YP program and talk specifically about some of the programs and what a new member of the program might be looking for. So we'll be right back in about 60 seconds. This is Think Tech Hawaii raising public awareness. Guys, don't forget to check me out right here at the Prince of Investing I'm your host, Prince Dykes each and every Tuesdays at 11 a.m. Hawaii time I'm going to be right here from some of the best investment minds across the globe in real estate, finances, stocks, hedge funds, managers, all of their great stuff. Thank you. Hi, I'm Pete McGinnis-Marck and every Monday at one o'clock I present Think Tech Hawaii's research in Manoa where we bring together researchers from across the campus to describe a whole series of scientifically interesting topics of interest both to Hawaii and around the world. So hopefully you can join me one o'clock Monday afternoon for Think Tech Hawaii's research in Manoa. Aloha and welcome back. This is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. This week we're talking with the young professional program with the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii. We've got the chair-elect here, Jacob No, who's in a chair-elect position right now but we'll be taking over the chairmanship next year I think in June or July. And then we've got Emily Kleiner here who has been running all the programs for a while and has been very active and is going to be passing epiton here shortly to somebody who hopefully will just be able to carry that on for a while. So we've talked a little bit about your background, some of your experiences, how you got involved, but let's move into the program itself. Now Jacob, could you describe how the young professionals at the Chamber is structured? I mean what is the hierarchy and what are the different positions that are there and some of the different programs that are going on? Well, the YP program is one of the Chamber's programs so the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii has decided about six years ago that they wanted to extend an arm to help out the younger generation or younger demographics who are not yet ready to step up into the Chamber's actions and some of them may be a little bit hesitant to do so so the YP program was created to kind of allow them to feel comfortable and sooner or later step up to the play. And what's that age range that you need to be a young professional? So a lot of people have gripes about the word young and I hear from both ends the younger side and the older generation but we do have an age range of 21 to 39 for our program and I think that fits well in Hawaii. People or individuals within that age range are within their first stages of their career, maybe middle management, looking for a way to get some leadership and some help. We do have a lot of executives and some entrepreneur owners that are part of our YP program as well because the demographic fits to them but we really are a resource for a lot of individuals out there who are looking for that assistance or looking for that type of outreach. And some of the organizational structure is you've got a chair you've got a chair elect and you've got different directors that kind of fall into this all responsible for different areas of the program. Right, so we do have our steering committee which Emily and I both sit on currently Anyung Nakata with the Schuyler Foundation is our current chair then we have our chair electors myself and starting June of 2018 I will step up to the plate of Anyung's big shoes to fill. Now didn't she just get like a hundred million dollars from somebody? Yeah, I've got to hang out with her more often. She actually has a large event tonight too. Schuyler has their Hall of Honor awards this evening at the Sheridan so she stays busy for sure. Well I was just going to say see the young professionals can definitely be positive for your career right? I mean a hundred million dollars is not easy to find. Yeah and we touch up again on our areas to get back to the structure. We also have a community outreach chair. We also have an events chair professional development class chair so you know and a few others as well too so we do come together as a really strong team to create you know a program that's going to afford you know the best resources and the best benefits for our members and also the employers of these members as well too. That's right if it benefits the YP person it also benefits the employer as well so that is a good synergy there. And then I guess under this organization is you've got the members and then the members of the organization could also volunteer and participate at the committee level. Yes. Right and so is there a lot of engagement at that level? Does that happen quite often? I think we I think the program itself and as new members become more interested in putting themselves out there as I said before they become inspired to be a part of that change and I think it challenges not only themselves but it challenges their you know their boss or their managers to see that hey they're looking to grow they're looking to become better and you know what not better than to have someone with that type of mission and that type of effectiveness in the workplace. Absolutely. I mean there's always those opportunities in any of our committees for participation so I would recommend that if there's a member interested to go ahead and email anybody on the committee member all of our contact information is on the website because there's definitely ways to get involved. What is the website what's the address? It's www.cochawaii.org backslash Y.P. program. Alright well that's not too hard. Not too hard at all. So and they go to the website and they can find out all the information and can they also sign up to be a member there as well? Definitely. One of the benefits to a Y.P. membership as well that we haven't touched on is the price point it's actually quite a bit lower than a typical chamber membership so if you are maybe a young entrepreneur a young business leader it's kind of a good way to get a taste of the chamber programs without such a large investment we also have rates available if your company is already a member so certainly something to look for if you work for a company that you think already participates in the Chamber of Commerce. Right I guess the chamber is very accommodated to try to get you know both the members active and as well as get the employers and the businesses involved now with that in mind I want to ask a question that it'll be interesting to get the response. Have you ever had a like meet the employer night for example if I was a Y.P. and I was active and I was involved and I wanted my boss maybe to see how all this is working and how amazing a program is has there ever been an opportunity for me to bring my boss with me to a Y.P. event and take a look and see what it's all about? Yeah definitely I mean for one there are certain events that are Y.P. events where we open it up to non-Y.P. members so for all of our events you'll see a Y.P. member rate and then a non-member rate and there's some events that are probably better than others to maybe bring your boss which certainly we can help assist in determining what those are but there's also a lot of great opportunities for you to bring your employer bring your boss to see what it is that you're learning at these events. I think that's very positive I think if you want to get the support of the boss to you know continue to pay membership and allow you the time to participate it'd be good for them to see you know how professional and how well done this is now as you said there's probably some events that are better than others to see this because I know the Y.P.s also they have a lot of fun sometimes. We do. We try not to have too much fun. Fun on a professional level. Yeah but I think you know we do really bring in a lot of ammunition when it comes to what our generation has to offer and really our membership of 270 strong we have a plethora of really great outstanding leaders out there soon to be leaders and community leaders you know we have a lot of nonprofits that are really engaged with us we have a lot of private small to large businesses too so to see that our program can assist anybody in any industry and any capacity of their workforce it's again another motivating factor to make sure that we're on top of our game as a program that's really going to afford those benefits. Now I know you had mentioned earlier that the age has got to be 21 up to 39 but if there was somebody that was going to college about ready to graduate and they're in that 2021 range I mean how hard is that 21 do you have to actually be 21 to show a birth certificate or could I be 20 and a half and about ready to graduate and still be able to join. Well we keep our membership to that age range so that we're able to provide enough for those that are currently members of colleges we have done a lot of partnerships a lot of MBA programs and business clubs out there and there's a lot of opportunities in the future for sure but college students are definitely an opportunity for us to inspire them at the moment of graduation and also in Hawaii as a business community we want to keep them local we want to keep them here and hopefully they find really great jobs and really great employers that are willing to offer again this type of leadership and this type of programming benefit on the side of their job. Let me through a little bit about you know let's just say somebody graduated from college they just started their job their employer is a supporter of the YP program now what do they do how do they get involved who do they talk to they can go to the website they can fill out an application but does somebody there to help them walk them through the process and maybe guide them a little bit. There really is there's actually a new program that Jacob had launched that maybe you can speak on called Morning Buzz. So the Morning Buzz is really casual coffee talk you know it gets the weirdness out of the way for those individuals that were thinking about it and heard their friends are a part of it and what it does is it makes sure it signifies that we're able to be there and answer those questions or answer those worries and make sure that it's not a kind of a awkward moment of stepping up to who you can be and you know there's a lot of whys out there why should I join an organization like this why do I want to you know spend my time going to a class or a networking event instead of doing Paul Honda with my friends you know and in all in all retrospect you know they have to answer these questions themselves and the why has to be there but we're definitely there to engage with them and to show them that there's massive potential within themselves as the years come it all takes time timing is everything as well too but we're not a crowd that's going to scare anybody away that's for sure you know and you're right I think it's not for everybody everybody's priorities are going to be a little bit different they're going to want to do and achieve different things in life but for those that are at least wanting to explore you know the business side of things and a career side of things there's probably no better way to do this I mean the exact connect that you mentioned earlier I mean this is a great way to meet some very successful people in the community and find out how they did it and what they're doing and you know exact connects a really great program we run because it is for YP members only and there's no cost to attend we hold them about once a month and the format of the event is we have three executives from the business community here in Hawaii they come you have lunch you select who you want to be paired with and it's a small table just you that executive it may be you know seven or eight other YP members and you're able to talk story get to know them really engage with them and for a lot of our members this might be your only chance to be in a one-on-one type situation with a real you know head business leader yeah and it can be very revealing because I think some people can be intimidated and talking to some senior person has been in the business for 20 or 30 years and I have some high position but you find out that wow they're not that much different from me they just have more experience and getting experiences part of what this is all about right yeah and I can tell you there's a lot of CEOs that I've gotten feedback from presidents that I've gone feedback from owners you know really excited to see this new generation putting themselves up front and connecting with them and wanting to learn more and I think that's something that we are really proud of is bridging that gap between those that have already have already reached success to those that are you know working its way up there you know we're really blessed to have a lot of wonderful executives that participate in our program and they really get a lot out of it too and they like to see this great initiative that the young professionals in our group have and that really is a benefit to them very good well we're going to have to wrap up it went very quickly as always every time so you know but there's what's the website again Jacob you're so good at that it's www.cocoid.org backslashyp program we do have our holiday end of year event December first I believe and we also have a morning buzz if you want to find out some more information about us again log on to the website very good well congratulations on moving up into the new position and congratulations on your upcoming transfer to Washington so this is a business in Hawaii with Reg Baker we broadcast live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30 from the ThinkTech studios in downtown Hololulu I want to thank the excellent staff that we have here today handling all the technical side of the show until next week aloha


Thank you. Yeah, okay. I'm you have and I came to talk about boba.org Which is a project of our company and it's basically the purpose of it is to manage Linux desktops in large scale in Finnish schools So a target market is schools, but I'm me I've been free software hobbyist for about two decades now and working at offices over 10 years for now So what is our company? We employ about 15 people and we provide IT solutions to schools and while we do some other things We I think the primary thing that we do is that we maintain What large number of Linux desktop computers in primary and secondary schools? I'd say that we maintain over 5,000 active What does active mean what something like? hosts which are daily used By people around 5,000 and maybe there are something like 10,000 less active used And we also manage a lot more user accounts. We Employ about two software developers usually. I'm the other one. We also have Other kinds of people product managers help desktops people people with teaching backgrounds and so on so how we started out At the time we started out the market police was dominated by a Microsoft Windows pretty much and we had a simple Business plan we are going to provide LTS Peter schools LTSP stands for Linux terminal server project And we provided you want to know more Firefox open office and and such and I think it was a pretty good business plan the the idea was to provide Services that are needed by schools in a cheap way And it was good enough at that time. I think But times have changed now it's Apple with iPads and Google has Chromebooks and services They're competing with Microsoft and I feel that we feel that seen clients are not quite up to modern standards as a technology and LTSP feels a bit outdated. I think Remote X does not really well for all all use cases very well so basically we have had to say goodbye to LTSP and Most important reason for that is that we mostly target laptops to these days laptops are the most used kind of device in school environments and LTSP doesn't really help with that We also do provides and discuss workstations With shared home directors in server and these reasonable more like LTSP fat clients We started with Ubuntu, but then canonical did a bit of a trick to us I think and to other people as well They changed the IP policy in 2015 and I still think that you can read that on the Canonical web pages you can redistribute Ubuntu But only way there has been a modification to it and we certainly did modifications to our Ubuntu and we thought about this that are we going to talk about canonical about this or what are We going to do and we decided not to take any legal risks and we decided to make a switch to DBN So, okay, what is Puavo? It's basically the system that we Developed to service our customers and it consists of two components mostly There's the Puavo web which is web software for user and device management And then there's the OS operating system, which is basically a special build of a DBN Linux operating system and it's been free software a long time But we just haven't marketed it as much. It's basically not community-developed system We just use it for ourselves to service our customers and I suppose it shows in some details that it's not a Product that is easy to start using by outsiders But it's there it's available for everyone to actually if you want to do similar things you can try it out And what our goals are system, which of course we started to provide a good system for education We wanted to be maintainable by a few admins yet scalable to large environments We want to support computers for a long time I think 10 years is about in the ballpark that if a computer is over 10 years old It's time to move on to more modern machines. I think but what we tried and currently we require 64-bit support 32-bit only computers are a bit outdated. It's time to move on We tried to be reasonable secure, but we're not the bank. So we're perfect We do not want to try to depend on Technologists by the big three IT companies American companies Of course the tech by those can be used with our system but we would not like to have a hard dependency on on these companies and Yesterday Shane James Shubin gave a talk about configuration management engines and languages and These are nice and and we use some of that as well but we have not seen much of open source written with those languages and We try to change that a bit. It would be nice to have a system administration system administration code released as open source Which could be used to build systems used actually used in the real world We have Pova has a two different major components the web part is the other one. It's a Ruby on Rails application, but unusually we do not use a relational database we use LDAP for it and This is for some reasons We we use a separate database for each organization, but we can use one central installation for all organizations We use MIT Kerberos, which can be used to provide a single sign on which is good so that people don't have to log in to different Separately log into each web application that they need to use and For each organization can have its own school servers and we can keep a organizations organizations specific copy of the database as a ring only copy on the school servers The web has user management part. It has pretty much the standard stuff that you would expect to such a thing to have it has Hierarchies of entities and some usual users can have special permissions to do things such as change a student passwords if they want to We can also provide LDAP access to external applications such as Moodle so that you can use directly the user database for Authentication as such and we can also use to some extent External user databases as a source for user information. We have some Microsoft AD integration Mostly, I think that is it We also have device management We have a we keep a database of devices in school and the poor work can be used to manage poor OS hosts to some extent and Effective functionality and we also gather a bit of information how the devices are used and Then there's a poor OS part. We currently based on DB and stretch Buster is almost ready for production This is something that would could say a few words on The we tend to be a bit conservative. We still certainly prefer to follow the DB unstable releases I think we are a bit slow a bit too slow in following that but but still it's it's the best environment for Schools, I think slow-moving reliable is good We used to be best on LTSP, but we have diverged because of the laptop issue and We no longer have LTSP as a dependency if you actually want a school environment with LTSP The school alien looks is an option. I think they had a stand here Yeah, and how we distribute the poor OS it's we basically make a squash office image Which is compressed read-only disk image and we updated it updated automatically without any disruption for users So so in the ideal case and it works pretty well users never notice any update updates in any way The desktop is GNOME 3 but GNOME 3 in its default setting is a bit Strange for people I think so we behave tweak it with extensions to behave more like Windows which is something that they are being used to and We provide basically those standard stuff that you would expect to have in a free software desktop environment and We have some special features. I think This is a bit crazy and strange I think we use the same system image for different hosts that can have different Modes of functioning and we basically use the same system image for boot servers laptops and diskless workstations So basically how we do it We build an image and then we put the image on the host and before we give control to system D We use our special init tricks to set it up the environment so that this functions properly in that role so boot servers configure themselves as NFS servers before system D takes over and Then we can put a diskless workstation using the same image Through NPD and then the diskless workstation is going to be configured as an NFS client and Then they work together And maybe it's a bit strange But it works for us because we can then use the same installer and same update mechanism for each each type of host We also provide automatic power of when idle during non-school hours guest logings other strange features What about Google is it an friend or an enemy in practice schools need environments for collaboration It's not simply enough to have hosts and computers and networks and and applications There needs to be some kind of environment that they collaborate in and in practice Our system tends to get paired with Google apps for education, which is on the other hand It's a good thing because if that didn't exist I think we would be a schools would probably use something like Microsoft Office online or something like that And we would be in trouble. They used to be Interoperability issues with the Linux browsers in in fact you had to fake the user agent For it to work things have gotten a bit better these days But it may be partially because of the Google apps for education And sometimes it feels as if we have become a thin client provide for proprietary Google app services and It's it's a bit problematic for the previous point of view. I think Sometimes it feels as if we are Teaching children how to use spyware in schools even though I realized that they don't They promise that they don't actually exploit the data The so maybe there could be a privacy conscious school market out there. This is something that we might do in the future The next level looks interesting collaboration office Things like that, but at the moment it feels that in the Finland There is no market for these people are just content to use the Google services But I have heard or understood that in some other countries such as Germany The the politics and the legal legalities are such that The it's not just so simple such as a poor student or children data to American companies So this might be an interesting Development that we should do but it hasn't happened yet What we also need is better documentation and we should probably fix issues so that everything more works more like out of the Box currently what we do appears to be something as if it's done by administrators to other administrators Which is which is true, and you should realize it if you try it out The this one one image to rule them all the strategy is is also good, but it's not perfect Maybe something like GUICs or NICs OS is something that we might want to look into in the future So if you if you want to deploy Linux desktops desktops or laptops in schools If you have Just ten hosts to maintain don't bother with this if you have a hundred I don't know what you should do if you have a thousand. This might be just what you need We also have a they are also a few schools that use our technology in Switzerland and in Germany with some experience Okay, this is not related forget everything that I said this is not related to what we what I just talked I just want to give a quick note in which other way Linux is present in Finnish schools And this is not related to guava in the final year of upper secondary school there are final examinations that have been digital for some years now and The examination software for that is proprietary. I have heard that someday that might actually change It would be a very good thing, but so far it hasn't happened but anyway for the examination the students must provide their own laptops and their examination System the client side is is Delivered as in USB drives and it's a Linux system based on Debian And this creates a strong incentive for high school students by Linux compatible hardware because they have to provide their own in the final examination and If you go to Finland in some computer source, you might see this Sticker on the on the computers which basically says that it's this computer is final examination compatible It basically means that it's Linux compatible, but it's marketed as such because that's what the students care about So, okay, we have one minute for questions if you have any please shoot Thank you. I'd like to know how do you perform the initial installation on the laptops of your image? We have our own installer for it. Sorry, we have our own installer for it. We basically partition it ourselves and They basically takes about three minutes on a fast network if it takes more than that Somebody's going to complain so it has to be very fast. We basically just create the file systems and then copy the necessary files in place the laptops which are then installed with this poor system are they then Dependent on having a connection to the server or can they also be taken elsewhere and like used independently without a connection to the Yes, they can absolutely. That's absolutely a requirement that laptops can be Can function without a network connection and Don't really need a connection to power or centralized power server for functioning What makes a school environment unique for device management? What makes it different from other? situations where you manage devices on a large scale Well, it has to there's no time It's actually a good question and it didn't it isn't necessary. So I think the school environments are the the Requirements are pretty uniform mostly. So so if one what this is not something that I would push to developers because developers would like to Install this and that and do that and that and so on so so it's the requirements are pretty uniform And for that reason so that everything works without a hitch is is the the main requirement Okay, okay. Thank you for your talk