The panel, the discussion, an objective and impartial view of the issues of interest to you. The nation beat is on now. Good morning. Welcome to the nation beat. Today, I am here, Andrew Charles, head of standards development in the Sanusha Bureau of Standards. And within the standards of activities, we felt it was necessary to look at and have a panel discussion on healthcare as it relates to the theme, a shared vision for a better world. With a focus on the third United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all ages. Health and crime are two major issues of national importance. And the high levels of noncommunicable diseases in our space results in a significant reliance on the national healthcare sector. In any field, standards are necessary to achieve the highest consistency and quality of outcomes. So the topics for discussion today are the upcoming healthcare projects, which include standards development and the overall need and importance of standards in the public and private sector. So with me, I have today a group of panelists, experts in the field basically. Immediately to my right, I have Ms. Ira Isaacs, who serves as the chair of our Health Products and Services Technical Committee. Then I have Ms. Heidi Kodra, who also serves as the vice chair of our Healthcare Committee. And finally, we have Mr. Neym Jebaptis, who is the performance-based financing controller or coordinator. First, I'll hand it over to Ira to give a brief biography of herself and basically see it something about herself, then I'll ask her the questions. So go ahead, Ira. Okay, so good morning, everyone. Happy to be here. So a brief biography of myself. Well, that's always interesting. As a public healthcare professional, I have a philosophy of quality as a love language for excellence. So that is really the motto by which I work. I'm a registered nurse. I would say I love people. And having the highest standard of quality of life is the aim by which I do everything when it comes for the people, for the people, by the people. So that really is just my philosophy and who I am as a whole as a being. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Isaacs. Okay, so I'll move on to Heidi Kodra, Jagna.  Okay, as you said, my name is Heidi Kodra Jagna. I am also a nurse by profession. So you see the passion that we share equally in terms of improving the quality of care for all. I also am a quality assurance officer at the Ministry of Health within the quality assurance unit. And also, again, as vice chair, I serve on your committee, your health standards committee. What can I say about myself? That's perfect. Thank you very much, Heidi. Like Ira, I am passionate about improving the quality of care that persons receive within the health sector, whether it is public or private. We know that the role that standards play in ensuring consistency, safe, and an environment that will, I should say, facilitate a better patient outcome. All right, thanks a lot, Heidi. Thanks a lot for that. So, okay, finally, Niam, Mr. Jabatis. Thank you very much. So my name is Niam Jabatis. I am a trained medical demographer, and that's my qualification. But I also have wide experience working in the Ministry of Health, epidemiology, and also biostatistics and was director of the HIV and AIDS program. I am retired, but was given another opportunity to serve under the government's trust towards universal health care. I am currently the performance-based financing coordinator under that project, which looks at delivering quality treatment and screening services for hypertension patients in the primary care sector. So I hope I can provide some kind of information that will be consistent with what we are trying to achieve here today. Thanks a lot for that, Niam. Thanks a lot for that panel. So I'll move on to the questions. So to Ira, can you give me some history of the development of the Code of Practice for Healthcare Facilities, General, and any upcoming standards development that you may know of? Okay. So when you look at the healthcare system within St. Lucia, one of the things we had realized, and this started quite a number of years ago under the health sector reform. And this is about, let's say 2006, I will put this date, yeah? And what we had realized about the health care sector is that we were seeing a set of issues. And no matter what we were doing, we could not resolve those issues. And some of them were, same as what we have today, noncommunicable diseases under rise. You had our lives both. We were seeing that there was an issue with that. Just the overall health of people, but also the dissatisfaction of the public with our healthcare service. And it wasn't just from the public. We were seeing it from our nurses and doctors, from the administration itself. And so what the stewards of that time and the structure did is that they sat down and they asked, what can we do? And they came about with the strategic plan, the national healthcare strategic plan of 2006 to 2011. Beautiful, beautiful plan that laid out a road map for journeying towards quality of healthcare for all, which is the motto of the Ministry of Health. Quality healthcare for all. And they asked themselves, what is quality? What are the dimensions? What is this thing that we always speak about called quality? What does it mean? How do we get there? What resources do we need? And who are the persons who should be driving this? And it is based on those questions that the framework, the national healthcare quality framework was developed within the departments, within the Ministry of Health, the corporate planning unit. And through that, we further continue to develop the national healthcare quality policy. Through that policy, we laid out the guidelines of some of the strategies and the activities that we wanted to do to get not just our healthcare services, but our healthcare professionals and our environment to a point where everyone felt comfortable, safe, receiving reliable care, and that is the love language that we're talking about. It's almost as if we talk everything and holistically look at it and ask the questions, okay, what are the requirements? Because that's what standards are. Standards are basic requirements of getting the best outcome, fit for purpose. So if we say we are going to do X, Y, and Z, we do X, Y, and Z, and the outcome is this, because we have set the mark. And so we did that through the standards. Now the Code of Practice, the healthcare facility Code of Practice, for instance, was driven by our need where we realized that we were, and as Neham said he's a demographer, so he can probably speak to this, we realized that we are moving towards a demographic of people who are aging. And so when you look at the layout of our healthcare facilities, when we give care, is it safe for you to come to us? And is there a way for us to come to you? And we put those sorts of things, what you call accessible healthcare, ramps, an environment that is free of violence and discrimination, an environment that is friendly, an environment where when you come to us, we ensure as best as possible that you are not just comfortable with what we're giving you here, but that you are involved in the care. And that's people-centered care, we call it people-centered approach to healthcare. And based on those, we sat down and we said, we took things like PAHO Smart Health Facilities. We look at standards from the British Institutes. We looked at standards from Canada, Australia, but we asked ourselves, are these standards appropriate for St. Lucia because big countries, big money, but we know that as a small island there is a constraint of resources and even some of the resources are time and people. So we sat down as a committee and this is how we came together as a committee. And we looked at the standards and we asked ourselves, how can we adopt this to St. Lucia for the cultural environment, for the people with the resources that we have and with the time frame that we needed it. And that was the journey towards us creating the code of practice for the healthcare facilities, but also the code of conduct for our healthcare professionals. Now, within this, best practice is that standards 16 to 24 months of development, but again, because our resources in what you call export is quite limited, we had to seek outside help. Now, this is where we did a collaboration with the blur of standards, who also connected us to accreditation Canada and persons such as the Caribbean regional quality of standards, who have been helping us in that journey of creating the standards. That standard process is when we came together as a committee, healthcare export, we have the nursing council, we have the solution medical and dental council, we have persons from various doctors and nurses as Heidi herself, but when we sit at the table, it is not us creating the requirements and just handing it to you. We send it out for public comments to all healthcare professionals and we ask for comments and when you give us the comments, we go back to the table, we look at it and we address those comments accordingly. That is the process in us developing these standards. These are what we call pilot standards for now, because they are the two and let me say, which is one of the very first countries in the OECS regional Caribbean, islands that have created such a quality management system that have created such standards. So we are leading what I would say a pathway towards leading the other islands, towards quality healthcare for all. And so many other islands have adopted this approach. So we foresee in the future when we continue with these standards development and other standards development such as medical tourism. There is something that has been on our table. Also, clinical guidelines, how do we give care in a manner which what is happening in the public sector is also happening in the private sector?  No, we want everything to be standardized. So that's really the vision by which we are having and going. Okay, thanks a lot for that Ira. So what I'm getting from your discourse is that it's a holistic view and it's also a very consultative process, not just consultation of technical experts, but consultation of the nation on the whole, the public, to give their thoughts, give their feedback on the standards development of the healthcare sector. So thanks a lot for that Ira. Excellent. I'll move on to Heidi. Heidi, the question for you is, what do you think of the development of the national healthcare quality policy and what is its applicability to the United Nations Sustainable Development Rule 3? Okay, thank you, Andre. The Ministry of Health has made significant strides since the development of the national healthcare quality policy and this policy created an avenue to improve the overall health system within the country by providing guidance to the national strategic health planning. As such, the quality assurance unit was developed to support the core goals and principles of the national healthcare policy and ultimately aiming to provide accessible, affordable and high quality care to all solutions. And the policy is closely linked and it does support the UN SDG3 goals, such as focusing on ensuring health and well-being for all and for all ages. So if we have to break down the SDG3, we see different components, SDG1, 2, 3, 4. And when we look at the national healthcare quality policy, it basically encapsulates everything, all areas such as accessibility to healthcare. So the national healthcare policy actually prioritizes and outlines to ensure equitable access to healthcare services. And this aligns with the SDG3, aiming to achieve universal health coverage, which includes accessing the essential services for all. And I must say that if you look at most of the districts or the regions, we have healthcare facilities. We have about 33 healthcare facilities that persons can access within their communities. So making it accessible for those persons who cannot necessarily go to the private sector, to a private doctor or cannot afford to go to the hospital to see a doctor, the Ministry of Health has made it available to them, accessible. And like Ira said, again partnering with PAHO and SMART, make it accessible, wheelchair access as well, so you find most of the facilities, we have included ramps. And we have been working on the toilets for disabled persons. So we are working, and again, as Ira said, looking at standards. And we know now that the role that standards plays in achieving overall health for all, in terms of when we were looking at the health, the standards for the healthcare facilities, we understand now that any new facility that is being built has to follow particular standards. Okay? And simple things that persons may not look into, such as the size of a door. The size of a door cannot be the same as when you enter in your bedroom. Because we're looking to service all persons, whether it be on a wheelchair, whether it be on a trolley, a gully, whatever it is, that person should be able to enter that room freely. And moving forward, we look at the SDG32, where the reduction of preventable deaths. And the policy also highlights the importance of the development of standards and guidelines to reduce preventable deaths from improving quality of care, such as early diagnosis and infective treatment. And looking at that, we see that we have made strides and, thankfully, for the World Bank, who has been funding our initiatives, the Ministry's initiatives. And Mr. Neham will continue along with that when we get there in terms of the progress that we have made. Also, we look at the universal health coverage, SDG 3.8, which Mr. Neham also will expand on. And we see that we started out in phases, and one of those phases was the maternal and child health, which is the first phase. Because of that, we're doing a lot of testing and ultrasounds throughout the duration of the pregnancy. So, basically, we have that monitoring in place to capture whether there's anything going on and that effective treatment can be given to reduce the incidence of deaths of steel bonds and so on. So, we have been making strides, and this is just the first phase. And we have a lot going on right now at the Ministry of Health. We are presently looking into the prevention and management of CKD, that is renal failure, chronic renal disease. We're looking into preventing that. And this is where the screening comes in and also Mr. Neham's department. That's where they're coming in, the prevention aspect of it. And we're also progressing slowly to cancer screening as well. So, basically, we, as a Ministry, we have been proactive, rather than reactive. And in terms of patient safety, the SDG-36, we have been working tediously. And this is where our partnership has basically grown with the St. Lucia Bureau of Standards in understanding that where standards, the rule that standards play, such as the risk management. And you know that we have partnered, we have been working together to actually execute that training within our Ministry. And by extension, our autistic health holders, the St. Jude's Hospital, the OKU Hospital and other facilities. Okay, so thanks a lot for that, Heidi. Again, the general idea I'm getting here is the quality of healthcare is extremely important and access to healthcare for all is extremely important. Thanks a lot. I'll move on to Mr. Joabtees. Neham, we know that money is important, an important resource to make anything happen. So, again, what is performance based for? Okay, so performance. Okay. So a break right now. Okay. I actually thought it was going on today. That's actually why I stopped you. Sorry about that. Suicidal thoughts like other mental health challenges can affect anyone. It can be you, your colleague, family member or neighbor. Everyone has a role to play in preventing suicide. Know the warning signs. Two or someone you know is in crisis or emotional distress. Call the suicide hotline at 203. Remember, help is available. This is a message from the Employee Assistance Program, Department of the Public Service. Contact us at 468-2269 or 468-2260. Welcome back to Nation Beat. And thank you very much. We're moving on to Mr. Neham Jabaptis. The question again, because finance is extremely important in any endeavor, we're going to look at finance and healthcare. So the question I have for you is, what is performance-based financing and how does it aid the application of a more successful health regime? Right. Thank you very much for this question. Performance-based financing really is a mechanism, or you could call it a methodology that is used to strengthen health systems. The difference between performance-based financing and traditionally what we're doing is input financing. So we finance staff, we finance equipment, we finance the things that we need to deliver our outcomes and our outputs. Performance-based financing actually finances the outputs. At this stage, and when it's with outputs, we're talking about those things that we do, we use the equipment, we use the staff, we use the activities to get out of our programs. So in our case, for example, the main outputs for our performance-based financing program is to have, for example, persons treated according to the guidelines and protocols. We'd pay for that. To have persons screened according to the guidelines and protocols, we'd pay for that. To have persons registered, we'd pay for that. So we are very specific, we have indicators to indicate the outcomes that we're looking for and then we pay for it as opposed to paying for staff and paying for equipment, what we're doing traditionally. Essentially, that is the difference. So it's a difference moving from input-based financing to output-based financing. How we hope to mature in the future is to move from output-based financing now to outcome-based financing. So here you will now finance P for a person to get better. P for a person to live longer. But that is future for us. We're doing everything in steps. You cannot just jump into an outcome. You first have to have certain outputs there. So we're starting there, financing that. When we have developed the culture and the information that we need to, then we can go and mature further and advance in our universal health care thrust. So that's basically the difference between performance-based financing and some of the other traditional financing that we have been doing. Okay. And again, so looking at the application to a successful regime, what I'm getting... Oh yes, yes. The second part of the question. So it is very... Because it calls for reforms. I spoke a lot about reforms. The thing about where we are here today, we did a lot of work in the past. And let me say here, it was not a waste of time. We did not achieve what we had to achieve maybe in the past. First of all, I think a lot of people thought universal health care is just like a cross-sectional thing. You just come and you just do it and you get universal health care. But we have done visits towards the countries who have been implementing universal health care 25 years, 15 years, and they are still learning and they are still reforming. So the decision to move to universal health care in steps is critical and it's the best decision that we could have. So we started, we started with what we have and then we work on what we have but we have a goal for what universal health care, what we want to achieve in universal health care. We all know essentially universal health care is a package of services. You cannot deliver everything. You need to have those services that you need to deliver to your population based on needs, epidemiological demographic, and other needs. You need to have those services and you also need the financing mechanism. Financing is always important. What the PBF is doing now is trying to provide lessons on how we could end up with something that we could afford. You know, something where our people is participating. Something that is not just at the national level. Something starting from the level of the community because it's starting from the catchment areas. So we're going to reform the way that we do. We deliver care. One other thing, when the first design we got of that program it didn't have a quality component. We had to put in a quality component to make it a part of it. And we are working with all of the quality teams in the country including the Bureau of Standards that is going to look at that program, count to verify the data, look and see if indeed there is quality. And of course it's going to be based on the CAFA guidelines. The same thing, all of the guidelines in the past that we had used. So now we have to update the guidelines. We have to monitor the guidelines. It is not easy work. People cannot just say you would see it's easy work. It's not easy work. We have to do the reforms. We need to do the reforms. We need to create the environment within which we could successfully operate universal health care delivering quality care to our patients but also knowing what's going on. Knowing what's going on in terms of having the data, having the right staff mix having all of the different components of the health system in place. The financing, governance, getting the supplies and everything across to ensure that all of that, you arrive at the outputs and the outcomes that you really have planned for. So it's a work in progress. It will always be a work in progress. Countries, I mean, Korea is doing that for about 25 years. Colombia is in 15 and there are kind of leaders in the world at this stage and they're still learning. You know, so it's a long journey. It's not, it's a step by step by step and the approach the ministry has, why diabetes and hypertension? Because these are the two greatest killers in the country. Hypertension is often under estimated as a cause of death but it is a significant precursor for things like heart disease, strokes. So we have to control it. We have to control it if we have to reduce the premature mortality that we're supposed to be doing under the SDGs. So I am very honored at this time that I could still use my skills to to serve my country. It's a very honorable thing and anytime I talk about the P, the performance I'm very passionate because I spent a lot of years in data and diabetes and hypertension was where we always had a lack of because it's a lot. It's a huge undertaking. A lot of people, 19% I think 19% of our population is suffering from diabetes for example. I mean we thought it was like 10% but it's as high as 17 to 19%. So if we don't do something now, now we will be probably aiming for a quarter of our population with diabetes. So that's prevention in the primary care setting. If we do prevention well then the hospital will have less burden. So that is the focus now, at least for the next year and a half. It took us almost two years to get the structure in place. That's the other thing. We cannot do quality if we don't have a structure. We cannot do quality if we don't have quality police or quality inspectors. We need to put all of those things in. We can talk about quality and then we have not yet defined it. I mean we have to put in the structure, we have to know about it and we have to practice it. You know, small steps and I think once we can do it that way we probably would be in a much better way to deliver quality care. When we say quality care we want to be able to define it. We want to be able to monitor it. We will be able to measure and say alright we have achieved quality, we have achieved quarter quality, half quality or whatever. So these are the things that's where we aim in. That's how we have to go for it. And it will take us time. That's the thing we have to understand. It will take us time to do it alone in the ministry. We have to involve the community, involve the people. Let them understand it and then even give us solutions as well. You know, but so for now and again the World Bank is very big on this and really trying to get us to change our culture and to understand and I'm talking about organizational culture, not our culture. Change our culture towards moving towards more information, towards more doing things objectively, looking at effectiveness, looking at efficiency. All of those define in these in terms of very simple terms and terms of data so that we can see actually see progress and measure progress. So that is in a nutshell what I hope in saying all that I answered, but I'm always very passionate on it. So again what I'm getting from that and there's a lot of commonality of what you guys are saying. It's really that again from your discourse a while ago, the performance base and the PBF performance base financing is looking at not just the money but looking at a projectized approach. Inputs, processes, outputs, outcomes. And then looking at that and again being realistic up with it not looking at it where okay this is going to happen tomorrow but seeing tomorrow will come then it's next week, then it's next month two years down the line. Again being very realistic to what are the outputs and what are the outcomes and then when we look at it like that when we follow that model that projectized approach again I heard the quality resonating with Heidi resonating with yourself Neil that when we look at that approach of incorporating quality having that repeatability in the care looking at access to the care looking at the standards to the care and a long term basis of not just starting yesterday but information from quite yes yes yes utilizing those metrics and getting to an end point. I'm saying end point almost in quotation marks because that end point is a continuously learning end point so it's always moving further and further constantly progressing continuous quality improvement that's the deal I was going to bring it's we actually use the term continuous quality improvement CQI and continuous quality improvement says and I'm going to add to the wisdom of Neyham and Heidi continuous quality improvement has what you call a methodology to it. Let's just say it's a roadmap. Plan do check you plan what you have done your plan what you're doing and sometimes in the planning things change as you're doing it so you need to check it and when you're checking it and you realize this is not working I need to go back and fix or change or add or take out then you act on it and that's a continuous cycle continuous cycle it's like you never finish going we do not believe in perfection we believe in fit for purpose meaning to say what we plan for and the outcome that we desire we are getting it and then when we get that outcome we grow we call it we don't hang our hats where we cannot reach it we make it very realistic to our environment to our people to our resources to what we can do so we're not putting shoes that we cannot wear I like that we do not put shoes that we cannot wear and so in the wisdom of Neham when we looked at the outcome we asked ourselves so where is the value for money evaluation and that value for money where it's our evaluation which is our monitoring value because when we're planning we're checking as the monitoring side of it but when we go to the evaluation side on our outcome with our value for money we get there then is when we're going to say yes we have accomplished and here's how we accomplish this now in quality before quality was used in products and people are in products but we are a product of our society and there's no such thing as poor people or sick people it's really poor opportunities and poor resources and so when we looked at it we said we're going to give them the best that we can now the outcome of where we want to go and see them going because healthy people is a healthy economy and a healthy economy is a healthy nation so it isn't we didn't just sit at the table and decide that we want it to be like the big countries meeting international standards no we care for our people we care for our people because we are the people and we are the very standards that we set we use the system we live in this system we no longer breed people we brand people meaning to say this is who the vision we have for you we are going to help you to get there that's the loving us we don't make sacrifices we do sacred duty that's what we nurses say this is not a sacrifice it's our sacred duty to the nation and the people so when you look at the sustainable development gold and you look at the performance based financing we are moving towards a healthy nation what does it require for us to be a healthy nation these are the inputs this is the input that we need based on the input before we were doing input but it wasn't working so what's the output that we need this is the output so where are we going that's the outcome we have a vision we know where we are going we are just taking it step by step plan we are doing it we are checking to see what we are doing as we go that's our passion it's for our people look at the age of Neham Neham have retired but he's back here with us that's the four steps that we are following the young people like ourselves so it isn't that we are putting things in place and sometimes we ask we know we ask our patients how was the service today and you say nurse I don't like the waiting time believe it we go back and we ask ourselves we cut down on this waiting time right we don't think that you out there sitting and drying and we think that it's okay no we feel it too we feel it too because we are the same like you and that is where again the Ministry of Health we have understood the importance of where quality stems from and because of that we have taken a patient centered approach and we have a committed team at the Ministry of Health we have the Minister who is passionate about health care we have our PS our DPS the CMO we have the other units that make up our Ministry Corporate Planning the Quality Assurance Unit and we recently have it's been about two or three years now we've had the non-communicable diseases unit so we have understood how we cannot just deal with illness and diseases on the whole but sometimes we have to break it down and we have to focus and taking that approach the Quality Assurance Unit we have embarked on doing patient satisfaction surveys and the purpose for these surveys is to understand what is really going on the ground so we can understand what is really affecting whether it is the delivery of care or patient outcome and for that we focus closely on the primary care setting because we recognize that we have to start care we recognize injecting all those monies in treatment will not solve the problem because we'll continue to have a sick nation where our focus is right now is a preventative approach management and for that to happen we need the standards we need the guidelines that not only the public sector will follow but the private as well the Ministry of Health has been engaging the private sector also because we need the input as well we provide service but at the end of the day it has to be seamless because the care has to be continuous like Ira rightfully said when a patient is seen in the primary care setting and they referred to secondary care whether it be surgery whatever it may be and they go back home they go back into the community for continuum of care at the primary care setting so this is where we have noticed the collaboration with not just the primary care setting but the collaboration has to be with public, private primary, secondary and tertiary we need an interdisciplinary approach to treating whether it is illness or disease so we can have better patient outcomes thank you very much Heidi thanks a lot for that Ira also again so we'll go to a break right now and we'll be back very shortly thank you I don't know I feel like a friend is placing heavy emphasis on the concept of food security it's our prosperity our future the enhancement of the efficiency of production distribution supply chain in the fruit and vegetable sector project more commonly known as the seven crops project is intended to increase local production of all selected crops and decrease our food import bill through the diversification of the agricultural sector and increased production of the targeted crops among the provisions are subsidized input sales, seedling distribution introduction of new varieties introduction to new technology erection of weather stations and capacity building for more on the seven crops project contact the project coordinator at 468-8122 welcome back to nation beat again St. Lucia Bureau standards and our healthcare professionals right here we're going to wrap up now with our discussion and quite an engaging discussion also on our healthcare standards in the healthcare performance based financing quality and what those things truly mean to our healthcare so what I would do after that very engaging discussion from Ira and Heidi very engaging I'll now hand it on to to name to you name to sort of wrap up and give us an idea of moving forward how we see this healthcare system and what do you envision for the future for the future I have one small acronym USAID universal health coverage is our future we've been grappling with it for 20 years I think over the last two to three years three years and with the involvement of the World Bank and now imagine we have involvement of the Bureau standards more intimate I think if we give it the chance if we give it if we continue with it we should have this policy that no matter which government comes in we have a universal healthcare health coverage goal that we work into it if not it means that we're going to start from scratch every time so I think now that we are learning about it we are learning from other countries we are starting some of the reforms through the PBF and through and now strengthening our quality and with inputs of course from the Bureau I think we in a much better have a much better way what I would think the future let us develop because one of the things that we noted in those countries that the data the data was key to everything because it's the data that you need to to I have a bias for data but I really saw that at work in that in every one of those countries there was one particular organization or institution responsible for the data the data burden from your heads of department you took it from even the ministry and you have somewhere that gives you the requisite data that you need to do the information because you need the data for the quality you need the data for the financing you need the data for bringing in your products you need the data for the staffing you need the data for everything and I think we have to seriously seriously think about giving us the information that we need for us to progress and for us to be able to measure and to know when we have achieved universal healthcare or any other outcome that we want in that regard that's what I would want to leave with us thanks a lot for that Nehemi, excellent so again we're seeing the importance of again a quality approach where we're utilizing the metrics the measurement is extremely important very very very important objectively know where we are to know where we're going to again utilize the measurements so again thank you guys very much for being here I think I could say in conclusion that the commonalities that we're seeing from all of this discourse here again the importance of standards the longevity of the information that you've sourced from previously the quality based approach and the importance of the quality based approach and the accessibility to all and then the performance based financing money is very important to make anything happen so how do you get the resources how do you mobilize these things and what is the realistic viewpoint of getting to those areas so almost in summary this is how I could see what you guys have said today and the passion I clearly see the passion in each of you all of health care why it's there why we want to improve it and why do we want to continue improving on it and with that I'd like to say thank you very much for being here today thank you very much for sharing your mind sharing your passion sharing your thoughts on this very important subject and I'd like to again thank you very much additionally because again this is not a one person or set of people speaking to this is a collaborative consensus based approach this is all about not just the experts who are here today sharing their idea but the public also giving back and saying this is what we want to see as an improvement this is what we think about the service or the facility that we're using thank you very much and again signing out of niche and beats thank you very much thank you


Hi everyone, this is George Cao and today I have with me one of my clients so proud to work with Margaret Road of websitesforgood.com and she's going to be sharing with you some of the lessons she's learned in our work together in the hopes that it will encourage you and inspire you and educate and uplift you to do even better work than you're already doing. So let me start with her bio and then I'm going to ask her a couple questions. So Margaret Road equal parts coach, consultant, storyteller and geek, Margaret Road helps small businesses market themselves online with authenticity and with compassion so you can see why Margaret and I get along. She helps thoughtful entrepreneurs and avoid impersonal and shady tactics in favor of building real and lasting connections with the people who matter most to them. She offers coaching, evaluation, e-courses, guided programs and a variety of custom service packages at websitesforgood.com, websites, F-O-R, good.com. Margaret thanks for doing this interview with me. Thanks for having me George. Yeah, so maybe I'll just have you start off with what are a couple of the most valuable or maybe even surprising lessons you've learned as we've worked together in our coaching. You know, I think the first surprising lesson is going to sound terribly cliche but it was the concept that you embody in everything that you put out there for us. It was the concept that I could actually be myself cliche, right? But really my thought was if I was myself, if I spoke like myself, if I created content from my own voice, if I didn't stick to the tried and true stuff that everybody else is doing, that I wouldn't get business, my business wouldn't succeed and I would basically lose the game. And so just to have someone who not only told me, no, no, be yourself. You have so much to say and say it and say it like you. People want to hear you not only tell me that but also demonstrate that with all of the content that you share on your website. I mean I was so impressed. I think I went through every single video before I ever contacted you because I was so shocked that you could be yourself. You could be just a regular guy.  You're out for a walk. I mean you were just like this. You were yourself but at the same time you were entirely the sort of a person that I wanted to have a coaching relationship with for exactly that reason because you're not trying to be somebody you're not and it took all the fear out of it. So that was the first thing. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I really, really appreciate it. I think there's the automatic assumption when people think about marketing that it means having to impress others, which means having to perform, which means doing things that are somehow emulate, well I guess we could say emulating a celebrity, right? And the glamour that's typically there and I'm really happy. I think in large part thanks to social media and sort of live videos, etc., there is a trend more and more towards, well even celebrities now want to be themselves instead of some cardboard cutout of what you're supposed to be, right? And I mean even like I think about even bigger companies like Dove, right? Like Dove Soap has been known in the past decade to kind of start highlighting, hey you don't have to have the model perfect body, that's not who we are. We are ourselves and the beauty is found with whatever body shape you are. There's beauty there and so yeah, the way I think about marketing is, well it's kind of like what Seth Godin says about when you're driving along the road and you see a bunch of different, you know, cows in the field and you see a purple cow, what's that? What did I just see there? And it gets people's attention, people go and study, people go and get fascinated by it and it's the same thing with ourselves. It's like when we can be ourselves that is the most unique and interesting thing for others to witness. So now that you have started to, I feel like you've always been this way. You've always had this value, right? But maybe you can share a little bit about what is it about maybe our industry or the sort of online marketing industry that kind of got you away from that for a little bit. I'm curious how you would talk about that. I think with our industry, we have our gurus. Every industry has its gurus. And I think that there's a couple of things at play and neither of them are bad things. One is that people want to follow patterns and people who are successful. They want to follow, they want to take whatever this guru has written in his book or whatever this guru is putting out in his podcast every week. And if it worked for him, it will work for you.  They just think, well, if they do it, then there must not be anything wrong with it. And I'm just going to do that. I'm going to get the same results, everything will be great. That's one part of it. The other part is that a lot of people are starting businesses and they have a problem up front, which is how do I make enough money to not have to go back to my corporate job? I mean, how do I come out of the box blazing and start making money, start getting clients, start making progress right away? And so they turn to people who have a formula or process or a program or even a coaching program, even an expensive coaching program, we've talked about that. And they think it's going to be the thing that benefits them the most. And at their core, you can't really argue with that because they have something really good inside of them. They have a gift, a product, a service, a skill set that they want to share with the world. And so there's really nothing wrong with any of that. But what I'm finding, as with you, I'm finding that the more authentic people are, the more approachable and human people are, that's where the client acquisition is going. Where clients will see a slick coach with a suit and a seven-figure this and that. And then they see somebody that walks his dog and gives away tons of beautiful, beautiful educational content. Who do you think they're going to choose on a human basis? Thank you. And you know how grown up I am about things like that. I think another interesting piece of this is that if we are following another person's formula or trying to emulate their style, and if it's not us, we have to keep that up. And when clients start to work with us because of the facade of the mask, and I say that because I had a facade in the mask in the first couple of years of my business, I feel like. I had to continue that to meet expectations or exceed expectations. And now that I, it's funny, like I don't, I think one of the keys I think with authenticities, I don't mind making mistakes in public. And I think that's something we're all learning is like, it's actually okay. Some of my most, and maybe you've discovered this too, some of my most popular social media posts have been when I've been willing to be vulnerable. And because being vulnerable is really what a human being is. We are so vulnerable in so many ways, and we're willing to share that. People go, my gosh, I'm not the only one. And then of course not just saying woe is me and I'm down, but it's like, okay, here's what I'm going through and kind of here's what I'm doing. Here's what I've discovered is helpful and I'm still human and I'm still making mistakes, you know, and it's like, if we're willing to make mistakes in public, we're going to filter in the people who I guess believe in humanity, believe in authenticity. And those people, well, like yourself and like all my clients are so much easier and more fun to work with, right? It is, and on the converse side of that, I said there are going to be some people who gravitate to that sort of person, the one with the great masks on, beautiful masks, and then this other thing. Do we really want clients who see vulnerability as something distasteful? Do we really want to work with those kinds of people? Maybe they belong where they go and the people who find us authentic and genuine and compassionate come to us and that's the best possible world Yeah. Yeah, it is and I mean, I see even in a coach consultant and client relationship, I think it's truly wonderful when it can be of mutual support. You know, the coaching consultant obviously maybe has some additional knowledge, advanced knowledge that the client is yearning to achieve or get. But at the same time, coach or consultant or counselor or business owner is a human being and it's okay to, I mean, the way I even think about, for example, you know, even financial payment, right? I think financial payment as my clients are supporting me. You know, that's one way that they are supporting me as I'm supporting them in different ways. And so we are willing to frame the relationship as one of mutual human support. It is, I know, it's just more fulfilling in my experience. It makes it so much easier to get out of bed every morning. Get out of bed every morning like I'm being shot out of a cannon. My first thought every single morning when I wake up is who do I get to work with today? What do I get to do with them and for them today? I never thought I would be here. I was a lifelong cynic until I started my own business. And then this shift happened and everything just blossomed. Well, one of the shifts that I've noticed with you as your content has, you know, and you've mentioned that a bit, what would you say about that?  That I got from early in our, in our one-on-one coaching was your, your absolute insistence on creating as much useful content as possible, because I had been one of these folks that, oh, you know, I did a blog post this month. Do I really need to do another one? And I was afraid it was a whole thing. They had to tie back to fear. I was afraid of talking about things that I wasn't an expert at. I was afraid of making mistakes. I was afraid of sharing my opinions. You know, I was afraid of being myself. And so one blog post a month was extremely painful because I had to wear that mask and it's hard to see the keyboard even when you're wearing the but as soon as I knew that I could be authentic, as soon as I knew that I could make mistakes, that I could change my mind, that I could share little things as well as big things. You know, they didn't have to be a thousand word toms that were great wisdom. People would come and, you know, leave flowers on my front porch. They they just had to be something that my people, my my community finds useful, would find helpful, warm, would give them a good feeling, would give them a new idea, would make them feel heard and seen and paid attention to. And so that was another just a fabulous part of entering into relationship with you is just I see now everything is content. I have content folders. I have a content board in my other room where I scribble down ideas and stick it up there and flesh it out later. And it's it's just the reaction has just been amazing because now people feel like they know me, not just people who have known me for a couple of years, but but people who are just finding out about me for the first time, they know what kind of person I am. Sometimes I think they do one of my free, my those 30 minute consultations. Sometimes I think that they do those just to be able to have a conversation with me and find out that there is somebody else in the world. There's a kindred spirit who believes the same things they do. Yeah. And that's OK. Yeah, totally. Wow.  You know, I think I've probably over the course of my business and I started almost 20 years ago. I think I've probably tried 50 different productivity methods. I'd get a new book, you know, I'd get getting things done. I'd get this tracker and this to do list and this reminder thing. And they were helpful. I won't say that the cumulative knowledge wasn't helpful, but but there was no joy in it. There was structure, which is good, but there was no feeling of rhythm. There was no feeling of connection to my the rhythms that are inside me, the rhythms of my own energy, for example. And so joyful productivity as as you teach it, I internalized as a way to pay attention to what my body does, where my energies are, where my left, what part of the day my left brain is strongest, what part of the day my right brain is strongest and time things and schedule things in that rhythm, you know, and including things like creative rest. I don't know if I've told you this, but your creative rest just broke the whole thing open for me because I had always felt guilty. I would get exhausted.  I just needed 30 minutes to sit quietly and turn it all off. And I would feel guilty about that because, you know, you're supposed to keep going. This is pure work ethic. Keep going. And so how my structured day looks now, my creative brain is strongest in the morning and I've been waking up early to work on the book that I've been creating and all other creative projects all get packed into the early part of the day and then I take a rest. Yeah, I give that part of brain a rest and then I communicate. So I create and then I connect with my people for a few hours, which is always joyful. I exchange emails. I do strategizing. I have calls with them. And then at the end of the day, I often will consume more material. I'll process what I learned during the day. I'll get it all down on paper and I have an end of the day ritual as well. But it's just been super, super helpful. And it's been something that I've been able to keep to because my brain now knows this part is for this, even if I never look at my planner at all and never get a single reminder from my calendar. I know what I'm supposed to be doing at any given time of the day. It's just fantastic. Wow. I can't I feel like I'm gushing, but it's just changed everything for me. It's so wonderful. And one of the results right now that you're producing is your book, which I've already read a draft of it and I'm so excited personally about it. I can't wait for the world to know about it. I mean, you're going to have it on Amazon, so it's going to be kind of widely available. You're going to have it on your website as well. Do you want to share anything else that you're working on right now? And or offerings that that people should know about? Let's see. I'm I continue to do the work that I do. So I I work with small entrepreneurs and small solo entrepreneurs and self-employed people, freelancers, and they have different needs than big companies do. And so I offer lots of different online marketing related stuff, help with social media, help with websites, help creating websites, but not necessarily the multi-thousand dollar custom website. I do do those, but most of my people don't need those. What they need is help with content. They need help developing their story. We need help choosing a platform, getting it all down on paper, figuring out what functionality will create a conversation between themselves and the person that they're trying to reach their audience member. And so I sell what I call bite-sized help. And if someone needs me for a consultation for two hours, if someone needs me to make something work that's sticky on their website, I do that. That's where I'm finding the most joy and most demand, because I'm dealing with people who are very a lot of folks are very online marketing savvy, very website savvy and social media savvy and so I can help them in that way. For folks that really don't know where to start, I have a great program that I'm just loving the heck out of. It's called the 90 minute website and it's a guided program. So it starts out with an e-course that helps them to corral all of those pieces that go into a website, everything from how do I write my bell page to where in the world do I get pictures that don't cost a thousand dollars. And all the questions, what is website hosting? Why do I need it again? And the course covers that. And then we gather and I'm available for consultation up the way. And then we gather together and we over the course of a couple of hours, we sit down and we go from zero to launch with all the materials that they've been guided through through gathering, we put it all together and we launch the site and it takes so they go from nothing to a website in about two weeks. That's amazing. Well, I mean, it is so valuable to have somebody as experienced as you guiding them along the way. So it's something that I'm going to be telling people about. And if anybody is watching this and you say, yeah, you know, it's time for me to launch my website or it's time for me to revamp my website, because my offerings and message has changed. Contact Margaret, because she has the wisdom, experience as well as the compassion and authenticity and the technical skills kind of lead guide people through it. So thank you for the work you do. Thank you so much for doing this interview. Is there anything else you want to complete our time together with? No, I just love your audience, though. I just want to make sure that that you know and that they know that I think that we're we're basically going to save the world. Authentic businesses are really are going to bring humanity back to a world that is sort of teetering on away from humanity and compassion. And I think bringing our passions and our work into the world is going to bring us all away from that edge and back to connection with each other. So I'm just so glad to be part of the community of George. Thank you so much, Margaret. I love having you in the community, and I'm just looking forward to seeing your your message and your work continue to grow. And so, folks, of course, there will be links to Margaret's websites and Facebook page and the notes of the video. And I encourage you to go and check out her work. She has some amazing articles. She posts them regularly and go check it out. So thanks, Margaret. Thanks, George. You're welcome. Great to see you.


This is Stink Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. And welcome again to Energy Wednesday, our flagship operation here for energy. I'm Sharon Moriwaki with the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum and with me, co-host, our super attorney here from Watanabe, our partner and former consumer advocate, Jeff Watanabe, we're co-hosting. Jeff Ono. What did I? Oh, sorry. Jeff Ono, sorry about that. Jeff Ono, we're co-hosting the last of our series on Bioenergy and we'd like to pull that on for a little bit because we have Shannon Tauganan today. And she's from Hawaii Electric. The spokesperson is going to tell us about a couple of programs at HECO. Yeah. The first one we want to bring up is yesterday we launched our request for proposals for pretty much the largest amount of renewable energy, variable renewable energy projects ever for the wine electric company. So we're asking for proposals for projects with 220 megawatts on Oahu, 60 megawatts for Maui, and 20 megawatts for Hawaii Island. So we're really excited about that. We want people to go to our website and check out all the information that we have regarding the request for proposals. So what's all involved and what's the timeline? Well, they have our qualifying proposals maybe submitted through April 30th, 2018. So I think the best thing we can say is to go to the website. So it's hawainoelectric.com slash competitive bidding. And there you'll have pretty much all the information you'll need. There's a lot of, you know, there's the transmittal letters, so on and so forth. So everything they need to know as far as how to qualify, what the projects need to entail, it can, you can include energy storage with your project. So I think that's, you know, really enticing part of the proposal. So it just went out yesterday? Yeah. Just yesterday. That's good. Well, very good. And anything else you want to report? Or unless Jeff has any questions about these. Well, we're excited about this. These are big projects. And we're also waiting for the firm dispatchable RFP, which should come out shortly. Yeah. So this is for variable, renewable projects. And when is the deadline for your decision-making or is that just open until, you know, I don't know exactly, but the proposals need to be submitted by April. And then after that, there'll be a time when they're reviewed and projects, nothing on projects when they would come online or when it was actually. I don't have anything like that. But you know, this is very, you know, timely. We just launched yesterday. They filed before we began the process yesterday. You can come back, tell us where you are. April. May. And then we have an issue that we wanted to get out into the public. We had a lot of scam calls to our customers for Hawaiian Electric, Maui Electric, Hawaii Electric Light just in the past few days. So Friday, we really got the word out. Some customers were getting as many as 10 calls. Really? Yeah, from scam artists. So we just want people to know that. What kinds of things were coming in? Well, first of all, they're telling people that they're late with their payments, that they have to pay up, to go to the nearest drug store to get one of those prepaid cards. We would never ask our customers to pay with prepaid debit cards. That's just not what we do. So we just wanted to get the word out, let people know that if you get a call like that, just hang up and call the number that's printed on your bill, the customer service line. Call that number, ask whether your account, verify. Most times, it's just really a prank and it's random and people don't know anything about your account. So just call to confirm that it's a prank call. And just report that it's happening so that we're aware. So is that number on your bill? Is that where they should call and also report? Definitely. Definitely. Our customer service line. And then we also just want to let people know that they can also visit our website, and that is hawainoelectric.com, hawaioelectric.com, hawaioelectriclight.com, slash.scam. And then that's about it. Any other questions for Shannon? No. I just want to say if my mom is watching, please take note. Yeah. Please just hang out. You want to say any more about how to prevent getting scammed? Well, I think, so talk in number two. We really just want people to hang up and then do not call the number on the caller ID because they have, they're very sophisticated and it'll show Hiko, Miko, or Helco, but that's not the correct number. You'll just be calling the scammers back. So we just want to make sure that you're protected and that you call the right numbers when you get these types of calls. So do not call the number back. Yeah. Do not call the number back. Okay. You heard that here. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for having me. To come back and let us know about your bids coming in, about any other projects you have. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Thanks, Shannon. I appreciate the time. Okay. This is Stink Tech, Hawaii, raising public awareness. I just walked by and I said, what's happening, guys? They told me they were making music. Match Day is no ordinary day. The pitch, hallowed ground for players and supporters alike, excitement builds, game plans are made with responsibility in mind, celebrations are underway, ready for kick-off, MLS clubs and our supporters rise to the challenge. We make responsible decisions while we cheer on our heroes and toast their success. Your Match Day experience, if you drink, never drive. I'm DeSoto Brown, the co-host of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech, Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. And with the show's host, Martin Desbang, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life, not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on Think Tech, Hawaii. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I'm the host of Think Tech, Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea comes on every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join us. I like to bring in guests that talk about all types of things that come across the sea to Hawaii. Not just law, love, people, ideas, history. Please join us for Law Across the Sea. Well, thank you. We're back. We're back. And we're lucky today to have two guests from Hawaii Gas. To my left, we have Aaron Kirk. He's the vice president of marketing and business development. And next to him is Mr. Rich DeGarmo. He is the director of projects. And today we're going to be talking about renewable gas and biogas to keep with our theme of biofuels for the month of February. So let me start with Aaron. Can you help us by defining renewable gas and biogas? Sure, sure. It's good to be here. Thanks for having us. Renewable natural gas is biogas that's captured from renewable sources. It is a piece of our energy diversity that we use to service our customers with natural gas in Hawaii. And Rich, I understand your response both for Hawaii Gas's first biogas project. Can you tell us about that? Right. We have a project going on at Honolulu wastewater treatment plant where we're going to be taking the biogas from the anaerobic digesters and upgrading it to biomethane, which is about 96% methane, and injecting that into our pipeline. And all the gas generated at the wastewater treatment plant is renewable natural gas and it's not a fossil fuel because it's actually cycling the carbon and the atmosphere that's existing already and it's not releasing any sequestered carbon at all. So is that up and running now or is it in process? Where are you in your project? Right now the equipment is being fabricated. We're going to be using membrane systems to separate the carbon dioxide from the methane. It's being fabricated. We should be up and running by middle of September of this year. So previously the waste methane that was produced at the wastewater treatment facility was just flared off. And so we spent the last five years negotiating and coming up with the technical solutions to capture the waste gas and actually inject it into our pipeline so that we can actually use it instead of it being... So when you say flare it off, does that mean like where did it go? Like it just burned and you just lost all of that. Yeah, so the wastewater treatment plant produces methane as a byproduct so they would flare it off just so that the methane is not released into the atmosphere. So flaring it off chemically breaks it apart. So it's no longer methane. Yeah, so instead of just flaring it off now we can actually use it for cooking, for drying clothes, for heating water. So Rich, how much gas are you going to actually be able to get from the Honolulu project? Right now we're estimating about 800,000 therms per year. And what is that in equivalent to maybe kilowatt hours? How would you get our... The 800,000 therms would replace approximately 12,000 barrels of oil per year. Okay, so you're actually displacing that much oil that you would... Hawaii gas would otherwise use to make synthetic natural gas. Correct. Oh, that's fantastic. Wow. Are there other projects like that in the works? On the island of Oahu there are three other places that are producing methane from anaerobic fermentation. We're looking at trying to acquire those as well. Okay, so where are those other places? Basically it's other wastewater treatment plants in the landfill. Is any wastewater treatment plant available for this kind of use by Hawaii gas? No, not all the wastewater treatment plants have anaerobic digestion. Some are aerobic processes. So basically only the anaerobic digestion facilities would produce. So can you differentiate the anaerobic and aerobic? Anaerobic is basically being processed without oxygen. Okay. So it's sort of an alien environment force. It produces the methane, it produces a hydrogen sulfide, it produces other gases that we don't really care about. So you can't just screen it out or do anything with it. You just don't use it. Well, the biogas you can use, they have actually made engines that can run directly off of it, but you still have to clean the other contaminants out of it. So Hawaii gas is interested in capturing all of the available renewable natural gas in the state, and we're actively pursuing all usable renewable natural gas currently. Tell us a little about landfill gas. How would you capture landfill gas? Is it the same as wastewater treatment gas? It's similar. Basically in the capped landfills, it's an anaerobic environment as well. And they produce the methane gases. And what they're doing now is they actually drill wells down into the landfill itself and then vent the gases up, and those are now being flared as well. So is that technology available so that you could capture methane from Waimanalo, the Waimanalo dump? Yes, it is. It would take a little bit more pre-processing to take some of the, there's other contaminants in it that we would need to remove, but it's just additional processing. So would that eliminate our landfills? I mean, that's one of the biggest problems in the state. And we don't have much land, and it's filled with landfill. I mean, all the waste. And if you did use your process, would that somehow detoxify or whatever is there and use all that energy? I mean, what can you do to reduce the landfill? If we go into source separation and things like that where we can separate out the organics, and then you could actually process those in an anaerobic digest. But as far as the landfill itself, that's going to stay there. It's not optimum conditions in the landfill to produce the methane. They want to keep it dry rather than wet. But what we can do is we can capture the methane that's already being produced, and we can actually, instead of them flaring it off or getting a type of accidental release into the atmosphere, we can actually use it to produce energy. Wow, that's good. Well, how many years out are we from capturing all of the methane from wastewater treatment plants on Oahu and from Lamanala? We're ready to go as soon as the owners of the biogas will let us. Okay. It was a long process getting Hono Uli Uli. That took about five years, and so we're in process with the others, and we're actively pursuing them, and we're ready to go. So what was the biggest challenge in getting the landfill owners, like Hono Uli, to come on board and have this kind of as a model to do other places? I think it's just a process. We're the first in the state to be purchasing it and using it for energy production. So it's a process that has to be gone through, and there was an RFP put out, and we had to put in our bid, and things take time. And then have a PUC approval for the fuel purchase agreement?  So why isn't the city just giving you the gas? Are they selling you the gas? Yes. But why aren't they just giving it to you? It's going to be wasted. We're open to receiving the gas if they're willing to give it to us. But you're actually having to pay for it? Yes, we do pay for it. And when we look at it as a contribution, it's going to a good cause, obviously. Around the city. When you pay for it, at least you're contributing to the—you're buying the resource. And you're producing and paying. That sounds like an interesting deal. Aaron, are there other sources of renewable gas that Hawaii gas is really looking into? Yes. We're starting—we've looked at many different options. In fact, I'll let Rich talk a little bit about some of the previous ones. Right now, we're looking into biocrops. So there are several crops that can be grown. They can be harvested three and sometimes four times a year. Without being picked, you just cut them. You run the crops through an anaerobic digester and it actually makes methane. So we're actively pursuing land right now to grow those crops to make true renewable natural gas. Is that technology at commercial operation type scale? It is. Not here in Hawaii. We'll be the first to operate here in Hawaii at a commercial scale, but across the country and other parts of the world that is being used. Oh, that's fantastic. That's large-scale in Europe. So what does your equipment look like, the thing that you're bringing in with the membranes and all of that? Beautiful. You didn't bring a picture? Basically it's going to be a 40-foot isocontainer, so it's all self-contained. It's all self-contained, like a big tank. Not like a shipping container. Oh. And then there will be a couple external vessels for the activated carbon cleanup and some refrigeration and heat exchange. So how big is it? How much space? How much land is it? It will take up the footprint of two 40-foot isocontainers. It's not that large. Less than 2,000 square feet. And where is it going to be placed? It's going to be placed pretty close to where the anaerobic digesters are at Hana Uli Uli. Okay. Now another thing we keep hearing about is hydrogen and, you know, hydrogen being used in fuel cells. And I know that the processing for the synthetic natural gas produces hydrogen. Are you able to capture that hydrogen and effectively use it in fuel cells? Yes, actually what we do right now is we capture and utilize more hydrogen than any other utility in the world. Correct me if I'm wrong, Rich. That way you have the highest concentration of hydrogen in our pipeline than any utility. Yep. So we actually capture the hydrogen and it's part of our pipeline gas in a higher concentration than any other gas utility. Are you able to store it and then use it in fuel cell vehicles, for example? We could capture a very small amount here in Hawaii. We did a pilot project several years ago and it's been a considerable amount of resources researching hydrogen. Hydrogen is a great fuel and we will continue to look at it, but it's very expensive to produce. Most of the hydrogen on the mainland is produced from fossil fuels right now, which would defeat the purpose. So looking at producing hydrogen in other cleaner methods is very expensive and would bring costs up by about ten times. So that obviously made us abandon the pilot. We have time? I have another question because if it is a byproduct, why is it still costly? Because the hydrogen, I mean we're looking at hydrogen state and how we can use it as fuel. So how can it, what is the cost in the hydrogen if in fact it's a byproduct of what you're doing already? Rich is our candidate for all of this. Right now we manufacture hydrogen at the plant, SNG plant. And we're basically making 98% pure hydrogen. The economics are off scale because of such a little use of the hydrogens on island and the cost of the purification equipment so high. To run it in a hydrogen fuel cell you need 5.9 hydrogen, which is 99.999% pure. So you need some pretty good equipment to take it from 98% off. I got another question. I know Hawaii Gas experimented with the biosynthesis plant. Tell us what that was and what were you attempting to do? Yeah that's where we're taking the waste fats and oils from the restaurants and we're trying to gasify those into methane and propane. The process works, it's done elsewhere as well, but the cost of processing it and cleaning up the byproducts was made at cost prohibitive. When you say cost is it in the equipment or is it in manpower? What is the cost cost? The cost was in the treatment of the wastewater that was produced from the process itself for the actual chemical processing to split the emulsion as well as the disposal. So it's equipment that you need to do that? No, it's chemicals. So all of the supplies that you have? The supplies and the final disposal cost. And the other issue is scalability. There's just not enough of the fats and oils in Hawaii to offset enough to make it economical. So you don't have the supply to actually? Yeah, yeah. So really renewable natural gas is our future and renewable natural gas coming from wastewater treatment plants, landfills and biocrops and we're working on those very quickly. We're implementing them now. Honolulu is our first but it definitely won't be our last. Sounds good. This is exciting. How many years is it going to take before you can make a significant dent with the renewable natural gas? I think we're already making a significant dent just with Honolulu and as others come online it's just going to get more of a percentage of renewables. The timeline is really dependent on how long this process takes from a bureaucratic standpoint. The paperwork, the approvals, all of those things. So you're still in process. I thought you got the approval by the PUC and then you're moving ahead? For Honolulu. Not for the others. So it's not like a model so you could just kind of stamp it in other places. I would imagine it will get faster as it becomes a little more commonplace and it will hopefully speed up. So you're the model.  Hawaii Gas is always excited and happy to be the guinea pig. We try to be a leader in renewables. That's great. Our pilot program with Hydrogen and then the fats and oils. And then now with BioCrops and with the landfills and wastewater treatment plant. We're trying to be a leader. Good. Yeah. That's fantastic. I want to thank both Rich and Aaron for coming on our show. This has been very educational for me. Yes. And I think for the public. Definitely. We want to hear more when you get more and more into this and when you get your equipment. There will be sight tours. We've got to publicize that so people can see what the equipment looks like. And I would imagine that as each project comes online the costs will go down and it'll get less expensive to do each project. We hope so. That's definitely part of the model. The scale is everything. Scalability. So this Hono Uli Uli project and your equipment that's coming in, it's customized for that project or what you're expecting to reap from it. Right. It's sized to handle the biogas volume going into it and the biomethane volume coming out of it. But it can be simple. We've sized it large enough that it can also be used elsewhere. Well I've been told to wrap up here. Sharon, thank you for allowing me to be your co-host. Oh, I love you all the time coming on. And you can come back again too, Rich. We would love to have a white gas. Thank you for having us on the show. And this has been really, really educational. Thank you very much. Aloha.


Five of ten, three color, oh, pool holes, angels, what? What? I could stay in here for the angels or what? Pool holes, angels, three color patch auto. Numbered five, the jersey number of fifteen. Holy cow. Jesus, man. With the Memorial Day patch as well. That's insane. All right, Gavin.


I'm Marcia Jones and we are navigating the journey. Navigating the journey is dedicated to exploring the options and choices for the end of life care and to assist people to talk about their wish. It's time to transform our culture so we shift from not talking about dying to talking about it. It's time to share the way we want to live at the end of our lives and to communicate about the kind of care we want, don't want for ourselves. We believe that the place to transform this is not in the intensive care unit, but together we can explore the various paths to life's ending. Together we can make these difficult conversations easier, together we can make sure our own wishes for those of our loved ones are expressed and respected. So if you're ready, join us. Over the last six months we have invited members of various religions and traditions to talk with us about the end of life culture. So much of what we think and do comes from our family narratives, our stories, our history. So much is lost that we do not pass on our family stories, especially today when everyone has smartphones and people talk in 140 characters. Today's guest is my friend who has given so much of the history of the Hawaiian nation. He is an author, attorney, electorate, a radio and TV host. My guest, Pocah, like Aloha, Pocah. Aloha Marsha. I'm kind of smirking because end of life discussion and my forte really being of future planning and planning for the Hawaiian nation. Can you draw me the connection between the two? Yes. There's a direct connection. Because as we said, so much of what people do at the end of life depends on their narratives, their stories, their family stories. But we lose that. We lose so much of the stories of the past and whatnot. And again, as people talk in 140 characters, they miss what we invited you to do is to talk about the past. We're going to talk about yesterday, July 4, and the reenactment of the July 4, 1894. Because those are the parts of the history that most of this generation doesn't know. And every time that we look at these reenactments, we learn, then the history becomes part of the narrative. It becomes part of the way we live and the stories we pass on to our families or don't pass on, as the case may be. Okay. So that's the connection. Thank you for that connection. And I would have to perhaps challenge or break out of the paradigm of end of life, whether or not there is a separation between past, present, and future, as if life and death is really a reality, or it's something that we impose upon evidence that we see. A guy walking one day and the next day is in a grave, whether or not it really is quote end of life. Doing the same way as we would with the idea of history being something of the past as we said yesterday as we talked about the 4th of July. The past has so much impact, influence, direction for us today and into our future that it should not be left in the past, but we need to grab hold of history, grab hold of the past, insult it, comment on it, praise it, take possession of it, and don't leave it there so that the continuum of time is something that is continuous rather than chopped up between these, what do you call it, road signs that we say life here, death here, birth here, death there. So I'm saying that the paradigm itself may not be appropriate or true for all people. So that is why we have asked people from all kinds of cultures and traditions to talk about exactly that, how they deal with this, but where I wanted you to do is because yesterday was all about bringing the past into today, learning stories that we don't have, which impact today and again most people don't know day before yesterday if it's not on a smart phone they don't know it. So we wanted to talk about what happened, let's re-examine yesterday which was the re-enactment of the 4th of July, 1894. So that people have a place, I got an interesting text from someone who said we had to have her husband because his grandfather was the Hawaiian who was made to take the flag down. We got all kinds of little pieces of history that we didn't know because people were pulling up this history, these pieces, these stories, the narratives of their family and that is where we're going. What I want people to look at, those little things that they may think are not important but they contribute to where they are in life. This is a concept of Hawaiian style of building stone walls and you use a large faces of the rock to face outside so that it shows to the public some major aspects of the stone wall. But you also need the small stones to give support to the larger stones. I think as we look at Hawaii's history, one we look at the major story and the conclusions that can be drawn from the major story. To such a point where even the United States Congress, the President of the United States in two instances, Cleveland and Clinton, they have confessed to the avigalities of the US agents and the occurrences in Hawaii. The details are to some extent important but not to lose sight of the major story. And so whenever you deal with Hawaiian history, you have to understand the largest story and then the interesting details of whose grandfather brought down the flag, what happened to the pieces of the flag that was cut up. All those kinds of stuff are interesting details but it's a matter of just understanding the grand story. So what we tried to do yesterday was to recite the grand story especially when in a society here in Hawaii where as a result of the theft, as a result of the overthrow, as a result of the taking of Hawaiian independence, we are now caught in an era in which the vast majority of the people, the vast majority of those in control of media, the vast majority of those in control of economics in Hawaii, of education in Hawaii are all persuaded into the belief that we are legitimately today part of the United States so that people celebrate the American independence but totally ignoring the fact that while you're celebrating American independence on that same day in 1894, the Hawaiian independence was stolen. Sometimes we look at the term independence and we don't fully appreciate. We talk about it in terms of the Fourth of July and firing rockets and all of those things from the American side. But what really is this idea of independence other than some hazy principle? Independence is a fruition of the exercise of self-determination. Self-determination is so important. This is what the American colonies had fought for, to be independent, to determine for themselves. This is what the Hawaiians had established through the exercise of self-determination. If we look at it from a national position, people think we're talking merely about politics, but let's take for a moment to move it down to the individual. When you take away someone's self-determination, when you take away someone's independence, what have you stolen from that person? You have enslaved that person. They went through wars. They went through a long period of history. When you enslave a whole nation, you take away their right to control the transmigration into this territory. You take away the right to have them run their lands as they should. What results do you have? You have the situation that we have today. You have homelessness. You have unlimited infiltration of foreigners coming into Hawai'i. You have our failure to control our relationship with foreign governments and you see that to another country. So all of these changes that is bypassing us because we don't control any more that kind of ability to tell that story of what happened in Hawai'i. We think everything is grand. Let's go down and march through the streets of Honolulu or the streets of Kailua and pretend or just forget for a moment and just enjoy the fact that we are in the United States and independent nation all the while possessing a foreign country's nation and trying to forget those issues. That's why history is so important. So tell us now, recreate for us what happened yesterday on the steps of the Iolani Palace. Okay. What we did was we tell the story of what had happened back in 1894. If we go back just a year before that, 1893, the American troops landed in Hawai'i a hundred and what was that, 186, I forget the number, landed in Hawai'i and through force of arm essentially forced Queen Lili Okalani to surrender. To surrender not to the American government but to 18 people who declared themselves now the provisional government of Hawai'i. Every by declaration they say, oh, we hereby declare that we are the provisional government of Hawai'i. Yeah. Mr. Henry Cooper that tacked the provision on the door or whatever. Well he read the document in back of the Ali or Lani Ali. And in making the declaration the American troops then walked across the street to give recognition and protection of these 18 members and said we recognize this group as the official government of Hawai'i. All previous to that Lili Okalani who was a head of the Hawaiian monarchy had been recognized officially not only with the United States but throughout the world as the representative of this independent nation. So it was a coup d'etat and attempt to change the rulership of Hawai'i to one that would be favorable to giving Hawai'i to the United States. What happened was that as soon as that event occurred Lili Okalani said okay I will yield my authority not to the provisional government but to the United States who through force of arms have forced me to do so and have threatened to take the lives of myself and our members of our nation. Only for so long as president the president of the United States is able to do an investigation and restore the life back to the Hawaiian people.  What the provisional government did immediately was to send a treaty of annexation to the United States and within less than a month they had the treaty submitted into the senate signed by the president of the United States. Now oh boy we have to take a break and when we come back let's move up to the 4th of July and what took place there. Okay great thank you we'll be right back. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii which dreams live on thinktechhoaie.com, uploads to YouTube and broadcasts on cable OC16 and O'Lello 54. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Some say scuba divers are the poor man's astronaut at DiveHeart we believe that to be true. We say forget the moon. DiveHeart can help children adults and veterans of all abilities escape gravity right here on earth. Search DiveHeart.org and imagine the possibilities in your life. And we're back with my guest Pocah La Nui. Aloha. Aloha Pocah. Pocah has been on the forefront of the sovereignty movement for as long as I can remember. I met you in 1987 when we were fighting chemical weapons to Johnson Island, yeah so that's a long time and I've watched you with this sovereignty movement grow. So now let's go back to tomorrow, come into yesterday. We left a story where the Treaty of Annexation was sent to the Senate of the United States. At that time President of the United States was Harrison and at that time they would inaugurate new presidents not in January but in March. So in March Cleveland comes into office. Cleveland sees the treaty he also receives an emissary from England and that is Princess Kailani and they appeal to him you cannot accept the treaty until you at least do an investigation in Honolulu. So he sends his minister Vlaun to Hawaii to investigate and he receives a report. When he receives a report he says I cannot allow the treaty to go through the United States Senate because of the discovery that I have found in the Blunt Report and then he contains in his speech in his joint houses to the joint houses of Congress he says by essentially through an aggressive act by the United States we have attempted to change the leadership in Hawaii so that it will be more favorable to accepting or to sealing Hawaii to the United States. He says I will not fall for that and this government who claims to be the government of Hawaii this provisional government provisional meaning temporary doesn't even have a constitution it's whole legitimacy is in question so he says as long as I'm president no I'm not going to submit the treaty back into the Senate so what happens back at the ranch here in Hawaii they say well if Cleveland is not going to accept us because we don't have a constitution let's change our clothing let's get a constitution call ourselves by another name so Sanford Dole who heads this provisional government says we shall have 37 delegates in a constitutional convention 19 of whom shall be appointed by me that is myself and my 18 cabinet members and the balance of the people which by the way is a minority the other 18 will be elected by the Hawaiian people but to leave nothing to chance he also says that before anyone can run in that election or even vote in that election they have to swear their allegiance to the provisional government and disavow any loyalty to Queen Lily O'Colony so it's a setup of course the they hold a constitutional convention and they adopt a document they call it a constitution submitted by Sanford Dole and Lauren Thurston so that on the 3rd of July it comes out of the convention we have to tell everybody that Thurston is really the power broker here Thurston was a planner in ten years prior to that in 1882 he goes to the United States he ends up in office in DC and he asked if we should be able to take over this government and that or this office in that office will you be willing to accept a session of Hawaii to the United States and the president at that time doesn't give him a direct answer but say that you would probably find a very favorable administration at that time so yes Thurston was very much part of it so if we come back to now the 4th of July the next day Sanford Dole walks descends to the middle steps of Elani Palace as we had yesterday and he merely declares that good government requires that essentially white people take over because the brownies don't understand how to run good government. Yeah he says the Anglo-Saxons and those of Teutonic descent which means Europe. And one day other people may be able to. He even said well I guess we could use the Portuguese. So what he does is he merely declares this constitution as the new constitution for new government being the Republic of Hawaii. In making the declaration the constitution says that all of the lands and all of the waters of the government of Hawaii are automatically lands and waters of our government. All of the people all of the citizens of the Hawaii nation are automatically declared to be citizens of our government and Sanford Dole is to remain as president until 1900 without any votes taken merely by declaration we have a constitution a new government form and so the rest of the story is that they wait until Cleveland gets out of office a new president comes in and that is McKinley and McKinley then submits a treaty back into the Senate although it wasn't approved in the in the Senate and that is when they adopted the joint resolution of Congress. So that is how the process of say seating Hawaii all of the lands all of the waters and what we don't talk about enough is the human beings that should be considered seeded human beings because we never voted for it. Well let's go back to the last couple minutes here let's go back to the reenactment. Now you mentioned when they step up to the podium and they swear in dole when they they say you are now president at their constitutional convention they said you're it we decided on having a name and we think that the name Republic of Hawaii is more respectable has more substance then you also when according to every these one of the things that we have here in the book and with the Queen's book the Queen's story we actually have dialogue because the provisional government in their infinite wisdom I don't know why but they did they left all of their documents all of their letters everything intact so we can use their dialogue we we we know this is the the skull duggery that they did who did what who wrote to whom you mentioned cutting flag and it says that Thurston steps from behind dole after he's sworn in takes the Hawaiian flag down and then begins to cut it into two by three strips to give to their ancestors as souvenirs for their ancestors it it just blows it's more than than than ordinary people can handle take down a flag okay so you took the flag again but cutting it into two by three strips to give away it's it just as souvenirs you know it can seem outrageous but as I said before let's not use the pebbles to substitute for the major story there are a lot of details in our history of Hawaii and so we need to separate the what is insignificant not insignificant what is smaller in terms of importance than the largest story of the theft in which the United States of America participated first by landing the American troops going through and allowing changing of closing between one one group of people from the missionary party to the committee for public safety to the provisional government and now to the Republic of Hawaii and then submitted Hawaii and now we become a territory of the United States and then the state of the United States that chain of events you cannot lose sight of it although the minutiae of history is interesting but don't lose a major story because then we we get caught up in other things other than the major story well for those of you that did not we have a count of 487 people that showed up at the palace for the reenactment and there are clips on YouTube about the reenactment tons of pictures everybody took pictures and posted it on Facebook so go look go go be a part of history and really take it in understand feel it again read it it's written lots of places you've written about it the book where we are the book has word-for-word of their conversations and their letters the Queen's story documents everything that went on for all of those years from the bayonet Constitutional hold all of it step-by-step so I'm asking you the audience to to do that to to be a part of that history read it enjoy it know it and this is the thing that you pass on because we are talking you know about having conversations and other than 140 word things so we need to ask you the audience to do this ask polka if he will come back and talk some more before we close let me say that let's not leave history in the past and it's just an interesting conversation think about look at what is happening into the future the movement towards the United Nations discussions towards independence and the continuity of life in Hawaii and I think that is where the importance of what happened yesterday rest on well thank you again it's been a pleasure as always to have to visit with you and come back and visit again okay thank you for inviting me