The MH Story

Aloha. My name is Michael Munekiyo and I am the founder of Munekiyo Hiraga.

Now that I am retired, I can reflect on my time at Munekiyo Hiraga and really express gratitude to the many people who’ve worked for the company over the course of the company’s history. I think the team members have been accepting of our value set and our business philosophy, and I think that has really encouraged them to perform at the highest level of professionalism.

The company was founded in 1989 as Michael T. Munekiyo Consulting. And at that time, of course, like any other young company, we focused a lot of time and energy on just surviving. But we also had a commitment that we would be around as a company for years to come. One of the quirky things maybe noteworthy is our phone number: 244-2015—two, four, four, twenty-fifteen. And we selected 2015 because that was a year, at that time, I thought, would be a good marker to say we are still going to be in business. In the year 2024, we celebrated our 35th anniversary. And so I think we can all say that we honored our commitment to be around as long as we can.

Much of the philosophical basis for our company’s thinking was my upbringing here on Maui. I grew up in Wailuku in the 1950s. And at that time, key economic drivers were Wailuku Sugar, HC&S and Maui Pine. And for me, I think that small town environment really fostered the notion of sharing and giving among friends and neighbors.

So that really formed the basis for what we wanted to have as a company. And when we did start, one of the important events or moments was a piece of advice that I received from a Nisei businessman. And he told me this: “No matter what, no be greedy. No be greedy.” And that advice has stuck with me ever since. It has been the basis for everything that we do.

So along the way, we were really fortunate to have Gwen Hiraga and Mich Hirano join us here at the company. Gwen in the year 1994 and Mich in 2000. And both carried the mindset of “no be greedy.” Both were selfless. Both created trust among our clients, among our public stakeholders. Through their work and actions we evolved the advice of not being greedy to our value set of selflessness, humility and gratitude.

Now, those three words are simple but interconnected. To be selfless, you need to be humble. To be humble, you need to be grateful. Being grateful fosters selflessness. These values are really important in terms of how we conduct our business daily. It puts first our fellow team members, our clients, our public stakeholders, our agency colleagues. It is really important for us to conduct our business in a way that treats and respects and honors all those that we work with.

I think, for a company to survive it must have its values front and center. For Munekiyo Hiraga, we need to sustain and continue to have those values top of mind on a daily basis. And that is what we’ve tried to do over the course of time. To keep our values set front and center, we insert simple phrases which remind us of what it means to be selfless, humble and grateful.

I’ll just give you a few examples.

Give more than you take. There is always someone or some other organization that can use our help, and if our help is needed, goes beyond the ordinary, then we step into the extraordinary.

Make others look good. Deflect credit away from yourself. We need to understand that successful outcomes come from the effort of the entire team.

If you think like everybody else, you are going to be like everybody else. And this, just an example: we imagine and shape our thinking in ways that will benefit others. Once a thought of “what’s in it for me?” comes into the equation, that really narrows the scope of solutions available to us. And so this is one way to remind us each day that we need to adhere to a value set.

The other thing that we do is to embrace the Aloha Response as passed down by Auntie Pilahi Paki and the late Pono Shim.

Akahai – kindness, gentle engagement

Lōkahi – unity, awareness of connections and interdependence

‘Olu‘olu – agreeable, gentleness with strength

Haʻahaʻa – humility, mindful listening

Ahonui – patience, mindfulness of the moment

The Aloha Response guides us in our daily work. These are the principles which help us be selfless, humble and grateful.

Another tool that we use is our client care practice. In planners jargon, client care is our implementing action. Client care governs our behavior, our thinking and how we deal with others. We want to make sure that our behaviors are graceful, respectful, and make people feel we are all part of one humanity.

It’s really important for the company to strive for excellence, and to be excellent we need to embrace our values, the Aloha Response, and our client care practice. Because we know situational complexities will distract us from adherence to our values hierarchy. Nonetheless, our goal is to treat others with respect and dignity.