TAKING NOTICE

NEW JOBS

>> Gerald Morihara has been named chief administrative officer of Kamehameha Schools. He began his career in education in 1969, most recently serving as director of education for the Kaplan Education Center, as a consultant to the Dean of the University of Hawaii Outreach College, and in special projects for the University of Hawaii Community Colleges.

>> Lisa Yim has been named front desk manager at the Renaissance Ilikai Waikiki Hotel. She was most recently employed by the Mandarin Oriental San Francisco.

>> Manny Nova has been named managing director of Hawaii operations at Bank of the Orient. He was previously the income property branch chief at the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

>> Joel Cosseboom, Dan Schat and Candy Berry have been named to positions at The Poi Co. Cosseboom, formerly employed at New Wave Broadcasting, was named financial director. Schat will assume the title of sales executive. He had previously been production manager for the company. Berry has been named regional manager. She will oversee company sales and state-wide product demonstrations.

PROMOTIONS

>> Thomas S. Witten has been named president at PBR Hawaii. He succeeds W. Frank Brandt, who has been named chairman of the firm. R. Stan Duncan and Russell Y.J. Chung were named executive vice presidents. Witten was previously executive vice president and managing principal for the company. Duncan and Chung were previously vice presidents and principals for the company.

>> Sunshine Walker has been named manager of staffing and recruiting at The Adtech Division of Spirent Communications. She will be responsible for all staffing and recruiting initiatives for Adtech, and will also represent the company in efforts to promote high-technology employment opportunities in Hawaii. Walker joined Adtech in 2000.

>> Frankie Chung has been named multidepartment head at McDonald's Restaurants of Hawaii. Chung will be responsible for training and field service for corporate restaurants and franchisee relations in Hawaii, Guam and Saipan. He was most recently the senior operations manager at the company. Chung has been with the company for more than 20 years, starting as a restaurant crewmember.

>> Matthew Cargo has been named general manager at Papa John's Hawaii's Pearl City eatery. He has been employed by the company since the Pearl City store's opening in March 1999.

RECOGNITION

>> Edward Jones investment representative Peggy Steckert has been named to the President's Club of The American Funds Group. Steckert, who works out of the company's Kaimuki office, was honored for superior service to customers and dedication to principles of sound investing. A 15-year veteran in the financial services field, she has been with Edward Jones since 1995.

[WINNERS & LOSERS]

[WINNERS]

Punahou school, which is the beneficiary of a multimillion-dollar donation from its wealthiest alumnus, billionaire AOL Time Warner Chairman Steve Case. The big guy himself was in town to speak at the school and drop off the gift. Though Punahou wouldn't specify the donation's amount, we believe it is roughly the same as you can find under the sofa cushions at Case's house, or more money than you'll see in your lifetime.

Honolulu tech company Commercial Data Systems Inc., which won a seven-year, $50 million contract to provide equipment for a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M. The firm, founded in 1981, expects to finish this year with $40 million in revenue, an exponential jump from $4 million in 1999.

ML Macadamia Orchards LP, which won a court decision requiring the exclusive purchaser of its nuts, Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corp., to pay for all the nuts it receives, under the terms of an existing contract. Mauna Loa had refused to pay for at least $1.15 million worth of nuts it deemed unusable, and said the contract did not require it to pay for them. State Circuit Court Judge Greg K. Nakamura disagreed.

[LOSERS]

Homeowners who've bought their digs since December. They are required to pay 0.1 percent of their mortgages to the state Hurricane Relief fund, but are prohibited from getting hurricane insurance policies through the fund. While one set of state bureaucrats prohibited new policies from being written after December, lawmakers opted to keep raking in cash until July.

The New York Stock Exchange, which ground to a halt when technology gremlins in new software shut down trading on half of the world's largest securities exchange. The exchange soon after shut down all trading for 85 minutes. While traders talked about the NBA championship and ate pizza, their moods worsened (must be Lakers fans) and stocks fell throughout the afternoon.

Hawaii's tech industry, which suddenly lost thousands of jobs when a national survey provided a far lower estimate of the number of technology jobs in the state than the boosterish report released by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism last month. The two surveys measured tech jobs differently and both have their flaws; most data it seems points to the difficulty of deciding which jobs are high-tech and which aren't.