A&B to pay regular dividend Sept. 6

Alexander & Baldwin Inc. will pay a third-quarter dividend of 22.5 cents a share on Sept. 6 to shareholders of record Aug. 2. The dividend amount was unchanged from the payments in the year-earlier quarter and the quarters since.

Headquartered in Honolulu, A&B owns Matson Navigation Co. and property and agriculture businesses.

Taking Notice

NEW JOBS

>> Matthew J. Cox has been named chief financial officer at Matson Navigation Co. Inc. Cox previously served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Distribution Dynamics, Inc. (Calif.).

>> Roberto Fischer has been named chef at the Waikoloa Beach Resort's Kings' Grille Restaurant. He will be responsible for changes to the restaurant menu and catering special events at the hotel. Fischer had previously served as executive chef at Big Island Steak House and executive chef and culinary instructor at Bill Salvador's Culinary Institute of Hilo.

>> Lorrie Cahn has joined Consumer Group Insurance Services as vice president of business development. She will be responsible for market expansion, product development and account acquisition. Cahn comes to CGIS after serving as assistant director of sales and service at Kapiolani Health Hawaii.

>> Michael G. Kim has been named associate project manager at AM Partners. He will assist the architectural design team in the development and creation of various projects. Kim had previously served as an associate/project manager at Paul Louie and Associates Inc.

>> Robert J. Robinson and Michael H. Morris were named to endowed professorships in the University of Hawaii College of Business Administration. Robinson comes to UH from Harvard Business School, where he has been on the faculty since 1991, and from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he was a visiting professor for the academic year just ended. He is the Barry and Virginia Weinman Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship and E- Business. Morris was most recently the Cintas Professor of Entrepreneurship at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He is the Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Information Technology, occupying a chair funded by an anonymous couple.

PROMOTIONS

>> Frank Lavey has been named general manager at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort & Spa. He will oversee the rooms, food and beverage, sales and marketing, accounting, engineering, catering and human resources operations at the hotel. Lavey has been with Hyatt Hotels Corp. since 1988.

>> Chao "Robert" Zheng has been promoted to the position of manager of business development for the greater China area at Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo. He will be based out of the company's Honolulu office, but will focus on the emergence of China as a major tourism market. Zheng has been with WATG since 1996.

>> Kalani Espinda and Laura Watada have been named senior title officers at First Hawaii Title Corp. Espinda is a 25-year veteran of the title industry. He had most recently served as a title officer for the company.Watada, who has 13 years of title industry experience, also previously served as a title officer at the company.

On the board

>> SKAL International Hawaii has named Deems Narimatsu president of the 2001-02 executive committee. Other newly elected officers include: Stephanie Welch, vice-president; David Uchiyama, secretary; Brian Crawford, treasurer; Ted McAneeley, John Cushnie, Dennis Piosalan, Mike Kobayashi, Rene Cochran, Phil Sammer, Wesley Chong, Neil Takekawa and Herb Dockray.

Recognition

>> Yoko Tomita, a sales associate and vice president at Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties, has earned the Coldwell Banker Previews Property Specialist designation. To date, only 5 percent of more than 72,000 Coldwell Banker Sales Associates have been awarded this designation. The certification course covers topics such as developing detailed market analysis for sellers of luxury homes and how to make use of Previews resources to implement specialized marketing plans. Tomita has been affiliated with Coldwell for 18 years.

[WINNERS & LOSERS]

[WINNERS]

Microsoft Corp., which was saved from dissolution by a favorable ruling from a federal appeals court. While the court's ruling was not a complete victory -- it maintained that Microsoft is a monopoly that illegally tried to maintain its control through anti-competitive actions -- it blasted Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's comments about the company, and reversed his ruling that the company be broken up.

<< Costco Wholesale Corp., which bought 12 acres in Iwilei for $31 million to open its fourth store on Oahu. The Issaquah, Wash.-based big-box retailer is moving aggressively to capture market share here. The fourth store may test the boundaries of the market, and if Costco crowds its own market, could close its Salt Lake store when the lease is up in 2003.

Up to 12,000 Hawaii residents who were part of pension plans at a handful of local companies. The workers may have money due to them from a class action lawsuit settled with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., a federal agency. The workers may have contributed to a pension plan that did not have vesting requirements in compliance with federal law, leading the PBGC to underpay beneficiaries.

[LOSERS]

>> A majority of workers at the Aston Hawaiian Waikiki Beach Hotel, who will lose their jobs while the hotel undergoes renovations. Bought out of bankruptcy and turned over to Aston to manage, the hotel is spending $30 million to upgrade, but is firing 170 while large chunks of the hotel are torn up for improvements. Aston has issued no guarantee that they would be first to be called back.

The Federal Open Market Committee, which may be seeing its control over the economy wane. While Wall Street and Washington continue to bow in the presence of Alan Greenspan, stock traders are frequently disregarding rate cuts and words of optimism from the Fed and lending more weight to corporate earnings reports. Who is right is a decision for wiser people than we, but the balance of power may be shifting.

Hawaii tourism, which posted the fourth straight month of declining arrivals. It's not time to panic, but in addition to fewer visitors, retailers are reporting they are spending less. The number of repeat visitors -- who are more experienced in sniffing out deals and skipping pricier once-in-a-lifetime spending -- also is on the rise. Still, May posted its second-best visitor statistics ever, so the end is not nigh.