Sears, Roebuck names
district manager for isles

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By Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.com

Sears, Roebuck & Co. has a new district general manager for Hawaii, Anne Hand, a Sears veteran who says she knows the Hawaii market well and has no plans to initiate changes of her own.

That's not to say there won't be changes, which could happen in tune with new Sears policies announced late last year to keep both the stock market and customers happy, she said.

It is too soon to talk about whether there might be staff changes in the Hawaii stores, said Hand, who is in the islands this week and next week on a familiarization trip before making a short stay back at the company's Hoffman Estates, Ill., headquarters outside Chicago.

"I'll be permanently here on the 27th," said Hand, who replaces longtime district manager Elton Tanaka, who is retiring after at least three decades at Sears Hawaii.

She said Tanaka chose to retire but won't go immediately, staying on until the end of April to help her get established.

Hand said she got to know Hawaii in her 8-10 years as head of product repair services for Sears' Northwest, a territory that included Hawaii. She had 12 years on the retail side of Sears and spent two years in the stock brokerage business when Sears owned Dean Witter. "I have my 25-year pin," she said.

Hand said she is visiting the Hawaii stores to meet people and get a new look at the business here before her permanent move.

Sears is undergoing a restructuring that will involve some 6,500 job cuts nationally but the company says it has 275,000 employees so the changes won't be huge.

The company announced some of the changes earlier this week. They will include getting out of some space-consuming lines, such as carpeting. Many stores will be reconfigured to have a central customer checkout and other facilities to make it easier to shop. The changes were initiated after lots of conversations with stock-market analysts, Hand said.

Hawaii largely makes its own decisions, said a Sears headquarters spokeswoman, Peggy Palter, because of the uniqueness of its market.

Hand agreed. "The thing that is unique about this market is we do some local buying and some local advertising," separate from national activities, she said.

Sears has three department stores on Oahu -- at Ala Moana Center, Pearlridge Center and Windward Mall -- as well as stores in Hilo and Kahului, plus service centers in several locations and an outlet store in Pearl City.