[ AT WORK ]
PHOTO COURTESY HAWAII FOREST & TRAIL
ROB PACHECO >> I started Hawaii Forest & Trail in 1993 and ran it by myself for about the first three years. My wife quit her job at that time and started running the office. Today we have 23 employees and we get 22,000 to 24,000 customers a year on the Big Island. Naturalist
Rob Pacheco enjoys telling the
tales of Hawaii's natural historyI worked as a naturalist on the mainland. When I moved here, I didn't see anybody giving natural history tours on the Big Island.
We do natural history tours. We have seven main tours that we do, most of them on private land or permitted areas.
I actually started this to keep my nose in the woods while making a living. I still do both. I get to work with guides creating tours and I'm involved in the marketing aspect. I was surprised at how much I liked that part of it. I enjoy that challenge, maybe not as much as being out.
I oversee the guides. I maintain relationships with all our land-owner partners. I do a lot of public outreach stuff. I do natural history presentations for travel media.
We're kind of in the business of showcasing Hawaii's natural wonder. We want to get people to beautiful places and have a good time, but also showcase Hawaii's natural history. We also talk about the cultural stuff. We don't really separate that out. The human and the non-human aspects are kind of intertwined just, like the Hawaiian's view of the world.
Our Mauna Kea Summit and Stars is a trip we do that other companies do. Most of our trips are in places others can't get to. So it gives us a chance to differentiate ourselves. A lot of our clients are trophy seeking. They want to walk behind a waterfall, they want to see a certain bird, like that. We try to identify some trophy aspect.
But on this trip we explain that they are seeing the history and the future of Hawaii. As you drive up the mountain you can see the evolution of Hawaii, the advances of science. As we get higher up, the summit of Mauna Kea is kind of the pinnacle of this whole story.
It was considered sacred by the native Hawaiians. We tie that in with the observatories and trying to understand the universe. Hawaii is a place that is waiting to reveal the future. The lessons of life are here waiting to be discovered.
You try to weave a story that touches people and gives them a greater understanding of this place.
At Work is a weekly feature that shows and tells what
people do for a living in their own words. Send comments
and submissions to: business@starbulletin.com
