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TheBuzz

BY ERIKA ENGLE

Camping out, but
with room service

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Employees of a Hawaii-based business have moved into hotel quarters in the wake of devastating typhoons Chata'an and Halong on Guam.

The offices of Starr Seigle Advertising and QMark Research & Polling are intact but are without power or water, according to Jack Bates, chairman and chief executive of Starr Seigle Communications Inc.

One employee's home suffered extensive damage, Bates said, adding, "fortunately all of our people escaped injury."

Led by President Carter Reed, the 10 employees are working out of one room at the Marriott Guam.

"They're not only working at the hotel, they're sleeping at the hotel and having lunches with clients at the hotel," Bates said.

With no drinking water canned juices are popular and "beer consumption has gone up dramatically," he said.

"So far Carter says they haven't missed a deadline," Bates said.

Aloha Petroleum not amused

It's not often a Hawaii business gets mentioned in a White House news conference, but the name Aloha Petroleum is being bandied about along with the name George W. Bush and terms like "insider trading" in places such as the New York Times.

The president Monday faced reporters' questions about his position as an outside member of the board of directors of Harken Energy Corp., his sale of nearly $849,000 in company stock in 1990 and the company's 1989 sale of its 80 percent interest in Aloha Petroleum.

Through spokesman Doug Carlson, Aloha Petroleum said, "The transaction occurred two years before Aloha's purchase by its current owners, so we have no connection to or comment about those events."

Aloha wants to focus on its petrol.

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Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com