RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM Shera Tamanaha, 2004 president of Executive Women International, Honolulu chapter, wants to boost participation at the group's meetings.

EWI builds network
of executive women

Shera Tamanaha >> Board post: 2004 president of Executive Women International, Honolulu chapter >> Day job: Executive secretary at Hawaiian Electric Co. >> Executive Women International: Brings together key individuals from diverse businesses to promote member firms, enhance personal and professional development and encourage community involvement. For more information, visit www.ewihonolulu.org

What do you do at Hawaiian Electric?

I'm an executive secretary and I work for the financial vice president. His name is Richard von Gnechten. My day-to-day job would be that I coordinate his calendar. I make sure his deadlines are met. I keep on top of him, schedule his meetings and appointments.

How long have you been with HECO? How long have you been with EWI?

For 10 months. Before that, I was with Hawaii Medical Service Association for 12 and a half years. I was an EWI member at HMSA for five years. For me it was that HMSA had asked our administrative staff if anyone was interested within the company. All the other administrative secretaries declined it except me, not knowing what I was getting myself into. I wasn't forced to do it. EWI's mission fit what I was interested in at the time. I wanted to do a lot more things with the community. This was one way. Sometimes it's easier to do things with a group.

What community projects has EWI got lined up this year?

We work with Aloha United Way and we do all the packing for the island of Oahu of the packages of forms that go out to companies. We've got two scholarship programs that will be giving out $13,000 each. One is a scholarship for juniors in high school and we have an adult student in scholastic transition scholarship, and we're proud of that. It's a whole interview process in judging and everything that we help with. We assist a reading rally that our corporate office encourages. We assist with Shriners. We assist with the Hawaii Opera Ball. We'll do registration for that and we do Saturday readings at Barnes & Noble Booksellers at Kahala Mall as part of our literacy campaign. And other projects come out throughout the year.

What's the benefit of joining EWI?

I believe, to me, it's the networking, the contacts between other organizations. You have a contact as to who you may call in case you have questions. So people have been calling for their electricity concerns, so we forward them to the appropriate department. They have someone that they are comfortable with contacting. It makes things easier. If our executives have questions, we know who to go to. That networking to me is so valuable. If our bosses go to another city and they need a hotel to stay at or something, we can make the connection through EWI. There's a lot of other things. You can't count the value. It's what you make out of it.

How's membership?

We're still getting renewals. We probably will be at about 70 firms. We lose members, but yet we gain members. We stayed between 70 and 74 firms through the past five years or so.

You've said recently that your goal is to improve EWI meeting attendance, which has been declining. Can you tell us about that?

We had a board meeting. We wondered what was going on with that. We're thinking that the membership is such that the representatives may be changing their jobs; they're going through a process where they need to travel more. Maybe they've gotten promoted and such that it's taking time away from their EWI meetings. It's been a challenge for us. Our board is trying to be creative in that, and we're still struggling with it. There's so much energy at our meetings. The women there just have enthusiasm, the energy. They want to be there. They share so much information with one another, it's so incredible. It's other commitments that come up. Their role in their business has changed, so they need to go to dinner meetings with a client. It's the member firm that holds the membership, so maybe it's another person in their company that we'll need to come to represent them. So that person may not be the right person right now.

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Inside Hawaii Inc. is a conversation with a member of the Hawaii business community who has changed jobs, been elected to a board or been recognized for accomplishments. Send questions and comments to business@starbulletin.com.