ALFRED SUGA / 1923-2005

DOE official was
frank with beliefs

When state Board of Education members were looking to place blame for six years of delays in renovating a nearly 60-year-old building at Kalihi Kai Elementary into a library, Assistant School Superintendent Alfred Suga called it as he saw it.

Alfred Suga: He entered the Department of Education in 1991 and retired in January 2003

The library, he said, was a "pork barrel" project initiated by a legislator.

"The building should have been demolished. When you start renovating an old structure like this, you don't know what to expect," Suga said in 1996.

Such candor is uncommon for a veteran state bureaucrat. But he wasn't a typical government bureaucrat, said Herman Aizawa, former state schools superintendent and Suga's boss at the time.

Suga, 81, died Feb. 15.

Aizawa said Suga was forthright for a purpose: to resolve an issue and pursue what is good for the people.

Before his government service, Suga was the vice president for operations for Pacific Rock and Concrete Company. He was appointed deputy director of what was then the state Department of Social Services and Housing, which later became the Department of Human Services. He had served as the deputy in charge of corrections when prisons were part of DSSH.

For two weeks in 1986, Suga served as director of what was left of the original DSSH after corrections became its own department. Corrections later became part of a new Department of Public Safety.

In 1991, Suga went to the Department of Education and became assistant schools superintendent. When Aizawa became superintendent in 1994, he re-appointed Suga to the job. After Aizawa resigned in 1998, Suga was interim superintendent for three months before Paul LeMahieu became superintendent. Suga was assistant superintendent for the Office of Business Services under Superintendent Pat Hamamoto when he retired in January 2003.

Suga is survived by daughters Natalie Kossuth and Alison Diehl, brother Ted, sister Sylvia Nakamoto and three grandchildren. Services are at 6 p.m. tomorrow at Hosoi Garden Mortuary. Call after 5 p.m. Casual attire. No flowers.