Son of Dods is buying
music store from Servco

Servco Pacific Inc. is selling its 66-year-old Easy Music Center on Keeaumoku Street to Peter Dods, the 28-year-old son of influential Hawaii businessman Walter Dods.

The assets of the store are being acquired by Peter, who is president of Easy Music Investments Inc., a Dods family partnership that also includes his parents, Walter and Diane.

Easy Music has been located at 1108 Keeaumoku St., near the intersection of Young Street, since 1997. The sale is expected to close in October. Terms were not disclosed.

Peter Dods had been forging a business plan during the past year to open his own store to equip home recording studios for musicians, rappers, club disc jockeys and the like. Some of the gear he would have sold was already offered at Easy Music, which would have been his main competition.

That posed a potential conflict for his father, who had assumed a seat on the board of Servco Pacific earlier this year after retiring as CEO of First Hawaiian Bank.

Walter Dods told Mark Fukunaga, Servco's chairman and chief executive, about Peter Dods' plan. Walter Dods said Fukunaga replied that Easy Music was a small part of the business, that the board was considering selling the store and would the Dods family be interested in buying?

"I said, 'absolutely,' that would save Peter years of starting from scratch. Peter and I jumped on it and it's come to fruition," Walter Dods said.

Most of the 11 employees of the musical instrument retailer are going to stay with Peter Dods, who intends to further expand the store's offerings to serve what he calls "the exploding market" for home digital recording equipment that can produce professional-quality compact discs.

He is aiming to reach more than musicians, however. "I am really hoping to tap into a market of people that would not consider themselves musicians.

"Hip-hop, reggae and R&B in Hawaii is very strong. There are many people in Hawaii that fancy themselves as MCs, rappers or lay down freestyle lyrics," Dods said. "Anybody can be a producer these days" by taking sounds and musical parts from various sources "and remixing them."

Servco is primarily focused on automotive sales and service, consumer goods, insurance services, real estate and private equity investments. Easy Music's sales represent less than 1 percent of Servco's annual revenues.

Servco officials decided a business of its size was better suited for a smaller owner, with music as its core focus. The company founded Easy Music Center in 1939.

Dods recused himself from the Servco board's discussion and action on the sale, Fukunaga said.

Peter Dods "brings an entrepreneurial spirit that a niche retailer needs to thrive in today's competitive marketplace. And he has a pretty good partner in his father," Fukunaga said.

Peter had been an investment analyst with Merrill Lynch in New York City until a plane "exploded over my head" during the terrorist attacks of 9/11, he said.

He came home and got a job at his alma mater, Hawaii Preparatory Academy on the Big Island.

He taught advanced-placement economics, life economics and Hawaiian history at the high-school level for three years, then returned to Oahu to start the groundwork for his own business.

Peter had been on track to follow in his father's well-established footsteps in finance, "but after 9/11 I had to take a step back and reevaluate my life and see what it was that I really wanted to do," he said.

"Helping people to be satisfied and walk away much better than before they walked in ... has always been a desire of mine."

At the same time, he's competitive and aggressive by nature, he said. "I'm an active person, a hands-on person ... I want to make something happen and see my idea become reality as quickly as possible. Starting my own business was the only way to make that a possibility."

The deal-making process proved to be an opportunity for Peter to get to know and appreciate his parents on a different level. They have both been unbelievably helpful, he said.

"I'm very fortunate and grateful that my father was able to provide this opportunity.

"This was something that required his support, financially and emotionally.

"We're really getting to know each other as business people. It's been awesome. I'd never gone to a meeting with him before. I'd never seen him in action before.

"It's really nice to be getting to know both of my parents this way ... instead of having to take everybody else's word for it."

Peter, his two older brothers and younger sister have read about their legendary father in the paper, but know a different side of him.

"Most of my kids think I'm Homer Simpson," laughed the elder Dods.

As Peter reevaluated his life, "I recommended starting the small business ... the small business will get you a real Ph.D.," Dods told his son.

Peter "has his entire savings in it. He believes in it and he's really focused," Dods said.

Peter will be able to draw upon his father's wealth of business experience, some of which his dad referred to as "scars."

But will Walter allow his son to develop some scars of his own?

"Absolutely. I can give him advice as a friend, but in the end, he'll make all the decisions."

"I will be chief encourager," Dods said. "I am so proud of him."