Harvesting Gold

Rudy Balala has a fruitful job at Maui Pineapple Co.

Rodrigo "Rudy" Balala had wanted to be a carpenter, but his timing was bad and he ended up as director of transportation and harvesting for Maui Pineapple Co. instead.

Rudy Balala Title: Harvesting and transportation director Job: Supervises the harvesting operations and transportation fleet of Maui Pineapple Co.

The company, a subsidiary of Maui Land & Pineapple Co., cultivates fresh pineapple on several thousand acres of Maui farm lands, on which Balala started working as a field hand during the summers when he was a student at Maui High School.

He continued working for the company while attending Maui Community College, and finally went to work for the company full time when he realized the economy at the time wasn't strong enough to support his plans to go into carpentry.

Through the years, the Maui native learned what it takes to produce and harvest the premium fresh pineapple that Maui Pineapple markets as Maui Gold and sells throughout the United States.

As director of harvesting for the company, Balala oversees a crew of about 100, while as transportation director he supervises a fleet of about 50 trucks and 30 drivers.

Balala, 44, is married to the former Gwen Yagi, with whom he has four children -- three daughters and a son -- and lives in Makawao.

Their oldest daughter is 20 and attends the University of Hawaii in Hilo. His 18-year-old son recently enlisted in the Army National Guard. His second daughter, 10, attends, Waihee Elementary School. And their third daughter was born just five weeks ago.

Mark Coleman: What is your title at Maui Pineapple Co.?

Rodrigo "Rudy" Balala: I'm the director of harvesting and transportation.

Q: Have you had both positions all along?

A: No. I had harvesting for about 15 years now, and in between I've had both harvesting and fresh-food processing. And now I'm the harvesting and transportation director. So I've jumped all over the place.

Q: What does it mean to be the transportation director?

A: It an interesting job. There's a lot of laws that you need to follow. Everything deals with federal now, with the CDL, which is a commercial drivers license, so there's a lot of laws that you gotta keep up with and follow.

Q: And how does that apply to your job?

A: We have one of the biggest fleets of trucks on the island. And we do a lot of travel out on the highways and stuff like that.

Q: How big is that fleet?

A: I would say we have over 50 trucks that run on the roads.

Q: And what do they haul?

A: We haul pineapples from the field to the processing facility. And we also have trucks that carry supplies to and from the field.

Q: So what is your relationship to all that?

A: I'm in charge of making sure everything is being followed, and we do all of the scheduling for the trucks.

Q: What does it mean to be the harvesting director?

A: That's probably the most exciting part of the job, because I get to do all the planning for the fruit deliveries yearly, as well as for the long-range plans. So whatever scenarios the executives come up with to look at, we're in charge of seeing if it's possible.

Q: Why did they pick you to be the harvesting director?

A: Maybe because nobody else wants it? (Laughter) Actually, I used to be what you might call the understudy for the previous harvesting supervisor, and once he moved on, I've been stuck with it forever. I mean, I think I started running the harvesting department in 1991, and I've been doing it ever since.

Q: When did you join the company and what other jobs have you had there?

A: I started with the company in 1979 as a summer hire during my high-school years, and I worked planting pineapple and picking pineapple, and pulling weeds, and I stayed with the company ever since.

Q: How many harvest workers do you oversee?

A: We oversee about a hundred workers in the harvesting department and probably about, I would say, 30 truck drivers.

Q: How many acres of pineapple does your work involve?

A: Oh, it's at least several thousand acres.

Q: Are there always pineapples to harvest?

A: We harvest year round, and basically we've switched from a canning operation to a fresh-fruit operation, and with that we need a good supply of fruit throughout the year, so we harvest 52 weeks out of the year.

Q: About how many pineapples do you and your crews harvest each season?

A: We do about 50,000 tons.

Q: How many pineapples in a ton?

A: It all depends, but probably about 500 in a ton.

Q: Are you outside in the field mostly, or do you have office work to do as well?

A: Both. Most of the supervisors have offices. We have two plantations: one in Haliimaile and the other in Honolua.

Q: How do you divide your day then?

A: I kind of split it about half, half, 50-50. I'll spend maybe three days out of the week in Honolua and three days out of the week in Haliimaile. It's never an eight-hour day (laughter), so whatever you gotta do to get your stuff done.

Q: What kind of clothing and equipment do you need to do your job in the field?

A: The field workers, they use the regular protective equipment: their gloves, their chaps, their goggles, long-sleeve shirts.

Q: Is it a messy job for you? For example, do you get red dirt or mud all over you every day?

A: Yeah, and now is a perfect time for that. If you came out in the field, we've been working in muddy conditions almost daily for the past few weeks. But you can't let the pineapples get over ripe. Everybody understands that whether it's raining or not, we need to be out there picking or we'll lose the fruit. Makes it fun. (Laughter)

Q: Does it get pretty hot out there sometimes?

A: Yeah, it does. We work in all kinds of weather: hot, cold, raining, muddy. ...

Q: I would think it also gets a bit chilly sometimes, being in somewhat higher elevations for some of the fields.

Q: Yeah. Now it's getting cold. Most of our harvesting crews start at 4 o'clock in the morning. We start early because we want to make sure our fruit is in good shape before it goes to the processing plant.

Q: As the supervisor, are you actually picking pineapples, too?

A: I have a bunch of guys that do the scheduling, and they work directly with the field workers.

Q: Do you have to deal much with personnel issues?

A: Yeah. We do all of the disciplining, and, unfortunately, terminations and stuff like that. And then we have a bunch of guys that go out recruiting and stuff like that.

Q: Do you still have the student summer workers?

A: Yeah. There's still a small group of high school kids that come out. Not as much as before. I think basically it's because there's more jobs out there, and not everybody likes to work in the hot sun. It's not like when I was working and that was the only summer job you could find.

Q: So what goes on at the processing plant?

A: That's where we select and pack the fresh fruit into boxes.

Q: Is this stuff sold mostly in Hawaii?

A: No; both Hawaii and the mainland, with the West Coast being our primary market.

Q: Where is the processing plant?

A: The processing plant is in central Maui, in Kahului. It's right behind the Queen Kaahumanu Shopping Center. It's a fairly new plant. We've probably run it for about a year and a half now, and I know the company spent at least $20 million building it.

Q: When did they stop canning pineapple?

A: The actual canning stopped in the summer of this year. So all we're doing now is, we have a juicing operation, so that's what we doing with all of our culls -- the fruit that doesn't make the fresh grade. We'll juice it and load it into drums, then send it out.

Q: Who buys that stuff?

A: There's several companies on the mainland that buy it. I'm not sure exactly who it is, but it's all sent to the mainland.

Q: I was under the impression that the pineapple industry in Hawaii was dying, but it seems like, since your company just invested $20 million to build a new plant for the fresh fruit, that the company must be pretty optimistic.

A: Oh yeah, I'm optimistic about it. The company is. We feel that the fresh business is growing, and we're still investing money into pineapple. We want to be the best pineapple grower in the world. I guess everybody says that, but I think we have a good product. In fact, I think we have the best product. If not, I wouldn't be here. (Laughter)

Q: What's the best part of the day for you at work?

A: I think driving around in the fields is the best. I hate staying in the office. And I think that's why I came out to work for the pineapple fields. I like the outdoors. So that's the best time, coming out into the fields, scheduling the harvest; you get to see the scenery, which is beautiful. And of course the people you work with. We have a good bunch of guys working here.