I discovered the Big Island of Hawaii, and then Maui in 1990, after traveling here on a vacation from Switzerland. I was living and working in Zurich on a solar energy project with VTZ, a money management firm. I flew to the Big Island of Hawaii for a Whale Conference, and stayed at Kealakakua Bay. There I swam with dolphins for the first time. They were so close that we could swim from the shore to them.
By the mid-1990ʻs, I was at the Maui Research and Technology Center. First, as Vice President of Digital Research Corporation. After experiencing a corrupt President and a Vulture Capitalist that stole my ideas and intellectual property, I told all of the employees of DRC that I had hired to take their Macintosh computers and go home with them, becuase the President wasnʻt going to give them their paychecks.
After that, I started a company at Maui Research and Technology Center called Media Wizards Inc. I worked with the US Navy on a documentary of the cleanup of ordinance on Kahoolawe, the island off the coast of Maui that was target practice for artillery for fifty years. I worked on projects like Art Tech Maui, where we brought film directors to Maui, to try to stimulate more film work here in Hawaii. I also worked on animations for broadcast televison, and projects for various clients.
I lived in Kihei, a couple of miles from the office at MRTC, and just a couple of blocks from the beach. I would go home from work, and enjoy a sunset walk on the beach.
Now, a couple of decades later, I have moved back to Kihei, Maui, and I am feeling a cycle of return, back to my happy place. I am having a sense of deja vu, as I walk on the beach at sunset…