Cyanotech and My Love Affairs with Hawaii

I first learnt about Hawaii when I was about ten. I had the chance to watch a captivating performance by a visiting Hawaiian Dance Troupe in my hometown Penang, though I was too young to remember the name of the dance troupe. The Hula dancers simply blew me away.

My love affairs with Hawaii started when I went to study and work in Hawaii for two years in the early eighties. If I were to summarise my experience in Hawaii, it can be encapsulated in the word "Aloha". Aloha is a word used in Hawaii as greeting to someone which coud mean hello, welcome, regards, friendship, love, and everything that is good. You got to be in Hawaii to feel the Aloha. I have grown up in Malaysia, lived in Liverpool, and Manchester, England for four years, travelled around Europe and mainland U.S.A before I went to Hawaii. Only in Hawaii was I really felt truly accepted and welcome. Hawaii is a melting of our many culture and the Hawaiian people welcome people of all colours and creeds with open arms and open hearts. I left Hawaii after two years in 1984, and I was lucky to be able to return almost every other year to continue my love affairs with my favourite land. Hawaii is still enchanting to me to this day.

I started my own business in October 1990, and since then I have been constantly looking for legitimate excuse to continue my bi-annual visit to Hawaii. In 1996, I came to know about a company called Cyanotech, located in Kona. I immediately wrote to Cyanotech to enquire about possibility of representing them to sell their spirulina in Asia. Cyanotech was already selling their human grade spirulina in Australia, and China then. But being as keen as I was to start a business with a Hawaiian company, I urged Cyanotech to sell to me their off specification spirulina which I intended to sell to some customers in the aquaculure industry. I was fortunate to meet up with my pal Kelly Moorhead, Vide President of Sales and Marketing then for Cyanotech, when he went to Indonesia shortly after I wrote to Cyanotech. I never look back since.

For a start, I took some risks with Cyanotech by importing a small quantity of off specification spirulina to sell to the aquaculture industry, and I was lucky to achieve small successes on my first import. In fact, it turned out that a couple of years later Cyanotech actually created a whole aquaculture business for itself. Today, Cyanotech not only sells spirulina to aquaculture industry, it also sells and has become a leader in the natural red pigment (Astaxanthin) used in the Aquaculure industry. Happy to say that I am now part of this success.

And I intend to continue this love affair for as long as it lasts..............