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Change is hard, but ‘we get by’

Former employees reflect on their lives after HC&S’s closure

By Melissa Tanji 7 min read

When Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. closed in December 2016, it took more than 600 jobs with it.

Folks who spent decades in jobs dedicated to the sugar industry needed to find new work.

Some were successful.

Alexander & Baldwin, parent company of HC&S, reported after June that 326 former employees had found new jobs. Along with that total, 125 retired, 48 were in training programs, three started new businesses and 19 relocated.

These are the last numbers A&B compiled after it completed its transition services for employees and data collection at the end of June.

While The Maui News interviewed three former employees who found other work, former sugar workers say there are some colleagues who are still trying to find full-time employment with medical benefits.

"I have been blessed," said former HC&S Human Resources Assistant Donna Ventura, who is now a church secretary and keeps in touch with her former co-workers. "I know there are others that are struggling. They have not found full-time employment."

Overall, the former sugar employees say they miss their old jobs and former colleagues.

Here is a look at three former HC&S employees and what they're doing a year after the plantation's closure.

Mark Lopes

Nine months after HC&S shut down, former harvesting manager Mark Lopes remained out of work.

Paying $600 a month for his health insurance was taking a chunk of change from his pocket. Fortunately, A&B covered his insurance costs for around seven months. But then he was on his own.

Lopes occupied his days by tinkering on his small cattle ranch and spending time with his granddaughter, but the 55-year-old needed a job. He didn't find anything with the county or the state.

"You are not going to find a job like that," he said of his former career in which he oversaw cane burning.

Then Kahului Trucking & Storage called.

In October, Lopes became a service writer for the A&B subsidiary. He orders parts, schedules servicing for equipment and vehicles and handles invoices. He starts work at 7 a.m.

"I meet a lot of people," he said, adding now he has customers to deal with.

It's different from his plantation job. When he had a field of cane to harvest, he woke up at 3 a.m. to see if weather conditions were right for a cane burn. He managed field workers and alerted others when and where a field was going to be burned.

Old habits die hard. And, after three decades of rising well before dawn, Lopes found it difficult to adjust his sleep habits.

"I was still getting up early every day," Lopes said. "It was just a habit."

Now, when he sleeps in, he wakes up at 5 a.m.

In his typical joking fashion, Lopes said he could wake up at his former 3 a.m. alarm time and exercise or even do yoga. But instead he settles for eating "yogurt."

Lopes said he sees familiar faces at the A&B subsidiary, which makes things more comfortable.

"I know the people and stuff. It's easier," he said.

Lopes reminisces about his old job. He gets emotional when he sees remainders of the company untouched.

"Sad to see all the cane fields sitting there," he said.

Lopes also misses seeing the smoke from the mill's smokestacks. Residents would use the smoke as a weather vane, checking on which way the wind was blowing.

"It's pretty rough," he said a year after the closure. But, "we get by."

Donna Ventura

Donna Ventura literally thanks God for her new job as secretary for the Kula Catholic Community.

The former HC&S human resources assistant said that when employees in January 2016 got word of the company's upcoming closure, one's "heart is in your feet."

"I just asked God to please find me a job, that I could do what I do best," the 56-year-old Kula resident said.

Ventura said she felt like a motherly figure at HC&S, helping employees with personnel matters.

"That was my talent," she said. "I didn't want to go back in a big business and start from scratch."

After 26 years with the sugar company, she said "it's really hard to move."

"I just left it in God's hands."

And, as it turned out, things just fell into place. The Kula Catholic Community was looking for a church secretary.

At first the position was only for part-time work, but then it turned into a full-time job for Ventura.

She was already a church volunteer, so it made sense for her to take over the job in January, serving a community that includes the Holy Ghost Mission, Our Lady Queen of Angels and St. James the Less parishes.

But it wasn't easy. The community's pastor, the Rev. Adondee Arellano, was going on a long vacation in January.

And Ventura was thrown into overseeing various church projects and responding to emergencies such as broken water pipes.

She said her new job is an absolute change from her HC&S work, but she loves it.

"Like I said, I prayed for this job. I was blessed with it," she said.

But Ventura is still emotional over the closure of Hawaii's last sugar plantation.

A resident of Kula, she said "it was a while before I came downtown. It was a while before I even would take Hansen Road (which is near the plantation). I can even cry now, just thinking about it. It's still a soft spot."

"And it's easier now, but that first six months was horrible," Ventura said.

"You miss the people. We would see each other in the stores. We would hug. Everybody just hugs."

Koa Martin

Former Millwright Koa Martin immediately applied for a job with Maui County when he heard of the mill's closing.

The 42-year-old from Kahului said he submitted job applications in other places to ensure he could find stable employment.

Eventually, he landed a job with the Department of Water Supply's Water Treatment Division. He's a mechanic and began in early November 2016, a week after he was laid off from HC&S.

It's different from his former job of toiling over machines in the Puunene mill.

At HC&S, he knew each rumbling machine and its role in transforming burnt cane stalks to sweet crystals of high-grade sugar.

"It's hard making a comparison between both jobs," he said. "HC&S had a unique set of challenges, which was how I had gained my knowledge and experience while being in the county presents different challenges," Martin said. "But just like HC&S, I am confident that I will learn and experience the same as I did at the plantation."

Martin said he misses working at the plantation.

"You gotta understand that I just like everyone that worked at the factory. (We) spent more time at work than we did at home," Martin said. "It's hard to not think about that place. I can easily see it while driving through town and just like I did for 20 years, I always turn my head to see the mill."

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

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