About charity, a beard and a new warehouse

As you may be aware, we’re building a new warehousing facility in Honolulu. To make a long story short, we received the signed agreement to purchase the property, vacant land, on a Saturday during the period of the major league baseball playoff chase in 2017. On that Saturday in September, I decided, like so many LA Dodger players in their quest to win the World Series, to not shave again until the prize was won—in this case our new warehousing facility opening. I then flew over to Oahu when we had to arrange to finance both the land purchase and building construction. I told the bankers that I was growing my beard as a daily reminder of our commitment to getting the project done, so every morning when I stand in front of the mirror, I am reminded of my responsibility to complete our project.

During one of my visits to Honolulu, I became aware that the fence on the perimeter of the property served as a “lean-to” area that homeless folks had been using to support their temporary shelters. They were camping in certain areas around the outside of the fence. This visual sparked an idea for me to believe that something good could come out of this construction project and the beard!

I went out to our partners and vendors involved with the project and asked for volunteers to donate to a charity that helps the homeless. Upon reaching out to volunteers including Massdec (the developer) and DHX-Dependable Hawaiian Express, Inc. (both owned by us), six additional companies or individuals agreed to donate $250 an inch to charities assisting the homeless. That's $2,000 an inch. We then had two other companies join us, bringing the number of companies to ten as of this post, or $2,500 an inch. My beard is now four inches long, growing slowly, meaning we’ve already earmarked $10,000 for charity. The facility has another 11 months before completion, during which I hope the beard will grow an additional 5-7 inches (may I add much to my wife’s dismay– she really hates it)! But it’s for a great cause.

I would like to thank the following participants:

• American Savings Bank (Financier) and Dan Oshima, its Vice President
• Central Pacific Bank (Financier)
• Massdec LLC (Developer)
• DHX-Dependable Hawaiian Express, Inc. (Lessee)
• Honolulu Builders (Contractor)
• Anonymous Officer at Massdec’s Environmental Consultant
• Anonymous Officer at our Ocean Carrier to Hawaii
• Cades Schutte and the Cades Foundation
• MC Architects (Architect)
• Honolulu Freight Service- Mike Beidleman

Again, these participants have already raised $10,000 to be donated to charities!

DHX-Dependable Hawaiian Express has set up systems with The Salvation Army and Kahauiki Village, so that anyone can participate in this effort to help the homeless in Honolulu. Although our partners listed will send their checks directly to the charities, you can also aid this cause by donating to these charities either in a set dollar amount now or by pledging based on the final beard length, for example, $1 an inch. Ensure you indicate your donation is for the Beard For Buck$ campaign!

We will be posting monthly updates, with beard pictures to our Facebook page (Beard for Buck$ Photo Album). Just so you know, for a single donation of $25,000, I, the president of DHX-Dependable Hawaiian Express would be willing to dye the beard “purple,” the official color of Dependable Supply Chain Services for a month!

For $50,000 and I’ll dye the beard and my hair, too! It’s all for a great cause, folks!

A win-win for Honolulu: shipping, distribution and logistics

If you’ve looked at DHX.com or our social media pages, you have seen our current major project in the works – we’re building a new warehouse and distribution center in Honolulu.

This facility is different than our other owned freight-handling facilities located in Southern California, Maui, Kona, and Guam because the ground was contaminated with oil and gas byproduct waste.

We bought four acres of land that has laid barren for over 20 years while being remediated. It was an eyesore to those working in the area. The property was not contributing positively to Hawaii or the community. We are now furthering the remediation process to the point the land can be useful and productive. We will be turning the four acres into a state-of-the-art public warehouse and distribution center. The building will be located within 10 minutes of the port in an area off Nimitz Highway.

DHX-Dependable Hawaiian Express is proud of what we are going to be contributing to Oahu's economy and future. Not only does the property itself become productive, but with 4,000 pallet positions for storage, we’ll help ease the current shortage of public warehousing in the industrial part of town close to the port. A land lot with thousands of plastic pipes jutting in and out of the ground will be replaced by a new, clean facility providing job opportunities during construction and thereafter. Once open it will allow us to move out of a building that is 70+ years old and very inefficient into something new.

Help us celebrate this for the community and for the businesses needing our offerings. A complete win-win!