Staff

William M. Kaneko is the founder, president and chief executive officer of HIPA. He is also an attorney with the Honolulu law firm Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing, where he specializes in government relations and administrative law. He was selected by his peers and listed in Best Lawyers in America for government relations law and Honolulu Magazine’s Best Lawyers in Hawaii.

Over the past two decades, Mr. Kaneko has served in various public policy, government and legal positions. He was a national recipient of the CORO Foundation Fellowship in Public Affairs, and served on the professional staff of Hawaii Governor John D. Waihee III. He served as National Vice President for Public Affairs for the Japanese American Citizens League, the largest Asian Pacific American civil rights organization in the country.

Mr. Kaneko received the Award for Public Service from the U.S. Department of Justice for his work with the department on redress for Japanese Americans unlawfully interned during World War II. He also received the Alan Saunders Award for Achievements in Civil Liberties from the ACLU of Hawaii; the Three Outstanding Young Persons of Hawaii Award from the Junior Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii; the Trailblazers Award from the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association; and the National JACLer of the Biennium Award and the Distinguished Service Award (Hawaii Chapter) from the Japanese American Citizens League.

Mr. Kaneko received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Puget Sound and his Juris Doctor degree from the Catholic University of America. In 2003, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Puget Sound.

Jeanne Schultz Afuvai has decades of experience in planning and implementation strategies in government and business. In public service, her work has focused on advancing economic opportunities for the people of Hawaii. Jeanne served as executive director of the Office of Economic Development at the City & County of Honolulu; deputy director and interim director of the State Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism; and deputy director of the State Department of Transportation, where she was involved in airport expansion.

In business, she played a key role in the development of Kapolei as Oahu’s second city. Jeanne served as marketing manager at the James Campbell Estate, where she oversaw all aspects of the communications/branding program—from planning to collateral to market research—to accomplish the Estate’s goal of developing the new City of Kapolei in Central Oahu. In addition, she worked for the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii where she established the military affairs council; Alexander and Baldwin Agribusiness as senior vice president of marketing; and Xerox Corporation as branch sales manager.

Jeanne has been honored with the Citation for Exceptional Service in Support of National Defense by the Association of the U.S. Army.

She is married and lives in Kailua. She earned a Bachelor of Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Andrew T. Garrett joined HIPA in April 2012 as project manager of the Hawaii Healthcare Transformation Initiative, a public-private partnership between the Office of the Governor and Hawaii’s leading healthcare organizations to transform Hawaii’s healthcare system.

Andrew has experience in both the public and private sectors. Most recently, he served as a vice president of Communications Pacific, where he led the company’s community building practice. Previously, he served as office manager and committee clerk for State Representative Kenneth T. Hiraki, then-chair of the House Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee.

He is a graduate of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Master of Arts in Public Administration. Active in the community, he has been a member of the Mililani-Waipio-Melemanu and Manoa Neighborhood Boards, and serves as a volunteer reader with the Read Aloud America program in his spare time.

Born in Camp Zama, Japan (a U.S. Army base in Tokyo), Andrew is a proud product of Hawaii’s public school system, having graduated from Mililani High School. He currently resides in Manoa.