Business View Magazine | April/May 2022

35 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 4 – that was a first for our association during any kind of economic crisis. We had to support a full membership base and continue providing services such as advocacy and education to our members but interestingly the BIA-Hawaii was not considered essential, so the association had its own internal issues; had to find some creative financing means and we were facing a pretty dire situation throughout the pandemic, where we had to scale back on our own staff, and weren’t able to hold in-person events, which are our traditional revenue sources.” BVM: Where are you based and what are some services and events you provide? Leorna: “We are based in a beautiful building that we own called the Construction & Training Center (CTC) in Waipahu on the island of Oahu. We have classroom space and a great workshop where we do different types of training. Through the pandemic, we’ve gone virtual with many of our offerings as well. We grew our education offerings by 67 percent over the last 18 months. That really helped with our financial situation and also with continuing service for the industry. “Waipahu is in central Oahu but we support the entire island. We have general membership meetings and events in Honolulu and across island on the west side, so we can accommodate different members’ needs. We hold a wonderful event called the Building Industry Design & Construction Awards (BIDCA). Pre-COVID this has been a huge, fancy event with fun themes like a masquerade ball. We gather applications for our design awards through the year and judges from our membership present the awards at this gala. Our members love it and we’re able to incorporate other industry professionals, such as designers and architects, as well.” BVM: How important is the education component? Leorna: “Moving into 2022, supporting the industry with education is a huge focus. Mainly BUI LDING INDUSTRY ASSOC I AT ION OF HAWA I I (B I A-HAWA I I )