July 16, 2004
New Chamber leader: I'll stay on-message
Howard Dicus
The new chairwoman of the Chamber of Commerce
of Hawaii says the main issues for Hawaii businesses
are workers' compensation and health insurance, and
she vows to work for solutions to these ballooning
cost issues.
Christine Camp Friedman, with Avalon Development Co.
LLC, accepted the leadership role with the largest
business organization in the state Thursday with a
brief speech in which she vowed, "I intend to stay on-course
and on-message."
Camp Friedman said, "The challenges are not new.
We all know their names. The top two: workers' compensation
and health
insurance."
Eighty percent of Hawaii businesses have 20 employees
or fewer, and thus are small enough to be driven out
of business if
premiums keep rising at double-digit rates.
"It's not enough just to reduce insurance premiums," Camp
Friedman said. "We must deliver more. We must stamp
out
insurance fraud."
To succeed, Camp Friedman said, small-business owners,
who usually work side by side with their workers, need
their
employees to be their partners.
"Too few of us have told our legislators how important
this is," she said. "We will be back."
Of controlling workers' compensation payments and health
insurance premiums, Camp Friedman said, "Our goals
are not
unattainable. They are inevitable."
Four people retired from the chamber board Thursday:
Jeffrey Bloom of CTA, Kitty Lagareta of Communications
Pacific,
Chris Resich of MC&A, and Stephany Sofos of Sofos & Co.
Lagareta was not present, having been called to a University
of
Hawaii Board of Regents meeting.
Re-elected were directors Peter Schall of Hilton Hawaiian
Village and Harry Saunders of Castle & Cooke.
New directors include Carol Ai May of City Mill, Chris
Benjamin of Alexander & Baldwin, Vicky Cayetano
of United
Laundry Services, Perry Confalone of Carlsmith Ball,
Vicky Gaynor of Environet, Gabe Lee of American Savings
Bank, Peter
Lewis of Hawaiian Electric Industries, Greg Sato of
Torkildson Katz, and Robert Wilkinson of Grace Pacific.
Reach Howard Dicus at hdicus@bizjournals.com
Pacific Business News (Honolulu) - July 16, 2004
http://pacific.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2004/07/12/daily51.html
© 2004 American City Business Journals Inc.
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