Kalikolehua Storer
Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa, Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort, Hana-Maui Resort — Area Cultural and Training Advisor
“My mom is a cultural advisor as well. And the one thing my mom always shared was, ‘You’re not one Hawaiian Barbie Doll. You be you.’
What she meant was, you don’t window dress. When you are Hawaiian, there’s no window. ‘Just hear my heart,’ that’s what I always tell people.
My passion was to teach. And I come from Lahaina. I graduated from Lahaina Luna High School, which just that school name alone tells you: You got some roots.
After I graduated from high school, I went to University of Hawaii-Hilo, and that was going to be my mission: I’m gonna go be a Hawaiian language teacher.
Well, life happened. I met my husband in college. And we started a family. I had done summer work for Hyatt [Regency Resort and Spa], so I knew that I could live a comfortable life if I came into hospitality.
I was a front office agent. I was a reservation agent … guest services manager … and I said, ‘My, what else can I do?’
Then here comes my general manager, Mr. Jokovich, and he said, ‘Kalikolehua’ — he calls me by my given name — ‘I want to send you to hospitality training.’
When I met the facilitator, this guy looked like he was from the boondocks. But the way he spoke — it wasn’t so much what he said but how he said it — he was so genuine. I could visualize myself teaching like this: Talk story.
That’s how I learned from my grandma … from my mom. All of us kids, we would want to get around our elders, because they were funny. And they were telling stories about themselves. And today I remember all of those stories.
At the time, my hotel didn’t have a culture advisor. The general manager found value in … the person giving counsel and encouragement [to staff] from a Hawaiian perspective.
The characteristics and the way we moved in our family is the template I use today.
Real simple: You go to the kitchen, don’t make your grandma look for places in the dining room to sit. We should be anticipating those things. We serve our kupuna. And so that’s what I teach here.
That part of our culture was missing from hospitality. What looked to be [Hawaiian] culture was the opening protocol — the oli (chant), the kīhei (ceremonial garment) and the bowl with the water and the ti leaf.
So, I had a conversation within myself to start teaching leaders how to talk story. My subject line when I have a meeting is ‘talk story.’ You know what that says? ‘Come sit — easy, easy — she just like talk!’
I tell leadership, ‘We can show you what aloha looks like, without one poster, without one banner, just by talking story.’
Sometimes I’ll bust out my kupuna status from my years of service. I say, ‘You have the privilege to love people. When people come off the shores, our kupuna teach us, you hanai them.’
A gentleman that lived next door [to Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort], he used to bring his dog down to the bar. He was no guest of a room. He was just an uncle that wanted to bring his dog, sit at the bar and talk story. And when he passed away all the employees say, ‘Kaliko, you can do his celebration [of life] on the ocean?’
‘Automatic.’ We never make them a big deal. But guess what? Everybody came? Why? Because everybody knew the uncle. He never make us rich. He wasn’t that kind guy.
Hawaiian culture to me, is this: You hanai them in good. You walk through the bad. Why? Because we love them. This kind of Hawaiian culture, it really gets you to the marrow of your bones. It starts to put things into perspective, and it keeps you real.
Today, I’m completely in a different attire than I was yesterday. But the heart is still the same. The help is still the same. All of them general managers have shared with me, ‘Thank you for keeping us on the ground. Thank you for always helping us to make sure we have an intent.’
I said, ‘Yeah, because you know, what they call outside of that? Barbie Doll.’ ”
