Pacific Magazine > Magazine > March 1, 2007

From The Publisher

Another Year Of Change

By FLOYD K.TAKEUCHI

This new year has already started out as one of much change at
Pacific Magazine. It gives me great pleasure to announce that Keobel Vitarelli Sakuma has joined our Honolulu-based staff as an Account Executive. KB, as he’s better known, reports to Associate Publisher and Advertising Director Florence Betham and has as his primary responsibility our advertising clients based in Hawaii and on the U.S. mainland.

Florence Betham, Keobel Vitarelli Sakuma, Adrienne Ziegler, Dolly Lindo and Richard Hutter. PHOTO: Cathy Cruz

To say that he is a son of the Pacific is an understatement. KB was born in Palau. His father, Belhaim “Bena” Sakuma, is a well-known business, community and political leader in Palau. His mother, Margo Vitarelli, an accomplished artist, photographer and museum curator, is I am happy to say also a Pacific Magazine correspondent in Honolulu.

KB joins us from Matson Navigation Company, where he was engaged in logistics planning at that company’s busy container dock in Honolulu. He’s also a sportsman of some repute, having won gold medals representing Palau in canoe paddling and diving/spear fishing at the regional Micronesian Olympics.

KB joins a team with deep roots in the region, as well as broad expertise. Flo Betham hails from Tafuna, American Samoa. Editor in Chief Samantha Magick is a citizen of Fiji who works from a base in Sydney, Australia. And speaking of Sydney, Pacific Magazine has a new office located in an historic building on Clarence Street in the Central Business District. Our Sydney bureau shares space with the noted regional law firm, Pacific Legal Network.

We also have two Honolulu-based staffers whose names may be familiar to you from our masthead, but who do their work behind the scenes. They are Art Director Richard Hutter, who is responsible for how our magazine looks and its production cycle, and Circulation Manager Dolly Lindo.

Richard is an experienced graphic designer, and joined us from MidWeek, Hawaii’s largest circulating newspaper (220,000-plus each week). Originally from Southern California, Richard is also a surfer and surfboard shaper, as well as a drummer in a band that plays at gigs around the island of Oahu.

Dolly recently rejoined us after being on maternity leave. She and her husband, David, are the proud parents of a handsome tyke, Donovan, who also joins the Pacific Magazine family! As Dolly transitions back to her circulation/distribution duties, we want to thank Adrienne Ziegler for the great job she’s done over the past months serving as interim circulation manager. Adrienne moved to Hawaii last year shortly after she finished a tour of duty with the U.S. Army in Iraq. She’s still in the U.S. Army Reserves, and we were proud and pleased to have her on our team. We will miss her.

Finally, as you may have noticed holding this magazine in your hands, we’ve moved to a new printer. We think the difference in this issue’s printing quality compared to earlier ones is dramatic.
Pacific Magazine now comes off the presses at Obun Printing, which is based in Honolulu. Obun is known for a number of specialties, including its ability to handle multi-lingual publications, high-quality printing and its sophisticated Web development and management services. Our parent company owns a stake in Obun, and we’re pleased to have our business with a sister company.