It All Started With Grandma

Ed Sultan, whose grandparents founded Easter Seals, carries on a family tradition by serving on the board of directors

Wednesday - February 08, 2006
By Chad Pata
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Sultan chats with receptionist Michelle Haynes

adults with all variety of maladies who were not getting the help from the public sector. Today, Easter Seals Hawaii is the largest private provider to the disabled in the Islands, featuring 22 programs across the state.

One secret of ESH’s success is in its management of its money. According to Sultan, many major charities spend upwards of 50 percent of their donations on raising more donations, while Easter Seals spends 93 percent of its funds directly on services.

“It’s very efficient,” he says. “When I give my hard-earned money to Easter Seals, I know they are not going to waste it. Another reason I like it is I am a local boy, born and bred, and the money stays here in Hawaii and helps the community where I was raised.”

Keeping money and business in Hawaii is the thrust of his non-philanthropic efforts as well. Since taking the helm of Na Hoku in 1992, a company that has been in his family since 1924, he’s worked hard to keep not only its products true to Hawaiian culture, but to produce them right here.

“There are not that many jewelry manufacturers left in the state, and we struggle to keep our manufacturing here,” says Sultan, who proudly employs 81 people in his factory. “This is just a part of our ties here.”

But those connections were almost severed for Sultan after college. He attended the University of Colorado, getting a B.S. in business administration, and had a job lined up following his senior year with Dean Witter in New York City. His dream of becoming a investment banker was about to come true, but boyish aspirations got in the way.

“I called my recruiter and told him I was going to take a year off to ski in Colorado,” remembers Sultan. “So for the summer I went to work for the family business in the San Francisco store, and I really fell in love with the business. I never made it to Aspen and I never made it to New York.”

Sultan was not the only one to feel the good fortune of his youthful decision-making. The company has expanded to 63 locations nationwide - even one in NYC - under his watchful eye, while still producing 65 percent of the jewelry in Hawaii.

This penchant for expansion has extended to his actions on the board of ESH. In April of this year they hope to break ground on a 20,000-square-foot, $6 million facility in Kapolei to serve West Oahu to ease the strain of driving to Honolulu.

These things are only possible because of the aggressive fund-raising by Sultan and his view to the future. When Easter Seals hosted its first Taste of Honolulu in 1991, Sultan wanted to fashion it after Chicago’s hugely successful event that had raised millions of dollars.

The one-day event drew approximately 12,000 visitors, and while it did not make any money, Sultan considered it to be a success. The second was scheduled for Sept. 11, 1992, and for those who were living here then, you know what happened next.

After spending huge amounts of capital preparing for the event, they canceled it due to the onslaught that was Hurricane Iniki.

“For safety reasons we pulled the plug for fear of tents blowing down and people getting hurt,” recalls Sultan, who would become CEO of Na Hoku just two months later.

“Next year there was a very passionate discussion on the board whether to continue it or not, because it was too risky. I argued passionately that we needed to do this, and it was a close vote whether we would go forward with it or not. And now it has really become part of community life in Honolulu; it’s an institution.”

Last year they drew more than 50,000 visitors and ESH netted $250,000 from the event. It would appear that the jewelry business is not the only thing that Sultan can make glimmer, but he defers to the people who work there every day. “They feel so much passion for what they are doing,” says Sultan. “The culture is so strong. For this to be the third best place to work in the state (according to Hawaii Business magazine) when they could be making more money elsewhere (in a for-profit business), and all while living in a place with a very high cost of living, it’s amazing.”

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