UH Alumni Profiles
- Professional baseball pitcher
- Broadcaster and author
- Second-chance principal
- Minority business promoter
- Fictional namesake
- Winning businesswoman
Persistent professional baseball pitcher
Tyler Kali Yates
ʻ95–ʻ98
Hilo
Team: Atlanta Braves, 2-3 with a 5.26 ERA for 2007
Hometown: Kōloa, Kauaʻi
Family: Wife Liezel; younger brother Spencer, a catcher, also played two years for the Vulcans
High school honors: Kauaʻi Interscholastic Federation Baseball Player of the Year, All-State honorable mention in football
Webpage: Braves player file
Tyler Yates knows the ups and downs of professional baseball. His first go at the majors was with the New York Mets in 2004 after six years in the Oakland A’s farm system. His time in "the show" didn’t last long; he had arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn right rotator cuff in February 2005 and missed all of that season.
"It makes you even more motivated to get back to the majors," he says of his lost season and year as a minor-league free agent with the Baltimore Orioles in 2006.
The 6-foot-4 right-hander joined the Atlanta Braves bullpen in May 2006. "I grew up watching the Braves on TV on TBS," he says. "I get a lot of fan support back home. They recognize me (from TV). It’s unbelievable."
He lives in Hawaiʻi during the off-season, paddling through waves and surfing to keep his arm strong. "I try to surf every day. When I was in the minors, I would surf in the morning, lift weights in the afternoon and then have to work at night," he says. Now he can pass on the outside employment and have more time to train in the off-season.
Broadcaster and author
Dick Spangler
BA in political science ʻ59
Mānoa
Career: President of Spangler’s World Communications
Memorable moment: Trying to attach a promotional radio banner to the dorsal fin of a 16-foot tiger shark in a tank with 15 other sharks
Awards: Five Golden Mikes and the Grand Award for Best Reporting from the Greater Los Angeles Press Club
Unique record: Bowling for more than 51 hours at the Waiʻalae Bowl with an average score of 155
Hobbies: Shodokan karate and kung fu
Family: Wife Joan, sons Paul and Shane
In 1954 freshman Dick Spangler and friend Don Berrigan started a KHON radio program dubbed The Dick and Don Show on the Bonny Banks of the Ala Wai Canal. He later worked at KORL, KGMB-TV and KGU in Hawaiʻi and as a radio/TV anchor in California. His Spangler’s World radio interview show was syndicated across the U.S. for 25 years.
Spangler is now a full-time writer whose books include Kung Fu: History, Philosophy and Technique and Five Fingers of Success. His most recent work, West Point to Pearl Harbor: A Little Boy Remembers the Japanese Attack and Other Survivor Stories from America’s Greatest Military Disaster, explores the lasting effect the attack had on his family and others. Spangler was 5 at the time, living at Fort Kamehameha where his father was a captain. He remembers firing his toy pistol at Japanese bombers as they flew overhead.
The author pledged a portion of the royalties from his book to West Point’s Long Gray Line Endowment and the Pearl Harbor Memorial Fund.
Second chance principal
Calvin Nomiyama
AA in liberal arts ʻ74
BEd in secondary physical education ʻ76, MEd in elementary curriculum and instruction ʻ80
Kapiʻolani and Mānoa
Hometown: Honolulu
Career: Principal of Puʻuhale Elementary School
Hobbies: Spending time with wife Charlene, golf, traveling
Early job: Stock boy at Shirokiya
Military service: Spent time in Iraq as a colonel in the Army Reserves
Coaching experience: High school wrestling 1972–84
Fond memory of Kapiʻolani: "The cafeteria opened early. People like me and my classmate Thomas Murata could get something to eat and wait for classes."
As a principal, Calvin Nomiyama understands the importance and value of quality education. He also knows what it is to struggle as a student. After graduating from high school, he started college without a real goal or direction, earned a 1.0 grade point average and left to join the Army Reserves.
He returned to Kapiʻolani in 1972, this time with the goal of becoming a high school coach. He eventually transferred to Mānoa and completed a master’s degree.
Three decades later, Nomiyama returned to campus once more—as the speaker at Kapiʻolani’s spring 2007 commencement. He recalled the nurturing environment and encouragement he received from Kapiʻolani instructors and the ideas and the attitudes presented in Louise Yamamotoʻs Philosophy 100 class.
"Mrs. Yamamoto taught me that there is more than just one venue for testing anything…that students do deserve a second chance," he told the graduates. "Teachers do not set students up for failure. As a teacher, coach and administrator, I have used those lessons continuously."
Boosting Hawaiian Business
Dana Hauanio
BBA in finance and international business ʻ94
Mānoa
Career: Director of the Honolulu Minority Business Enterprise Center
Roots: Honolulu
Early job: Management trainee, Bank of Hawaiʻi
Family: Husband Alan K. Lore, daughter Anuhea, pet black Labrador Kaʻua
Hobbies: Reading, beading, surfing
In her mission to promote and support minority-owned business enterprises, Dana Hauanio seeks to generate long-term economic impact for the community through the creation of revenues and jobs.
She is well qualified to provide technical assistance—she worked in San Francisco at a national bank and as a commercial underwriter before returning to Hawaiʻi as a business loan officer for the Native Hawaiian Revolving Loan Fund. That role introduced her to the Honolulu Minority Business Enterprise Center.
Hauanio also serves on the boards of the Native Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce and Hale Kuʻai Cooperative and sits on the Council of Hawaiian Representatives of the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association, all with an eye to promoting Native Hawaiians’ interest in economic development.
"Over the last 12 years, Iʻve used theories and principles learned at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa College of Business Administration (now called Shidler College of Business) to further my understanding and assistance to small businesses in the community," she says.
Read more about the Honolulu Minority Business Enterprise Center call 808 956-0850.
Fictional namesake
Cindy Chow
BA ʻ95, MLISc ʻ00
Mānoa
Career: Young adult librarian
Home base: Kāneʻohe
Sideline: Writes book reviews
In the book Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu, Cindy Chow is a paranoid schizophrenic who wears a foil cap and claims to have been abducted by aliens.
In real life, Chow is Kāneʻohe Public Library’s perfectly normal young adult librarian.
Chow met Lee Goldberg, a TV writer and author of four books based on obsessive-compulsive TV detective Monk at a mystery writers conference. She invited him to the television script-writing workshops she coordinated at Oʻahu libraries in 2006.
After she served as his chauffeur, Lee expressed his gratitude in an unusual way—naming one of his characters for her.
Remarkable businesswoman
Susan Au Doyle
MBA ʻ82
Mānoa
Career: President and chief professional officer of Aloha United Way since 2004
Award: Businesswoman of the Year
UHAA role: Past chair, Communications Committee
The Honolulu publication Pacific Business News named Susan Au Doyle its 2007 Businesswoman of the Year.
The Punahou School graduate had plenty of competition for the honor from other UH alumni, including these finalists:
- Layla Dedrick (BA ʻ94 West Oʻahu), teacher turned Natural Stone business owner
- Tertia Freas (BBA ʻ78 Mānoa), first Hawaiʻi woman to be an audit partner for Deloitte & Touche
- Rochelle Lee Gregson (BA ʻ75 Mānoa), CEO of the Honolulu Board of Realtors since 2005
- Lynne Johnson (MBA ʻ83, MMus ʻ01 Mānoa), chair of the Academy of Arts Board of Trustees
- Angela Meixell (MEd ʻ76, EdD ʻ83 Mānoa), Windward Community College chancellor
- Kay Mukaigawa (BA ʻ86 Mānoa), co-creator of Primary Properties
- June Nakamura (BS ʻ73 Mānoa), president and principal-in-charge of Engineering Solutions