After more than 20 years, award-winning Pacific regional leader, organizer and advocate Failautusi Avegalio (affectionately known as “Dr. Tusi”) has retired as director of the University of Hawaiʻi Pacific Business Center Program (PBCP). To mark the occasion, a traditional kava ceremony and gift-giving presentation was held at College Hill in January.
Under Avegalio, the PBCP became one of the most distinguished university center programs in the nation under the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration. The PBCP received eight national first place awards and four national finalist awards from the University Economic Development Association in areas such as innovation, place, economic development research, technology commercialization, partnership development, local capacity building and collaboration.
“We thank Dr. Tusi for his decades of dedicated service, leadership and inspiration,” said UH President David Lassner. “He is an outstanding advocate of economic development who weaves together Indigenous wisdom and practice, the values of aloha, healing and ʻohana, and modern science, knowledge and technology. Under his direction, the PBCP has flourished and become a renowned catalyst for regional innovation, capacity building and resilience throughout the Pacific.”
“Good leaders lead. Great leaders heal,”
—Failautusi Avegalio
As director, Avegalio also received numerous regional, national and local awards for advocacy, collaboration and leadership. In 2009, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency honored him as the San Francisco Regional Minority Business Advocate of the Year. He was also recognized as one of the top six facilitators in the state by Sam Kaner, a national and international expert on collaborative decision-making, as part of the Collaborative Leaders Network supported by the Omidyar family. Avegalio also received the 2017 Community Resilience Leadership Award from the UH National Disaster Preparedness Training Center.
“I was raised with the aspirations to be useful, honorable, compassionate, and to be bold when called upon. I was also guided to turn into the wind to protect, preserve and to heal with aloha our moana (ocean), the environment and humanity—guided by the five tofas (wisdoms) passed down from our ancestors. In all that one does, one must engage with humility, embrace with respect, sustain with aloha, and heal with forgiveness. The fifth wisdom is: Good leaders lead. Great leaders heal,” Avegalio said.
International organizer on critical Pacific issues
Avegalio has been the primary organizer of innovative events, such as the Global Breadfruit Summit, inaugurated in American Samoa in 2012, with support from the Ulupono Initiative, to promote traditional means of regenerative agriculture for food security, health and resilience. He also developed and organized the Stars of Oceania program and event, which recognizes contributions to the Pacific. Both events have continued to date, with the most recent held at the Hawaiʻi Convention Center in 2022.
“Dr. Tusi’s unique gift of being able to connect individuals, organizations and the community was the key element that has enabled the Pacific Business Center Program to be so successful in assisting many small businesses in underrepresented and underserved communities to thrive, while maintaining their cultural identity,” said Vassilis L. Syrmos, UH vice president for research and innovation. “We are extremely grateful for his many contributions to the university and we look forward to building upon his legacy through our continuing support of Indigenous knowledge, innovation and economic development.”
Avegalio holds the chiefly title of Papalii as a senior heir to the Sa Malietoa Talavou warrior king line of Samoa. His genealogy is linked to the paramount aliʻi (royal) lines of Polynesia and Fiji in Melanesia. Avegalio’s Polynesian genealogy extends from Samoa to Tonga, Raro-Tonga, the Tuamotus, Marquesas, Hawaiʻi, Aotearoa and Rapa Nui. In Micronesia his ties extend to Chuuk State in the Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Palau, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. He is also a former president of American Samoa Community College.
He is a permanent resident of the coastal community of Hauʻula on Oʻahu, and serves on the Koʻolauloa Neighborhood Board. He also continues to provide organizational planning assistance to the Olohana Foundation and Hawaiʻi Pacific University’s Pacific Islands Leadership Institute, and to a national organization of Indigenous peoples called Rising Voices.
Avegalio said, “It also takes wisdom to know when it’s time to retire; to live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, drink the wild air, to laugh often and much, enjoy the affection of children, and to know that nature laughs in the flowers. I have reached that shore and, as of January 2023, my anchor is embedded in the sand.”
Read more about the Pacific Business Center Program.
