Kim with her Mom Gerri in Waimea
Since leaving the Big Island for college at Stanford, Kim Giffin has been a woman on a quest to seek her true place in the web of life. Throughout her seemingly zigzagging path, Kim has been guided by her Big Island aloha heart. “I love Waimea. I’ve always been a Waimea girl.” Nurtured by an idyllic childhood, growing up on Mana Road, Kim loved accompanying her father Jon Giffin, a field biologist, on his many field study trips and family camping trips at Keanakolu. “My mom would pack a big cooler and we’d load up the truck, or get on our horses and ride.” It was a magical time for Kim. “I really wanted to live there. Just go sit under a tree and read and write stories.”
Throughout elementary and high school, Kim had special interests in English, history and French. She also studied with kumu hula Michael Pang. “It made me proud to be Hawaiian. Our Hawaiian legends are so complex and rich; they are like Shakespeare.”
When Kim arrived at Stanford she had intended to follow in her father’s footsteps and study biology. She moved from straight A’s to struggle. For a year and a half she toiled away just to get C’s and B’s, while getting A’s in other non-major classes such as American Film and various English and history classes. When she discovered that she could do an interdepartmental degree in American Studies, she was able to use all her classes and graduate a quarter early. The only problem was she still didn’t know what she was going to do, which was when she and two other friends decided to do a U.S. road trip. A friend suggested Habitat for Humanity as an interesting possibility and Kim did some research coming up with 15 sites where they could go and work for a few days at a time. “This became the spine of the trip.”
Using a family station wagon, packed with camping gear and saimin, they pooled their resources and headed out to see America. They traveled for 6 months and except for 5 or 6 nights when they stayed in motels, they camped, stayed with old friends or new friends they met along the way. “It was an incredibly formative experience, but I still didn’t know what to do.”
When Kim returned home to the Big Island she stayed with her parents, who had by then moved to Hilo, and applied for jobs on the mainland. She landed a job with WebVan a dotcom start-up that was an online grocery store. While financially comfortable, “I felt a little uneasy in the corporate world and felt I should be doing something more meaningful.” Although she really liked her job, boss and co-workers, the twelve hour days she often worked wore her down so that when the company went the way of many of the dotcom start-ups, she was relieved in a way. Again the Big Island pulled her home. She had taken up hula again in San Francisco because, “I missed hula and the special friendships.” She was looking forward to returning to her home as, “There was so much I didn’t know about Hawaiian culture. I wanted to have a chance to really study it.”
After a two month backpacking trip through Europe using her severance pay, she returned to Hilo and embarked on a 9 month Hawaiian studies program at U.H. Hilo. She took such classes as the Hawaiian ‘Ohana, Hawaiian Language and music. She also worked for Larry Kimura at the Mauna Kea Astronomical Education Center, looking through Hawaiian and English language texts dating from the missionary times to identify any references to sacred places on and around Mauna Kea. “I loved the experience, but still felt I wasn’t in the right place.”
Then Kim really came full circle and returned to Waimea and HPA as an assistant admissions director for a year. Then following her dream to write, she moved to Honolulu to start a M.A. in English. Unhappy with the program and again running low on funds, Kim quit and started working for First Hawaiian Bank in human resources.
During this somewhat bleak interlude, “Practically the only connection I made was with a homeless guy who shared my bus bench,” Kim began to contemplate what would make her happy. “I was compelled by the work my dad did—protecting the land on the Big Island—but I wondered what I could do because I wasn’t a scientist. I knew about The Nature Conservancy. It was around the time of the Kahuku Ranch sale to the National Parks Service, in which The Nature Conservancy involved.” After researching several groups, she found that The Nature Conservancy seemed to be the best fit for her non-confrontational personality. “I liked that they worked with industry, community and individual people to find the best way to go about conservation.”
Despite the fact that she had no qualifications, her enthusiasm and home grown aloha landed her a salaried internship at Carpenter Ranch in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Although it would be for only six months and was a big step down in pay, she decided to take the risk and follow her heart. Carpenter Ranch, a working cattle ranch, was a rich experience for Kim and one where she got first hand experience of community based conservation. “I loved the ‘ohana experience of living on the ranch with a wonderful family.” They worked with the community of ranchers to make use of the land in a way that preserves both the land and the economic life of the community.
Carpenter Ranch also was a natural wonderland. When she wasn’t gardening (a first for her), writing newsletters or doing ranching chores (including bottle feeding an orphaned café named Gus), Kim explored this wonderland. “The Yampa River is one of the last relatively free flowing rivers on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains and it ran right through the ranch. There was a rare riparian environment formed by the occurrence of 3 plant and tree species that are rarely found together.” The ranch was also home to several species of migratory birds and abundant wildlife.
When her internship was up, she was offered another salaried position and again she contemplated whether to stay with The Nature Conservancy or to accept a position with a different environmental organization. “For a few days I just went on walks and thought. I came upon a large heard of bugling elks and later two foxes revealed themselves to me. It was like the land was calling me to stay for a little while longer.”
Then a position came up on Santa Cruz Island and once again her enthusiasm and aloha carried her through and she was offered the job. “Santa Cruz Island is considered the Galapagos of North America. It is a magical place. You take a boat out to the island and the day I went out, there were grey whales and dolphins escorting us the whole way. There had been a lot of rain that year and the island emerged from the fog as an emerald green background covered with yellow coreopsis. They looked like Dr Seuss flowers.”
For the next while she conducted tours of the island (swimming in waterfalls, hiking, playing in the surf) in support of The Nature Conservancy’ fundraising and island restoration efforts. This included eradicating the wild pigs, relocating the Golden Eagle population, which arrived with the decline of the Bald Eagles to feed on the piglets as well as the Santa Cruz Island fox, an endearing little creature about the size of a small housecat. “When I was interviewing for the position, I was struck by the similarities between the devastating effects of feral pigs on Santa Cruz Island’s ecosystem and the parallel devastation inflicted by feral pigs at home in Hawai’i. The Nature Conservancy’s efforts have paid off this year as there have been successful nestings by two Bald Eagle pairs for the first time in over fifty years in the northern Channel Islands.
Kim then transferred to a position in the office in Ventura where she works with the philanthropy and project staff, organizing fund raising events. She misses her magic island but is probably having a wider impact in her new position. While on the outside Kim’s journey can seem erratic, she has managed to weave all her varied formative experiences together and has found her ohana and higher purpose at The Nature Conservancy, for now. She’s also doing some writing explorations. Who knows where her aloha heart will lead. Lucky to be from Hawaii and lucky Nature Conservancy!
