Commercial Plumbing’s Randy Hiraki (left) shows visiting business manager
Reggie Castanares and the Training Center’s Vernon Rosa and Kirk Kageno
how autocad works from the company office to the project site ensuring
accuracy and time saving..

Given the opportunity to own a piece of the company has its positives and maybe a few negatives, but the employees at Commercial Plumbing Inc. believe the incentives are sufficiently powerful to get all of them moving forward together to make it a progressively improved workplace.

“I’m glad they bought the concept of ESOP (Employee Shared Ownership Program). It means we’re co-sharing the responsibilities for a well-run operation,” says Randy Hiraki, who founded the company in 1985. The program went into effect in 2000 and benefits all its current 111 employees.

The company may have a distinguished profile built over its quarter century in the industry but one would never know it. Construction folks think it and its employees purposely shun the limelight even though its performance annually is considered among the best.

Located on Colburn Street in a dense industrial zone, Hiraki still heads the business as president and Mark Suzuki, who joined it in 1995, is vice president.

The company’s strength stems from the initiative of its employees, who seem eager to adapt to new technology. Part of that is encouraged by the continued improvements at Local 675’s training center in Iwilei, which recently was gifted with computer equipment by the UA that is state of the art.

Given the changes expected in contract awards, industry firms will require trade personnel who can ably utilize auto-cad in both office and field, Hiraki says, to help a company stay competitive. Design/ build is gradually becoming the mode over traditional bidding, he adds.