Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 17, Number 6, 1 June 2000 — Blaine Apo teaches defensive bus driving [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Blaine Apo teaches defensive bus driving

By C a itr i o no Kearns ORTY-FTVE of Hawai'i's bus drivers, including a 71-year old limousine chauffeur mrned mini-bus operator, got their commercial license after training at Blaine Apo's CDL School for Bus Drivers. Apo instructs professional bus and truck drivers and provides safety briefings to small companies. In 1997, he got his business going with a start-up loan from OHA, whieh helped pay his insurance and advertising costs. Apo is on track doing what comes naturally to him. "With the ups and downs of doing what I do, I'm having a blast," he boasted. Apo worked more than 20 years in the transportation industry before he seized the opportunity to open his own training school. The last 14 years at Roberts Hawai'i Tours and Transportation were a time of growth for him professionally. "I was a kid when I started in the tour industry at age 21.1 drove all the tours, took people all over the island, did all the jokes, all the songs, all the lines, and it got to a point that one of my managers asked me if I would hke to become a trainer," he explained. This new job would shape his future. He likes relating to his students and has had great fun with them. "It really challenged me to work with the employees whieh included over 200 bus and baggage truck drivers. I was working with lots of different characters, and had to learn more about myself as well as the people I was training. There was more than teaching defensive driving. I also had to become their confessor because they eame to me before they went to the managers. So that was fun, really fun," he said. To one day have his own business was his dream. "The idea eame when I got into the transportation

industry, when I became a driver, that some day I would have my own business," he recalled. Taking the risk to actually make it happen is, he explained, what sets him apart, "There are a lot of people I meet that say almost everyday how they want to start their own business. Out of my group of co-workers, friends and relatives, I was the only guy that went ahead and started my own business. Others have followed my star." But Apo also resisted taking the risk. "Myself, too, I talked and talked for many years. I thought I was going to set myself into action, going to positive thinking seminars anel other training, but it still took a long time," he commented. He spent two years writing his business plan before presenting it to OHA's loan officer, Adrian Lau, who helped him refine it further. Finally, in Apiil 1997, when he resigned from Roberts Hawai'i, he wrote to Robert N. Iwamoto Jr., president of Roberts Hawai'i, about his plans. To his surprise, Iwamoto gave him the school bus he uses to instruct his drivers, whieh has made a big difference to his bottom line. Apo is also able to do most meehanieal repairs himself, a skill he attributes to having been raised in a big Hawaiian family. Employers send Apo half his students and the others are individuals who pay for their training. After two months of drivers' education, Apo's students are ready to take their commercial drivers' licensing (CDL) test. The Work Hawai'i program, a federally funded state program to help educate people back into the work force, and the State Division of Human Services give him perhaps the most satisfaction. However, he said he does appreciate working with all of the different people he trains. Apo said, "The rewarding part is that I get to meet people I didn't know before, work with them; there are some positives and some negatives, and over

the few weeks improvements are made and they get their license. They are happy and I am happy. It's such a great feeling the day they get their license. But it's sad too, since they leave and the work is over." ■

-o X O O o o e m < w £ Z m > "O O n

Since Roberts Hawai'i donated this school bus to Native Hawaiian entrepreneur Blaine Apo, he has taught dozens to drive defensively and responsibly at his Honolulu-based driving school.