Pioneering businesswoman dies

Businesswoman Myrtle Chun Lee, who in 1973 became the first woman president of a major Hawaii corporation, died Jan. 30 at Castle Hospital at the age of 85.

Born and raised in Hilo, she was an early pioneer in the travel industry who in 1977 was named one of America’s top 100 corporate women by Business Week magazine.

Upon returning from college at the Pierce School of Business in Pennsylvania, she returned to the islands and was soon working as operations manager for Bob MacGregor’s Trade-Wind Tours.

Then in 1958 she joined entrepreneurs Grace and Lyle Guslander to help with the couple’s newly acquired Coco Palms on Kauai. Two years later, the group built its first new hotel, Kona’s Hotel King Kamehameha, near historic Kamakahonu Beach.

Island Holidays Tours merged with Amfac Resorts in 1969, and Lee oversaw the openings of more historic properties, including the Keauhou Beach Hotel in Kona, the Kauai Beach Boy and the Waikiki Beachcomber.

She married Freddie Lee in 1951. In the 1980s the couple were investors with Roy Yamaguchi and a few others in founding the wildly successful Roy’s Restaurant chain.

After retiring the couple moved to the DLT Ranch in Waimanalo, Oahu, along with their son Terry and his wife Dannette Lee.

“She was affectionately known as the Dragon Lady,” Dannette Lee said Wednesday. “She started the careers of so many people.”

Friends of Myrtle Lee may call at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 17 at Central Union Church, 1660 S. Beretania St., in Honolulu, with services beginning at 9 a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family requests potted plants for a garden to be planted in her memory.

She is also survived by her son Daryl (Darlene) Lee of Kapolei, Oahu; daughter, Lisa (Mike) Rabe of Wilhelmina Rise, Oahu; brothers, Oliver Pang of the mainland, Gregory Pang of Honolulu; sister, Tylene Dunbar of Honolulu; 11 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.