At their core, organizations have the same basic elements as people. They lack human feelings, but they have institutional personalities and a history that, over time, develops an involuntary direction for the larger group.
A certain distinctive bearing throughout the athletic department at the University of Hawaii at Hilo that might be simply described as ohana, has been going through a difficult effort to reshape the internal culture. The family is feeling a little dysfunctional these days.
Athletic director Pat Guillen was hired 20 months ago and brought a mainland structure from his time with schools in Southern California. In that time, he has overseen the departure of nine employees, including coaches, administrators and a trainer.
The only public school in the Pacific West Conference of the NCAA, UHH long ago established an island-centric culture of trying to do more with less, with a smile and sense of aloha. You see the athletes and the coaches, but you seldom see the ones who put them out there, the compliance people, the trainers and accountants, the folks who are tasked with all the behind-the-scenes work. They take the culture seriously and many of them are concerned these days with the new direction.
Those folks are feeling a little out of place in the organization most of them have served for years, the most recent surprise being the termination of personable business manager Glen Kagamida, a 12-year veteran of the department with a history of institutional knowledge that won’t easily be replaced.
No remaining athletic department employees would speak to the Tribune-Herald publicly for fear of reprisal, but their concerns have been heard. It’s fair to say they feel Guillen’s direction, for better or worse, has been a divisive departure from the culture they created over decades.
The ohana is gone, they will tell you, the desire to work for a common cause is harmed because they no longer understand the purpose and direction of the department.
Guillen declined opportunities to be interviewed, but he responded to a question about his view of all the departures in an email forwarded to the Tribune-Herald through a third party. The list of departures in his 20 months of employment, for the school includes:
• Peejay Brun, softball head coach, left for a Division I appointment at Texas State, where her wife lives.
• Lance Thompson, soccer director, coaching both men’s and women’s teams in the same season, moved to Arizona after his wife lost her job. He’s coaching a club team associated with Grand Canyon University.
• Glen Kagamida, business manager for 12 years, was working on a temporary position that was automatically renewed each year. Guillen eliminated the position to restructure the department. Associated AD Kula Oda will take over Kagamida’s duties. Guillen said he plans to use the money saved to hire an academic advisor/specialist. He did not say how the proposed new hire will fit with the university’s office of academic affairs, which already includes a director and seven employees.
• Kelly Leong, the longtime sports information director, was moved to another department. “It was my assessment and decision that this was in the best interest of our program,” Guillen wrote in his email.
• Tino Reyes, volleyball coach, was terminated after seven years, “Due to lack of program development on the court and in the community,” Guillen wrote.
• Elizabeth Reinstein, assistant trainer, took a job at Idaho State shortly after Guillen arrived.
• Richard Koch, assistant trainer, retired and moved back to Philadelphia.
• Monica Morita, compliance specialist, left her job after less than a year, accepting a role in the athletic department at Southern Cal as an assistant to the AD.
• Jasmine Gittens, hired by Guillen at the start of the school year, left abruptly. “She had a difficult time with the transition with the new head athletic trainer (Kensei Gibbs),” Guillen wrote.
“Each case is different with various reasons for departure,” Guillen wrote in his email. “However, it is very common and almost expected for change to take place under new leadership to affect positive development.”
The idea that nothing unusual is taking place is one not shared by many with a history of institutional knowledge at the university.
One of those opposed to the changes in the wake of Guillen’s hire is Bill Trumbo, arguably the most accomplished and well-respected AD in school history. He was inducted into the Vulcans Athletic Hall of Fame in 2014 with the following excerpt from the ceremony: “Trumbo (1990-2000) guided the athletic department through the transition from the NAIA to the NCAA. Along the way, he secured corporate sponsorships for various programs, founded and built the Hall of Fame, created multiple top-level collegiate basketball tournaments and engineered the Vulcans Athletic Scholarship Fund Drive.”
Trumbo is a UHH icon. Semi-retired now, he still lives on the Big Island and is involved in building structures to help local youth obtain college scholarships.
He’s not a fan of the changes.
“That’s never happened here,” Trumbo said in a telephone interview. “I’ve been associated with that program in one way or another for more than 30 years and we have never had this kind of turnover in this short amount of time. People’s time in the department, their years of service and their longevity was never threatened there, not like this.”
In Guillen’s defense, it should be understood that with the exception of his specific decisions to terminate longtime employees, all the other departures could be purely coincidental.
“It’s troubling to hear about Glen,” Trumbo said of Kagamida, the former business manager. “I know Glen and I know what people say about him. They are probably in for a world of surprise on all things he did they have no idea about.
“Maybe it will all blow over,” Trumbo said, “but in my opinion, that’s a little too much power to be in the hands of one person. I say that from a perspective that in 10 years when I was there, we didn’t have this much turnover, not this fast and we didn’t have it after me, either. As time passes, people may realize that some of these who left did so because they didn’t want to be there any longer.”
People who work for him describe Guillen as a micromanager, someone who wants things done in specific ways, which are often more doctrinaire NCAA structures than they are traditional Big Island ways of working through issues.
How the athletic department functions will no doubt emerge more prominently over time.
The administrative view anticipates everyone eventually jumping on board, tossing the past aside and participating in a successful, if foreign structure. Perhaps many of the moves were pure coincidence and a year from now, the UHH athletic department will be functioning like a well-oiled machine.
The other possibility is that Guillen’s vision will continue to feel too authoritarian for Hilo, which would not be beneficial to a fluid, well-functioning department. Authoritarian structures often cause a sluggish reaction as employees slow down in their work to make sure it’s being done to the approval of the new standard, feeling someone is always looking over their shoulder. Motivation and morale take a hit in that circumstance.
In a year, the athletic department might be functioning better than at any time in its past, a new mainland-style structure producing unprecedented achievements.
It could also go the other way, but regardless, it’s a turbulent situation that, for all of those involved, and the larger Big Island community, needs to be resolved.
