BUSINESS BRIEFS
Castle Medical Center wins honor
Advertiser Staff and News Services
Castle Medical Center was given an award for exceptional organizational quality by the Hawaii Award of Excellence program.
The hospital was given the 'Oihana Maika'i Purple Lei Award, the highest level of award given by the program. Castle in 2003 won a lower-level award recognizing organizational quality.
The award program is patterned after the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, with winners being regarded as models of excellence for other Hawai'i organizations. The local award was developed in 1994 by a team that was lead by The Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii. Among the program's goals are raising the economic vitality and profitability of local organizations and helping assure the state's economic success.
Castle said it was the only recipient of an award this year and was honored for several reasons, including a number of efforts focused on raising performance and excellence at the medical center. It also was cited for having a clear focus on providing care to the community that is consistent with its faith-based origins.
HULA GRILL KA'ANAPALI TO RECYCLE OIL
Hula Grill Ka'anapali has reached an agreement with three local companies on Maui to recycle used oil from the restaurant's kitchen.
The restaurant will donate about 400 pounds of oil a week to a local boating company, compost company and goat dairy farm, said Hula Grill General Manager Orrin Cross.
The boating company will reuse the oil to operate small fishing vessels; the compost company will reuse the oil to help break down branches, leaves and food waste; and the dairy farm will reuse the oil to make soaps.
"We've always been concerned about the environment," Cross said. "As a restaurant, we serve hundreds of meals per day, which requires hundreds of pounds of oil per week; it's our vision to see the oil recycled, not wasted."
MAUI RANKS 21ST WITH EVE REVELERS
Apparently Maui is more popular than O'ahu with New Year revelers.
A www.Priceline.com analysis of demand for hotel rooms for New Year party spots shows the Wailea/Makena area of Maui ranked 21st among the top 50 New Year's Eve destinations.
Waikiki Beach came in at No. 25, while the other end of Waikiki came in at No. 42. www.Priceline.com, an online seller of discounted travel, said the top spot was the Las Vegas Strip and that big city destinations like New York and Chicago are popular this year, possibly reflecting people's willingness to drive instead of fly to destinations because of the economy.
"The surprise is the number of exotic and more expensive fly-in destinations that made this year's list, such as Sydney, Paris, Aruba and Hawai'i," said Brian Ek, who creates the top-50 lists. Sydney came in at No. 19, while Cancun was No. 26. Aruba was ranked at 38th; Paris No. 46.
The list is compiled from a sampling of more than 30,000 booking requests made on www.Priceline.com's site.
MAUI HYATT RESORT DONATES $20,000
Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa has donated $20,000 to Make-A-Wish Foundation.
The check was presented last week at the resort's Imalu Restaurant by General Manager Michael Jokovich to Make-A-Wish Foundation's President David Williams.
Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa along with Global Hyatt Corporation supports the Make-A-Wish Foundation which grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions through its wish-granting work, reaching more than 167,000 children around the world.
