LIHU’E — The clearance at this Kukui Grove Center location is not of the sale variety. At the blessing and dedication ceremony marking the official opening of the third Kaua’i location for the high-tech company Solipsys Corporation, nearly half of
LIHU’E — The clearance at this Kukui Grove Center location is not of the sale variety.
At the blessing and dedication ceremony marking the official opening of the third Kaua’i location for the high-tech company Solipsys Corporation, nearly half of the invited guests were asked to leave a demonstration of the company’s tactical component network, as they did not have the necessary “secret” military clearance to attend.
The center of Solipsys’ new location, in the old CS Wo building at the corner of Kaumuali’i Highway and Kalepa Street, is a secure command center where the entire world can be viewed on wall-sized electronic screens, and military and civilian signal-callers can direct planes, ships, ground troops and other forms of warriors.
Everything is connected by satellites and other telecommunications devices, allowing combatants to view globe-spanning, real-time situations as they evolve, and direct troops anywhere to respond.
The system also can be used for disaster management and other non-military purposes.
“It’s not an office building,” said Warren Citrin, president of Solipsys (Solutions for Information Processing Systems). Rather, the new building is a key component in a worldwide network of military communications, he said.
Citrin sees the 23,000-square-foot facility, with both the facility and telecommunications room being considered “hubs” by company officials, as being a hub of another sorts, one that draws other high-technology companies near it, he said on the event of the dedication and blessing of the facility.
The Network Application Integration Facility houses the TCN and offices for 10 Solipsys employees, working under contract from the Office of Naval Research. That brings the facility security provided by the U.S. Navy.
After the formal blessing and dedication last week, the facility is now a secure building. That means those who don’t work there need to make prior arrangements before visiting.
Eventually, the building could be the workplace for up to 50 people. It is designed to accommodate round-the-clock operations. Leslie Bailey is in charge of the building and operations for Solipsys.
Citrin said earlier he hoped to establish relationships with island schools and Kaua’i Community College, to encourage the types of educational opportunities necessary to allow Kaua’i residents to fill some if not all of the high-technology jobs that will be available at the facility.
Armed with a secret clearance due to his work in military affairs committees in Washington, D.C., U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai’i, admitted before the blessing, “I know very little about this building.”
Something he did know about the building is that it has been brought back to life by the island’s high-tech industry. “This is the answer to ‘Iniki,” he said.
“It was a dead building, for all intents and purposes,” said Inouye, who thanked all who had a part in breathing new life into it.
The enterprise is “important for Kaua’i, and important for national defense,” said Inouye, hinting that there will be more, like kinds of business and military activity to come on the island and in the state.
“Hawai’i will become the real hub of the Pacific as a result of this hub.”
Matilda “Mattie” Yoshioka, managing director of the Kaua’i Economic Development Board, observed at the blessing by the Rev. Daryl Kua of Koloa Church that the opening marked a true partnership between representatives of county, state and federal governments, as well as the private sector.
Conrad Murashige, of Shioi Construction, Inc., the general contractor, thanked all who were responsible for getting the interior and exterior renovations completed on time and on budget. The renovations took less than a year to complete, and turned a building designed to be a huge furniture showroom into a high-technology complex.
Val Tokuuke was project manager, and Mike Goodnight was in charge of the framing, drywall and acoustic ceilings, for Hawai’i Partition Systems, Inc.
Subcontractors included Wasa Electrical Services, Inc., Diamond Plumbing, M&H Painting, Hawai’i Mini-Blinds, Hamco, Creative Partition Systems, Island Ceramic Tile, Installation Services, Inc., O’ahu Plumbing & Sheet Metal, Limited, and Waltz Engineering.
Murashige also thanked Bailey for being easy to work with and quick at getting answers, architect Mark Ventura, and representatives of the County of Kaua’i.
More information about Solipsys is available at www.solipsys.com.
Business Editor Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
