This fall, Mayor Rick Blangiardi returned to campus to visit the Business, Organizations, and Society (BOS) course, turning Honolulu’s government into a live business case for students.
Offered to Academy seniors by the Case Accelerator for Student Entrepreneurship, the BOS course is a rigorous college-level course that attempts to summarize a business school curriculum in one semester. Mayor Blangiardi started by asking, “What do you think the mayor actually does?” With this simple question, he invited students to define the role collaboratively while sharing the complexity and scale of his responsibilities.
He framed the Honolulu City and County government as a $5.2 billion organization responsible for more than a million people. Students quickly discovered that everyday operations resemble the “finance, organization, marketing, operations and strategy” model taught in the BOS class by guest instructors Brian Barbata and Scott Paul, along with faculty and Director of the Case Accelerator for Student Entrepreneurship Yolanda Lau ’98.
Students were stunned to learn that Honolulu processes roughly 900,000 tons of trash each year, treats about 100 million gallons of wastewater a day, manages nearly 11,000 employees, oversees more than 300 parks and 8,000 streets, and supports a full network of first responders from police and fire to EMS and ocean safety. “This job is fundamentally a problem-solving job. Every day is game day,” he noted, and also shared that he played and coached football at the University of Hawai‘i. He added, “The mayor’s job is a coaching job. You’re trying to inspire and drive human performance.”
The mayor also highlighted his commitment to solving “wicked problems” such as homelessness, housing shortages, public safety, Red Hill’s water implications, and the long-debated Skyline rail project. In his discussion of these issues, he showed students how complex trade-offs are integral to civic decision-making. He emphasized the urgency of addressing out-migration to build a future in which young people can stay, work and thrive in Hawai‘i.
He then shifted to technology and AI, describing government modernization as an essential priority that has dramatically improved efficiency. Drawing on his decades in media and technology, he framed AI as an inflection point for Hawai‘i’s future. This reinforced recent BOS discussions about automation and predicted workforce disruption.
Towards the end of the visit, the mayor paused to reflect on the honor and weight of public service, sharing, “I approach this job with a great sense of privilege – the challenge, the responsibility, the privilege of a lifetime.”
Students engaged actively throughout the visit, posing questions about immigration and public safety, how sports relate to business, Aloha Stadium redevelopment, North Shore first-responder resources, city budgeting, work-life balance and what motivates someone to step into civic leadership. The mayor’s visit offered students a rare chance to see how strategy, leadership and operations converge at the city level and how their generation might contribute to Hawai‘i’s future.
Designed to equip students with the confidence to dive deeper into any of the covered topics in the future, the BOS course focuses on practical insights, decision-making, and critical thinking through real-world applications and examples.
Business leaders such as Steve Case ’76, Mark Fukunaga ’74, Peter Ho ’83, Kevin Wong ’90, John Leong ’96, and Julianna Rapu ’97 Leong have been guest lecturers in BOS over the years, with Mayor Blangiardi visiting annually. BOS culminates in a final presentation that synthesizes the students’ learning with clear strategic recommendations for a publicly traded US company from the perspective of a consultant.