nwasianweekly.com
Sept. 30, 2006

Shelly and Lono Dickson, owners of Kalani Packaging in Everett, have incorporated Hawaiian culture into their neighborly business practices. Lono is originally from Hawaii.

Aloha spirit comes with the package
Entrepreneur of the Year Awards Dinner

By Christina Twu
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

For a married couple starting their own business, success can be very hit-or-miss, according to Lono Dickson, co-founder and president of Everett-based Kalani Packaging.

“Some couples who start a business together can really identify what a benefit that can be, and others do not,” explains the 37-year-old native of Hawaii.

It takes just the right type of synergy to thrive, and he and his wife, Shelly Dickson, 33, who serves as the company’s chief financial officer, possess it.

“We’re literally almost opposites of each other,” says Lono. “(Shelly) looks at purchasing, and I look strictly from a sales standpoint. We can look at the same problem and go two totally different directions and come to the same conclusion.”

Shelly agrees: “If you were looking at a globe, he would go east and I would go west, but we would end up meeting at the same point.”

Prior to establishing Kalani Packaging in 2000, Lono and Shelly worked in the electronics industry — Lono in sales at Avnet Electronics and Shelly as a buyer with ATL UltraSound (now Phillips UltraSound).

In the late ’90s, a recession hit the electronics industry, inspiring the Dicksons to look into other career possibilities. They did a little pilot project, sourcing packaging out of Asia for world specialty beers. After the success of this business venture and conducting further research, Lono and Shelly realized that starting a packaging distribution company might be a profitable investment.

“We dug a little bit deeper and realized that no one was serving that middle-tier customer,” says Lono. “Utilizing both of our experiences — me on the sales side and (Shelly) on the purchasing side — we decided to start the company and work for ourselves.”

The Dicksons’ combined efforts have paid off, evidently.

Since Kalani Packaging’s inception, it has quickly gained visibility and grown into a multimillion-dollar company, providing clients such as the Seattle Mariners, Nestle, Starbucks Coffee, REI and Office Max with anything from retail products to customized security seals to bubble wrap and specialized tape.

The Dicksons attribute the rapid success of their small business to their innovation, their “aloha” customer-service spirit, as well as the support of the Northwest Minority Business Council, which provided pivotal networking opportunities and contacts, says Lono.

If it were not for Kalani Packaging tabling at the council’s trade show in 2002, for example, the main buyer for Starbucks wouldn’t have walked right up to their booth and signed on immediately as a major client.

“We’ve had a great relationship with that buyer (ever since),” Lono says. “It’s stronger than it’s ever been.”

By keeping their operating costs down, Kalani Packaging can afford to provide customers with more competitive quotes.

“We’ve been really creative with our financing,” says Shelly.
Transcending standard procedure, the company ships the products from the manufacturer directly to the customer, for example.

Although their low operating costs have allowed them to win a higher percentage of quotes than their competitors, it is their customer service that really sets them apart, Lono and Shelly believe.

“We will bend over backwards to find a way to support (customers) and make (their product) happen,” says Shelly. “We’ve had people come in and do stuff on three-day weekends. … Somehow, we find a way to make their requests happen and we have fun with our customers. They really are a part of our extended families.”

Lono, who has incorporated Hawaiian culture into Kalani’s neighborly business practices, has also made sure the Hawaiian cheer is visible in his employees.

“Our drivers always have a smile on their faces, and it’s that spirit that I try to portray when we’re out doing whatever we’re doing,” he says.

In 2005, Kalani Packaging was recipient of the Western Region Minority Supplier/Distributor of the Year award. The company was also named one of the top 50 diversity-owned businesses in Washington state and one of the top 100 Native American-owned businesses in the nation the same year.

The Dicksons are currently up for the 2006 Asian American Entrepreneur of the Year award, a program of the Northwest Asian Weekly Foundation.

For more information, visit www.kalanipkg.com.

Christina Twu can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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