HONOLULU — When Gov.-elect David Ige was an ambitious, 28-year-old engineer looking to climb the corporate ladder, the last thing on his mind was running for public office.
HONOLULU — When Gov.-elect David Ige was an ambitious, 28-year-old engineer looking to climb the corporate ladder, the last thing on his mind was running for public office.
But Ige’s unlikely political career began when former Gov. George Ariyoshi was looking for bright, young professionals to appoint to open seats in the Legislature, and members of Ige’s Pearl City community suggested him.
Ige took a chance — taking four months of unpaid leave from GTE Hawaiian Tel, where he’d been promoted three times in four years — never imagining he would eventually find himself in the state’s highest office.
“I wasn’t even a member of the party until I was on my way to meet with the governor,” Ige said. “I was virtually apolitical at the time.”
That would change when Ige joined the House of Representatives and realized he could make a difference by helping to pull back the curtain on a lawmaking process that he said often excluded the public.
“I was appalled about the whole fact that the legislative process was an insider’s game,” Ige said. “They controlled who participated by who had access to information.”
Ige joined a small group of like-minded lawmakers committed to reform — now called the “Chess Club” — and embarked on a series of changes that would help improve citizen access to the Legislature, often using technology to accomplish his goals.
Ige led an initiative to transform the Senate into a paperless enterprise, where bill drafts, budget documents and detailed hearing notices were posted online, saving the state money on printing costs.
He created an electronic student network to involve 500 students in the legislative process through an early form of videoconferencing in the early-90s, before many people had even heard of email.
He encouraged state Sen. Jill Tokuda — then a high school senior — to serve on the education committee, as a student representative who didn’t vote but gave students a voice in the statehouse.
Ige’s also credited with making sure committee votes are held in public, rather than behind closed doors, said Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland, another fellow Chess Club member.
“The chairs a long time ago would have the ability to bottle things up,” Chun Oakland said.
Now 57 and heading to the governor’s office, Ige plans to bring the same goals and values to the top job: engaging the public to craft solutions, listening to public employees whose ideas have been stifled, working collaboratively and updating outdated technology to improve government efficiency, he said.
“We want to increase transparency, focus on really engaging the community as part of the solution and we’re really looking for leaders that can do that and at the same time lead the departments,” Ige said.
He’d like to tackle upgrading technology in the state’s budgeting software and its tax system, which could help raise money and help the state analyze how its spending money, he said.
Ige believes hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes are lost every year because of the state’s antiquated technology.
That money could make a difference heading into a year when Ige is expecting the budget to be very tight.
The state Council on Revenues in November reduced its forecast for growth in income tax revenues from 4 percent to 3.5 percent in 2014 and 4.7 percent to 3.5 percent in 2015.
“I know that we already were on pretty thin margins, so I don’t anticipate that there will be a lot of excess funds to be awarded or appropriated to new projects,” Ige said.
Ige’s colleagues speak about his genuine nature and his no-nonsense, collaborative approach to problem solving.
“People trust that he’s not one of those that has nefarious motives,” said Sen. Les Ihara, another Chess Club member. “He’s not a wheeler-dealer.”
As Ige dives into solving the state’s problems, he said, the greatest influences in his life were his parents.
His mother, Tsurue Ige, taught him that education was the key to improving one’s life. His father, Tokio Ige, who earned a Purple Heart and Bronze Star serving in the 100th Battalion in World War II, taught him about sacrifice and honorably serving the public trust.
“My father was about quiet leadership and leading by example,” Ige said. “He never really talked a lot or boasted a lot, but he just lived his words. It’s about hard work, it’s about being trustworthy It’s about not bragging and just doing good work.”