A&B Foundation Donates Scholarship Funds to OCET

By Wendy Osher

Grant Chun, A&B Properties; Buzz Fernandez, Matson Navigation; Sue Feltz, OCET; Dan Ligienza, (HC&S); Mel Kawano, Kahului Trucking & Storage; Garret Hew, EMI/HC&S. (left to right).

A $22,500 grant was awarded to the Office of Continuing Education and Training (OCET) at the University of Hawai’i Maui College.

The donation, from the Alexander & Baldwin Foundation, will go towards training initiatives.  The funding is intended to help in reducing the cost of classes for students, and stimulate enrollment for the program.

The OCET program, now in its third year, supports additional skills training for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and non-profits.

Students in the program can obtain experience through customized training opportunities, apprenticeships, and English as a Second Language classes.

The OCET program also helps individuals pursuing further education as they retrain for new employment. “In some cases, we have had people who had lower level jobs and were looking for a promotion,” said Ben Howard, OCET instructor. “By taking classes at OCET and getting certain certifications, they were promoted within the company,” he said.

Over the past 30 years, the A&B Foundation has provided more than $480,000 in support to programs at UHMC.