After 25 years as the general manager of the Wailea Community Association, Frank “Bud” Pikrone plans to retire this fall. A search for his successor is underway led by the board of director’s hiring committee and Inkinen Executive Search.
“I volunteered to spend time with whoever they hire to get them used to the surroundings,” Pikrone told Aloha State Daily. “I’ll leave the hiring to the professionals. They’re looking for someone local, an internal or external candidate, who understands Maui and how relationships work on this island. If they have a connection to Wailea, even better.”
Interested in applying? See the job posting here, or contact Inkinen Executive Search Consultant Cheryl Cross at 808-380-5445, or email ccross@inkinen.com.
When asked what his advice would be for his successor, Pikrone said, “Be you and don’t try to please everybody. This is a special place. The board would be happy if you just do what you do best.”
He joined the 1,500-acre master-planned resort community as general manager in 2001, overseeing three staff members and monitoring development. Today, he leads a much larger team including office personnel, maintenance and landscape crews and 24/7 security officers, as well as different committees who handle design and architecture.
“It’s grown since I came on board. I don’t think most people realize that we don’t own the land or the median strips or the trees, but our team trims all of the trees, fixes the irrigation lines, maintains the public areas – restrooms, parks and beach accesses, and even roadways – that belong mostly to the county, just to keep the common places in the shape that our members expect it to be.”
According to the organization, “membership consists of all property owners in Wailea, including individual condominiums, hotels, recreation and commercial amenities, single-family homes and undeveloped lots and land parcels,” which today totals more than 2,400 individuals, families and companies.
He said another responsibility of the GM is to inform members about ongoing construction and updates to the issues most important to them. “For instance, over the last few years, we lost some monkeypod trees due to the storms that came through here. They were big and had been there for 50-plus years. The community wanted to know what we were going to do about it. So, we worked it out with one of the hotels on the property to transplant their trees where we had lost ours. Those are the types of resolutions we work through together and collaborate on.”
Reflecting on his time at the Wailea Community Association, Pikrone is most proud “of the little things,” he said, like building a dog park that features new fencing and a silhouette landmark of his own pet, as well as key hires that make the day-to-day possible.
During his tenure, he also developed a charitable giving arm within the organization that is funded from a portion of the members’ dues. One beneficiary is the University of Hawai’i Maui College Nursing Program, for which funding has covered airfare to take their licensing test on Oʻahu and scholarships.
In retirement, Pikrone plans to stay in Hawai’i with his wife, get back into golf and playing the ‘ukelele and guitar, go to happy hours and remain active in this community he’s lived in for 27 years. Prior to this role, the pair lived in Chicago, frequenting Cubs games when he was not working in the commercial design and marketing space. “That’s why they hired me when they did,” he recalled. “They were looking for someone business minded.”
The Wailea Community Association was chartered in 1987 to “provide the management, maintenance, protection, preservation, aesthetic and architectural control and development of the 1,500-acre master-planned Wailea Resort community,” the nonprofit corporation said. “The land area is approximately bounded by Pi‘ilani Highway, Kilohana Road, South Kīhei Road, the Pacific Ocean and Kaukahi Street.”
Pikrone added, “We’re not just a wealthy community, we’re really a community that embraces the culture of this area and the entire state.”
In 2019, the Wailea Community Association published a book called “Wailea, reflections on Honuauʻula,” honoring the historical roots of this district in Pae‘ahu ahupua‘a. In its foreward, Pikrone wrote, “Before I moved to Wailea more than 20 years ago, I was a regular visitor to Maui ... thankful to meet and become friends with many local residents.
“When I eventually took this position at the resort, I was concerned about this sense of disconnection. So, some years after my arrival, I made a commitment to do what I could to bring the depth of Hawaiian culture to Wailea. I knew this would provide a common identity and sense of place to all who came to visit."
He continued sharing lessons from from his kumu, who had invited him to an ʻawa ceremony. “As I was speaking, a pueo, a Hawaiian owl, flew at my head level directly behind me along the shoreline,” which was a positive sign, the kumu told him at the time.
“It was a blessing and honor I will never forget,” said Pikrone in the book. “I encounter the pueo occasionally, as I watch the sunset or walk my dog, and it is a constant reminder of how the Hawaiians welcomed me, embraced me and enriched my life.”
The book has since been passed onto homeowners of the Wailea Community Association to help give them a sense of place, both on Maui and in Hawaiʻi, he said.
For more information about the Wailea Community Association, visit wcamaui.com.
Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros can be reached at kelsey@alohastatedaily.com.
