Native Hawaiian Science and Engineering Mentoring Program

Field Coordinator

Mr. Richards who is assigned to PID's administrative branch for Project Development also serves as the Field Coordinator for NHSEMP. He will coordinate activities by and between Partners In Development Foundation (PID) and the University of Hawai‘i College of Engineering as it relates to the NHSEMP Mr Richards has held management positions in both the public and private sector, primarily in the field of aquaculture. He spent close to two decades at The Oceanic Institute, a non-profit research organization where some of his cumulative responsibilities included: serving as assistant to the Institute's Vice-President of Program Development in the development of new programs domestic and international; Research Associate of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) funded marine shrimp research program; Manager of the Hawaiian Fishpond Revitalization Project (HFR) which sought to revitalize ancient Hawaiian fishponds for economic purposes while maintaining their cultural integrity, and; Manager of The Oceanic Institute — Ke‘ahuolu, a facility located near Kailua-Kona on the island of Hawai‘i that serves as a site for the Institute's aquaculture education and training programs and, which houses the USDA Marine Shrimp Consortium's Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) shrimp stocks. More recently in the private sector, he was Vice-President and General Manager of Hawai‘i High Health Seafood Corporation, the sales and marketing subsidiary of a large land-based aquaculture operation located on Kaua‘i. He has been involved with Hawai‘i's voyaging community since 1975 and has served aboard the voyaging canoes Hokule‘a, Hawai‘iloa, Makali‘i and Hokualaka‘i. He presently sits as President of "The Friends of Hokule‘a and Hawai‘iloa", a non-profit organization whose mission is to "perpetuate ancient Hawaiian canoe resources by building, restoring and sharing traditional canoe building skills".