COVER FEATURE - DECEMBER 2009
TRUCKIN’ ISLAND STYLE
RYAN WA’ALANI’S HAWAIIAN HEAVY HAULER
By Daniel J. Linss - Editor
When you’re a trucker that lives on a small tropical island, your hauls are never very long, but they sure are scenic. Ryan Wa’Alani (36) of Wa’Alani Enterprises in Koloa, Hawaii is not only lucky enough to live on the island of Kauai, but he gets to truck around it every day as well.
Kauai is called the “Garden Isle” because of its lush foliage, dense rain forests and green scenery. Everywhere you look is gorgeous, and it doesn’t take long to fall in love with this place. Ryan’s family has enjoyed the island’s beauty for generations – after all, they are Hawaiian. He and the rest of the folks at Wa’Alani Enterprises keep busy trucking and working in construction all around the island, but still find the time to hang loose and appreciate what they have.
Arriving in Hawaii on a Tuesday, we were greeted with warm and humid temperatures. We immediately headed over to meet with Ryan near the Lihue Airport where he was making a delivery. After looking at the truck and talking for awhile, we planned our photo shoot for Saturday, which would give Ryan plenty of time to get the truck cleaned up (it rains almost every day in Kauai and Ryan runs on a lot of dirt roads, so you can imagine how hard it is to keep his truck clean). But in the meantime, we had a boat to catch for a scenic tour of the island from the water, and then a plane to catch for a tour of the island from above, where we got to see awesome sights like Waimea Canyon (known as “The Grand Canyon of the Pacific”), and Mount Waialeale, which is one of the wettest spots on the planet (the average rainfall is 460 inches per year).
After all of the sightseeing tours, we met up with Ryan to search for our photo shoot locations. We drove around the entire island, and anytime we came upon a locked gate, Ryan would open up his bag of keys and unlock the gate – he has a key for just about every gate on the island. With this unlimited access, we were able to enjoy some spectacular beaches and amazing ocean views. After finding a few locations that included a golf course, a palm-tree-lined road and an old sugar mill, we headed back to their shop for a few cold Heinekens before venturing back to our hotel.
Time flies in Hawaii, and before we knew it, Saturday had arrived. We got up early to meet with Ryan at 7:00 a.m. and start shooting by 8:00, but the beautiful dawn sky quickly turned cloudy and by 7:30 it was pouring rain. For two hours, we anxiously waited for the downpours to cease, and then, just as fast as it had come in, the rain was gone. But now our clean and shiny truck had to go half a mile down a dirt road (now mud) to get to the main road. Ryan had one of his employees bring out a big scraper to smooth everything out and cover up the wet spots, and then away we went to our first location in Poipu, finally taking our first picture at 10:45 a.m. But what a day it turned out to be!
After shooting for most of the day at some beautiful and interesting locations, we headed over to a local restaurant to eat some Mahi Mahi tacos and do our interview. Looking through the pictures, we all decided that there are no bad photos in Hawaii. One of the locations we shot at was the old McBryde Sugar Processing Facility in Koloa. Kauai used to be the sugar plantation capital of the world, but not anymore. The mill we went to, which was built around 1898, closed about twelve years ago, and today is used for corporate picnics, parties, weddings and other special events. The rusty rig in the background of those pictures is an old Peterbilt conventional that the mill used to haul sugar cane and pull a water tanker. The last sugar plantation on Kauai just harvested its last crop, and the only other sugar plantation left in Hawaii is on the island of Maui. Most of the sugar plantations are now coffee plantations. In fact, Kauai is the home of the largest drip-irrigated coffee plantation in the world – the Kauai Coffee Co. – which has four million trees sprawled out over 3,500 acres.
Ryan’s father Richard (Ricky) has been in the construction and trucking industries since high school so, naturally, Ryan and his siblings grew up around trucks. Ricky was a union worker until 1980, when he got a job at Kekaha Sugar, running their shop. He stayed there until 1990 and then took a job at the Grove Farm Company, where he again ran the truck shop. Grove Farm was a large and diverse company, involved in both farming and construction, but they decided to close the construction side of the business and Ricky found himself out of a job. Grove Farm began selling off their equipment, and Ricky and his boys thought it was a good time to buy some pieces and start their own operation. So, in 1999, Wa’Alani Enterprises was born.
After graduating from a Catholic high school on the island in 1991, Ryan headed to Universal Technical Institute in Phoenix, Arizona to study diesel mechanics, then changed his studies to commercial and residential refrigeration. After a year, he became a certified specialist. He then returned to the island and got a job working at a local hotel. But later that year, in September of 1992, a Category 4 hurricane (Hurricane Iniki) passed directly over the island, causing massive damage and six deaths. The hurricane destroyed most of the structures on the island, including the hotel that Ryan was working at, leaving him without a job or many career prospects, so he turned to the only industry on the island that was booming – demolition and construction. Ryan worked in and around the construction industry (mostly the trucking side of things) for the next six or seven years until he and his father started Wa’Alani Enterprises together.
Starting with just one Kenworth and a few pieces of equipment, the company focused on road work and heavy hauling. Today, they have ten trucks (not bad for an island that only has maybe 100 in total) and do all sorts of hauling including top soil, demo, equipment, aggregates and construction materials. They also have all kinds of loaders, graders, backhoes, excavators and other kinds of equipment for construction and road work. Sometimes they do the actual work, while other times they just haul in the heavy equipment. The company has ten employees, many of whom are family members, and they all wear many hats. Ryan’s dad is now semi-retired, so Ryan handles the day-to-day operations of the company. Ryan’s older brother Ricky Jr. is a driver and equipment operator, while his two sisters are not really involved directly with the company.
In 2001, after really pushing the boys to start the company, Ryan’s mother Barbara passed away from breast cancer. This was a big blow to the tight-knit family. The following year, Ryan wanted to buy a new pre-emission KW, but all of the “slots” were taken. The dealer that Ryan works with in Sacramento, California, was going to take a trade-in from a customer who had a slot (reservation) for one of those last pre-emission trucks, and Ryan was going to buy the traded-in truck – but he really wanted a new one. At the last minute, that customer changed his mind and Ryan was able to take his slot for a brand new Kenworth. Ryan truly believes that his mother had a divine hand in making this deal come together. It is for this reason that the license plate on Ryan’s rig says “BARB-W” – to honor his mom, the one that made it happen.
The truck is a 2003 Kenworth W900B with a 500 Cummins ISX, an 18-speed trans, 2-speed 46,000-lb. rears, an air-ride cab, spring and walking beam suspension, a nice factory sound system and metallic green paint. Ryan actually traveled to the Kenworth factory in Washington to watch his truck get built. And once it was built, it took a few weeks (and about $8,000 dollars) to get it back to Kauai. Once there, Ryan upgraded a couple parts including the stacks and visor, and then added a few extra pieces of chrome and some lights. We mentioned the Heineken beer before – well, these guys really love it – so much that they have used Heineken bottle caps as nut covers all over the truck (they fit perfectly and are even the right color). We thought that was pretty funny. Other than that, the truck is pretty much stock – but boy does Ryan work hard to keep it looking clean and new!
When Ryan isn’t trucking, he likes to hang out with his wife Teresa and their kids, Charissa (11) and Ryson (5). He also likes to go hunting and to the rodeo. In fact, he and his buddies compete in a few rodeos every year, doing what’s called “Double Mugging” where two cowboys, one on a horse and one on the ground, rope and take down a 500-700-lb. steer (Ryan is the one on the ground). He also likes to get away to Las Vegas, Nevada whenever he can.
On a sad note, the company recently lost one of its drivers and Ryan lost one of his best friends in an accident that happened last June. Scott Aviguetero (26) was driving his truck when a girl on a motorcycle lost control and crashed in front of him. To avoid running her over, Scott swerved off the road and rolled his truck, killing him. Ryan and Scott were like brothers, and Ryan misses him very much.
Ryan likes the current size of the company and is not looking to grow. He also likes the fact that any family members that ever need or want a job, always have a place to go. Ryan wanted to thank his longtime friend Koani for detailing the truck for the shoot, and everyone else in the shop for their help. We enjoyed getting to know Ryan and his crew, and definitely enjoyed the island of Kauai. We also realized that truckin’ Hawaiian-Island style is a lot like regular trucking except the scenery is always spectacular, there is rarely ever any traffic, and a coast-to-coast run is only about 50 miles long! Aloha!!