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Employees, Customers Prized Possessions at Rare & DearPacific Business News, 30 June 1998. (Honolulu) No one named Rare and no one named Dear works at Rare & Dear Inc., but each employee and each client is considered a little of both. Such is the philosophy behind this software consultant company co-founded by its president , Ned Dana. Based in Eleele, a little town on Kauai’s south shore, attitude and latitude become important elements in delivering the type of work the Rare & Dear client demands. "Kauai is clearly a lifestyle change from Silicon Valley. I didn’t come here to create a business, but I thought it was a place where I could think clearly," Dana said. "It has been 10 years now. Kauai supports careful reflection that leads to good software." The company does have offices in Honolulu, at the Dillingham Transportation Building on Bishop Street, where Dana and his staff put in a little face time when it comes to accommodating clients in need. Rare & Dear specializes in Oracle Systems Corp. database development and administration. Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle designs, develops, markets and supports computer software products with a wide variety of uses, including database management and network products, applications development productivity tools and end user applications. Dana said his company’s headquarters, in plantation houses once owned by McBryde Sugar Co. Ltd., does not prevent it from securing the type of staff required to uphold Oracle’s standards. The company casts a wide net and has hired people from as far away as Turkey. After hiring 10 people last year, Rare & Dear now has a staff of 22, most of whom have technology backgrounds and some with administration training. A background in Oracle is what Rare & Dear looks for first for its technology positions, but programming in fields such as health care and accounting are also attractive to the company as it seeks to fill the needs of a variety of clients. Rare & Dear deals with companies specializing in a wide range of industries. Bank of Hawaii, Honolulu’s Land Utilization Department, Tesoro and the University of Hawaii Foundation are a few of the organizations that have hired Rare & Dear to upgrade their systems. Curtis Helsel, director of development services for the University of Hawaii Foundation, said he is pleased with the assistance Rare & Dear provided. "We are in the middle of a multiyear, multiplatform system replacement and one of the aspects of that installation is bringing up a database based on Oracle," Helsel said. "We have, as part of our implementation, outsourced systems management and database administration work. We are very happy to find we have some experts in Oracle here in Hawaii." Helsel said Oracle was chosen because it answered the foundation’s specific needs for applications software. As Helsel put it, Oracle salespeople were partnered with Rare & Dear, and left the foundation in capable hands. Those businesses now contemplating issues such as preparing computers for the century switch to 2000, installing an intranet, and allowing for the coordination and access of various programs and data are the clients Rare & Dear hears from most. But the company does have a sales force marketing its capabilities in person, and on its Internet Web site at http://www.rare-dear.com. Dana is obligated to protect the confidentiality of his clients and only discloses the names of those willing to discuss their challenges. On the Web site, Rare & Dear details how it solved the problems of an international utility company, an international bank and a U.S. Department of Defense telecommunications project. The utility company faced new U.S. Customs regulations requiring it to change the manner in which duty was calculated on imports of foreign materials. Rare & Dear analysis and development led to the use of the new software Oracle Tools to enhance team productivity. That, and other work, approved by the U.S. Customs Service, reduced unnecessary tax payments. The DOD contractor had negotiated aggressively to win the military’s business, but did not have a database administrator experienced in Oracle to see the project through. Rare & Dear designed and configured its Oracle server to support the network management center, which relied on six Oracle-based applications. "It might be that they could have gotten the job done cheaper if they had gone to someone other than a company located on Kauai," Dana said. "But we are committed to high-quality design. With the Internet everywhere and with video telecommunications, more and more the wall of water isn’t there." Sometimes the pressure mounts. Even on Kauai, marathon programming and problem solving sessions occur. Dana’s "out-of-the-box" thinking triggered the hiring of a massage therapist to visit the site and help the employees work out their kinks. Treating employees as though they were rare and dear is the best thing the company can do for its rare and dear clients. |
