Commission members as of March 2011
• Michele McLean
• William J. Aila Jr.
• Dr. Noa Emmett Aluli
• Christopher M. Kaliko Baker
• Colette Y. Machado
• Kaʻiulani Murphy
• Amber Nāmaka Whitehead
Michele C. McLean
County of Maui
Term expires June 30, 2015
Michele Chouteau McLean is the Deputy Planning Director for the County of Maui and is the County's representative on the KIRC.
She was previously the Deputy Director for the KIRC, where she worked for more than five years and was responsible for procurement,
contracting, budget administration and overseeing the Restoration and Ocean programs and day-to-day operations.
Before joining the KIRC, Michele was a land use planner and consultant in the private sector, as well as a
legislative analyst for the Maui County Council, specializing in planning issues. Prior to moving to Maui to be closer to her family,
she spent six years in Washington, D.C., as a legislative aide and research analyst in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Michele graduated from Vassar College with a degree in Political Science and studied for one year in the MBA program at the University of Phoenix Maui Campus.
William J. Aila Jr.
Department of Land and Natural Resources, Chairperson
William J. Aila Jr. is a member of KIRC as the Chairperson of the Board of Land and Natural Resources.
In assuming the duties of Chairperson of the Board of Land and Natural Resources - responsible for managing Hawaii's unique and fragile natural and cultural resources - William J. Aila Jr. comes to Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve Commission well-credentialed.
William J. Aila Jr. is the longtime and respected harbor agent for Waianae Boat Harbor. Mr. Aila, 52, has worked for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources for more than 23 years in the Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation. His responsibilities include
managing, operating and maintaining 31 acres of fast and submerged lands. Mr. Aila has served on national, state and community advisory groups for more than 20 years, which has given him the opportunity to interact and listen to concerns expressed by different stakeholders
affected by DLNR regulations and policies.
As president of Mohala I Ka Wai, Mr. Aila worked with the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife, U.S. Army, community groups and private landowners to create the Waianae Mountains Watershed Partnership, an organization dedicated to protecting Hawaii's forest,
streams and drinking water.
Mr. Aila, a Waianae High School graduate, received his Bachelor's degree in General Tropical Agriculture from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Dr. Noa Emmett Aluli
Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana
Term expires June 30, 2015
Dr. Noa Emmett Aluli is a member of Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve Commission (KIRC) and represents the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana (PKO). He has served as a KIRC Commissioner since 1993.
Dr. Aluli is a physician currently in private practice on Molokaʻi and serves as the Co-Medical Executive Director at Moloka'i General Hospital. Dr. Aluli is a founding member of the PKO and Na Puʻuwai, Inc., the Native Hawaiian Health Care System.
In 1976, Dr. Aluli lead a group of Native Hawaiians in occupying Kahoʻolawe to protest the island's bombing by the U.S. Navy and establish Kahoʻolawe as a symbol of the renaissance of the Hawaiian culture, including the principle of malama ʻāina,
the ethic of caring for the land. Since that time, he has led the PKO through a court-ordered consent decree, signed in 1980 by the U.S. Navy and the PKO, granting access to the island and requiring the Navy to protect historic and cultural sites, clear surface ordnance,
begin soil conservation programs, eradicate goats and limit future ordnance training to the central part of the island. Since 1980, the PKO has facilitated access to Kaho'olawe for native Hawaiians and the general public for religious, educational and scientific activities.
In 1990, Dr. Aluli was appointed to the congressionally established Kaho'olawe Island Conveyance Commission to establish the terms and conditions for the return of the island to the State of Hawaiʻi. In 1993, the Legislature of the State of Hawaiʻi created the KIRC.
Dr. Aluli was appointed as a founding member and original chairperson of the KIRC.
During his tenure, he has overseen the conveyance of Kahoʻolawe back to the State of Hawaiʻi and helped establish the vision for the Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve. The vision calls for a rebirth of the land and the ocean surrounding the island and acknowledging the island
as the "crossroads of past and future generations, from which the native Hawaiian lifestyle is spread."
Dr. Aluli completed his undergraduate studies at Marquette University in Biology and Chemistry and was in the first graduating class of the John A. Burns School of Medicine in 1975. Following a year in the University of Hawaiʻi Integrated Flexible Residency program,
he moved to Molokaʻi to join a Family Practice Clinic.
Christopher M. Kaliko Baker
Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana
Term expires June 30, 2013
Christopher M. Kaliko Baker is a member of KIRC Commission as a respresentative of PKO.
A graduate of Castle High School and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM), Commissioner Baker is a PhD candidate in Linguistics and an instructor of Hawaiian at UHM's Kawaihuelani Center for Hawaiian Language.
As a long-time member of the PKO, Kaliko has been part of Kahoʻolawe's history from the Navy's return of the island to its transition to State management of its natural and cultural resources.
In addition, he brings to the commission his expertise in Hawaiian language and Hawaiian cultural traditions as a noted Hawaiian language playwright and lead cultural practitioner for the makahiki ceremony on Kahoʻolawe.
Commissioner Baker's dedication to perpetuating the native Hawaiian language and culture is in alignment with the KIRC's vision for Kahoʻolawe; "where the people of Hawaiʻi cares for the land in a manner which recognizes the island and ocean of Kanaloa
(an ancient name for Kahoʻolawe) as a living spiritual entity. Kanaloa is a puʻuhonua (place of safety) and wahi pana (storied place) where Native Hawaiian cultural practices flourish."
Colette Y. Machado
Office of Hawaiian Affairs
Term expires June 30, 2013
Currently serving her fourth term as Office of Hawaiian Affairs' (OHA) trustee for Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi, Colette Y. Machado was born at Hoʻolehua, Molokaʻi, and resides at Pūkoʻo, East Molokaʻi with her husband, Myron Akutagawa. Trustee/Commissioner Machado graduated from the University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa with a bachelor's degree
in Education and went on to become an accomplished educator and leader throughout the Hawaiian islands.
A Kaikamahine A Ka ʻAha (Deaconess) with Ka Hale Hoʻāno O Ke Akua Church, she has served as the chairperson of the Beneficiary Advocacy and Empowerment Committee since 2002 and chairperson of the Legislative and Government Affairs Committee from 1999-2001. Colette also serves as president of the Molokaʻi Land Trust and was vice-president of the Molokaʻi
Enterprise Community Governance Board (EC), Ke Aupuni Lōkahi. Machado previously served two terms as the OHA representative to the KIRC where she served as both the Chair and Vice-Chair of the commission. Among her other noteworthy public service posts have been as a Hawaii State Land Use Commissioner; Hawaiian Home Lands Commissioner; Molokaʻi Burial Council; Molokaʻi
Fishpond Restoration Task Force; and on the Governor's Molokaʻi Subsistence Task Force.
Kaʻiulani Murphy
Native Hawaiian Organizations - Polynesian Voyaging Society
Term expires June 30, 2012
Kaʻiulani Murphy is a member of the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS)and serves as the Native Hawaiian Organization Representative on the Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve Commission.
Born and raised in Waimea on the island of Hawaiʻi, Kaʻiulani graduated from the Kamehameha Schools and earned a Bachelor's degree in Hawaiian Studies from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. It was at the UH-Mānoa that she signed up for a voyaging class at Kamakuokalani (Center for Hawaiian Studies) and fell in love with the Hawaiian culture and voyaging.
Years later, Kaʻiulani has emerged as one of the youngest and most promising of the traditional navigators in Hawaiʻi.
As one of the next generation of traditional Hawaiian navigators, Kaʻiulani's training is in alignment with the KIRC's strategic goals of establishing a traditional Hawaiian navigation field school on Kahoʻolawe as well as restoring archaeological and cultural sites relating to traditional way finding. Kaʻiulani previously served as resource in the development of the Mālama
Kahoʻolawe Education Program, a place-, culture-based, secondary school curriculum developed in partnership with the KIRC, PKO, PVS and the Pacific American Foundation. The program brought Kahoʻolawe to the classrooms of middle and high school students though lessons in math, science and social studies utilizing Kahoʻolawe at its teaching core.
Kaʻiulani is currently an instructor in Hawaiian Studies at Honolulu Community College.
Amber Nāmaka Whitehead
Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana
Term expires June 30, 2012
Amber Nāmaka Whitehead is a member of KIRC Commission as a respresentative of PKO.
A 1997 graduate of Kamehameha Schools, Amber Nāmaka Whitehead earned her bachelor's degree in Hawaiian Studies and Botany from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 2002 and is currently is enrolled as a doctoral student in the Botany Department and Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology Program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Her dissertation research explores the linkages between traditional and contemporary natural resources management practices and indigenous knowledge systems, with a focus on the wild-gathering of maile. Concurrently employed as Ecologist for the Kamehameha Schools Land Assets Division, Commissioner Whitehead is responsible for Kamehameha Schools' stewardship
management of natural resources across approximately 360,000 acres of land on Hawaiʻi, Maui, Molokaʻi, Oʻahu, and Kauaʻi.
As an active member of the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana for more than 14 years, Commissioner Whitehead progressively assumed more responsibility including supervision of and direction for participants who access Kahoʻolawe with the ʻOhana
as well as for the overall operations of the ʻOhana and caring for the island itself - duties as varied as reconstruction of the traditional pili and ʻōhiʻa Hale Hālāwai (meeting house) at Hakioawa to intensive access guide training.
Trained and knowledgeable in Native Hawaiian traditional customs and practices that are so closely entwined with restoration of the cultural resources of Kahoʻolawe, in 2004, she undertook intensive access guide training which included the identification of unexploded ordnance (UXO) as well as safety and health procedures to provide for the safe experience of
Kahoʻolawe visitors. With her extensive background, Ms. Whitehead brings first-hand cultural awareness as well as knowledge of UXO and the health and safety risks and challenges that KIRC staffers regularly confront to her role as a policy maker on the Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve Commission.
Commissioner Whitehead represents the younger generation who begin assuming the mantle of leadership of the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana and the Kahoʻolawe Island Reserve Commission - continuing the vision of kupuna such as Uncle Harry Mitchell, and makua such as George Helm - who laid the groundwork for the restoration of the island's cultural and natural resources.
Her youthful and informed perspective, her demonstrated abilities, and her dedication to the restoration of Kanaloa Kahoʻolawe as a puʻuhonua (cultural refuge) combine to ensure that the Native Hawaiian lifestyle and culture will flourish on Kahoʻolawe and be embraced by all the people of Hawaiʻi - Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian alike.
Commissioner Whitehead lives in Pāpā, South Kona, on the island of Hawaiʻi.
