Page 2 - MidWeek Kauai - July 6, 2022

2 KAUA‘I MIDWEEK JULY 6, 2022
From selling plumeria lei on the side of the road to picking and trading fruit from his grandpa’s yard, entrepreneurship has always been in Robert Hennessy’s nature.
by Ginger Keller
The Pipeline From Dropout To President
The Mānoa resident — who today is the president and owner of Flo Water of Hawai‘i, a water refill station retailer and service company — is, believe it or not, a high school dropout.
“It was kind of serendip- itous in a way because I had just graduated and I was basi- cally already running a sales program for them and had all the experience. It just kind of made sense,” Hennessy explains. “I gathered my
FloWater of Hawai‘i dab- bles in all areas of his inter- ests: business, environmen- talism and, of course, water.
“It’s been a really crazy ride,” he says with a smile. “It’s interesting when you grow a business, you wear a
At the end of the day, Hen- nessy is doing something he loves, which in turn allows him to do something he loves, maybe just a little bit more.
For more information on FloWater of Hawai‘i, visit flowater-hi.com or check out its Instagram (@flowaterha- waii).
nessy purchased the Hawai‘i dealership.
resources, had to borrow a bunch of money from friends and family, and I bought the existing assets in Hawai‘i.”
under 100 accounts on O‘ahu. Today, it has more than 1,000 — found in places from five- star hotels and fitness centers to nail salons and dentist of- fices — around the state.
lot of different hats and you manage a lot of different things.”
ness) is being able to make my own schedule and being able to surf when I want,” he says. “That’s definitely the main advantage.”
When he took over in 2015, the company had just
“For me, my favorite thing (about having my own busi-
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While growing up in the rural town of Hā‘ena on the island of Kaua‘i provided countless benefits, driving by some of the world’s best beaches, namely Hanalei Bay, was not one of them. Every morning on his way to school, Hennessy would pine for the waves, until eventu- ally he decided to stop going entirely.
“My parents weren’t hap- py about that, but I knew I was going to go back,” he says.
Hennessy, who admits this is not the ideal route for ev- eryone, spent his days doing what he longed to do: play in the water. He taught surf lessons and eventually estab- lished his own company on Kaua‘i and later O‘ahu.
Robert Hennessy owns and operates FloWater of Hawai‘i. PHOTO COURTESY ROBERT HENNESSY
Fill in the blank cells using numbers 1 to 9. Each number can appear only once in each row, column, and 3x3 block. Use logic and process of elimination to solve the puzzle. The difficulty level ranges from Bronze (easiest) to Silver to Gold (hardest). Answers are on page 7
RATING: SILVER
“I was able to grow that to an extent where I was able to make a living and basically pay for college,” he shares.
Creating that
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He attended University of Hawai‘i Shidler College of Business at age 22 and graduated with a degree in business finance. Mean- while, a close friend, Wyatt Taubman, started a company called FloWater, where Hen- nessy interned for while at UH. The company was mov- ing to the mainland, and Hen-
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