2023-11-21 Merit Appeals Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board November 21, 2023 there. I moved away to get my master's in social work and I'm a Clinical Social Worker in our community. I have worked with non -profits, (inaudible) a private practice, and now I work for Hawaii Community College as a faculty member in providing health services to the campus. (Inaudible.) CHR. CABANAS: Thank you, Kate. Moving along to Mr. Kunz. MR. KUNZ: I went to elementary school at—my name's Charlie Kunz. I'm skipping all the rest of the—everything else. I worked at the Department of Labor for 35 years, managed the office—Hilo and Kona. And retired there about five years ago. And if my name looks familiar, I may as well go ahead and say, my wife is Susan Kunz. She's my better three-quarters—and I'm just happy that everyone's here because I think this is going to be a good start. Waylen used to work for me many, many years ago. And I'm just pleased that everyone's here to see this and then we can move forward with a new director and, hopefully, the same types of direction that both Waylen and his deputy were taking. So, thank you for being here. Sorry, I was late. There was no parking outside parked by your guys office. CHR. CABANAS: Okay, thank you, Charlie. I'll say a little bit about myself. So, let's see. Some of you already know me, but for those that don't. I'm a graduate of St. Joseph High School and the University of Hawaii at Hilo. I worked in government for 45 years. I started out with the State of Hawaii. I worked in different capacities—DOE, Department of Labor, the State Department of Personnel—which is now known as DHRD. And then, I did a little stint with Public Safety—and all that time I was working for the State, I was applying for other government jobs, especially with the County. So, I got hired in 1981 with Department of Public Works. And then, I was there for a little over a year and then I got a promotion to Department of Civil Service, which is now known as Department of Human Resources because there was a Charter amendment changing the name of the department. So, I worked for the County for over 37 -and -a -half years and I'm going to make five years retired come December 1st. And I retired as a HR manager because I was the Recruitment and Examination Manager. During the time I—when I first started with the department, the then - Director of Civil Service, David K. Luke, Jr. when I started, the department was about with nine employees and I was the tenth because I entered into a new position. And David wanted to reorganize the department. He wanted divisions because when I started everyone was a Generalist I did a little bit of classification, I did a little bit of recruitment, I did a little bit of training, a little bit of everything. But he wanted to reorganize, so he assigned me to actually create the Recruitment and Examination Division. And the other divisions were also developed subsequently. So, the division actually grew with me and I grew with the division as the years unfolded. And I think Page 4