She Helped Evacuate Tourists From the Hawaii Fires. Now She’s Helping Feed Maui Residents.
Lisa Paulson '86 was in August named the CEO of Maui Food Bank. She obtained a degree from Chatham in business administration and music. (Aubrey Hord / Maui Food Bank)
Lisa Paulson ’86 has spent nearly 30 years living on the island of Maui in Hawaii, and it isn’t just the beauty that’s kept her there. It’s the community of the small island, whose population is a little more than half the size of Pittsburgh’s. She felt similarly when she came to Chatham, where she majored in business administration and music.
“I really wanted to go to a women’s college,” she said. “It was a small, beautiful oasis. When I visited the campus, I just fell in love.” Right off the bat, she felt supported by staff, faculty, advisors, and her roommates. “It was just very inclusive and supportive. I knew, as soon as I got there, I had made the right decision.”
Paulson last month was named the new CEO of Maui Food Bank. Now a leader in nonprofits, she came to Chatham on a voice scholarship and, she said, “fought tooth and nail” to stay there when her parents wanted her to transfer elsewhere.
During her time at Chatham, she worked internships with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the University of Pittsburgh. Her senior music thesis included a performance of Samuel Barber’s “Hermit Songs,” and for her business administration thesis, she researched Shakespeare festivals around the United States. She hoped to land a job in nonprofit arts and continue singing opera as a side gig.
At that time, her parents were encouraging her to become a nurse, teacher, or accountant—careers they saw as steady work. The support she had at Chatham broke that mold and showed her more possibilities, Paulson said. No one told her there were things she couldn’t do.
“There were all these different roadmaps laid out for me, giving me the options of where I wanted to go with the skills I had.”
Chatham was ahead of its time, she said. “They were innovative and encouraging women to think outside the box. That’s where I first started thinking about my opportunities and what I could be.” What she remembers most about the then-college was the relationships she made with students, staff, and faculty.
After Chatham, Paulson moved across the state to work for The Philadelphia Orchestra. She then went west to Los Angeles, where she worked at St. Barnabas Senior Center and the Pacific Whale Foundation.
She and her husband moved to Maui in 1995. After a job at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center and a stint running an arts school in Kapalua, she landed at Maui’s Hotel and Lodging Association, where she lobbied elected representatives on behalf of the island’s hospitality industry.
When wildfires devastated Maui last year, Paulson, who was still working as a hospitality industry lobbyist, stepped up to help. From the county’s emergency operations center, she leveraged connections in her community and industry, fielding calls from businesses, individuals, and organizations, all of whom were trying to evacuate tourists from the disaster zone.
With an economy powered by tourism, the island holds swaths of tour buses. Paulson worked alongside the local police and public works departments to select drivers who could take buses into the disaster zone and bring people to safety. In total, they helped evacuate around 12 thousand tourists.
It was a challenging time, she said, but she was also amazed by the resiliency of the island community that banded together to help each other. It also reminded her of her dad. “I grew up with a father who worked as a meteorologist, and we were always prepared for disasters,” Paulson said. “We would hop in his MGB and chase tornados sometimes.”
Now, as the CEO of Maui Food Bank, Paulson is still helping people who’ve been impacted by the fires. “What happened is a lot of food hubs opened up in the disaster area because of need,” she said. “As we move toward recovery and resilience, we’re transforming those disaster hubs into partner agencies that are already established in other parts of the island.”
The food bank measures its community support in poundage, which Paulson said went up 65 percent after the fires. She expects that number to continue to grow as the island recovers. “Families that could normally put food on the table, their funds have shifted to rent and housing,” she said.
As she takes on this new challenge, Paulson said she still feels bolstered by the confidence and resilience she honed at Chatham. From working with orchestras to lobbying state representatives to leading a food bank—she never thought any of it was impossible. “[Chatham] gave me the foundation for where I am today,” Paulson said. “It taught me to stretch the possibilities.”
Learn more about Chatham’s business majors, which are now part of the new School of Business & Enterprise, at chatham.edu.