Based on his long tenure hyping Las Vegas as sales and promotions manager for Vacations Hawaii, you might think Kevin Kaneshiro always had his sights laser-focused on the ninth island. But growing up in Kaneohe as part of the local Nazarene church, a close relationship with Sin City was hardly part of the plan.

After high school, it was practically a given that Kaneshiro would attend Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego—it was the closest one of that denomination—so he packed his bags with vague designs for a career in architecture. Flying home after his freshman year in 1984, he landed a summer gig at Vacations Hawaii, planning to return to San Diego in the fall.

At the time, the agency had just taken on American Airlines as an account, managing ground handling for the airlines’ inbound product from all over the country. It was a big endeavor—big enough that Kaneshiro opted to stay in Hawai‘i rather than head back to the mainland at the end of the summer.

As part of a small travel agency escorting tour groups on trips and cruises around the world, Kaneshiro was accustomed to wearing a lot of hats. But when casino giant Boyd Gaming bought Vacations Hawaii in 1995 and the agency became a predominantly wholesale charter service serving the sizeable ninth island market, it became Kaneshiro’s full-time task handling marketing and promotions for Vacations Hawaii charters from Hawai‘i to Boyd Gaming’s California, Fremont and Main Street Station casino hotels in downtown Las Vegas.

Now, Vacations Hawaii is practically a household name among the Las Vegas-bound senior market, carting nearly 2,000 Hawai‘i residents to Las Vegas each week. Part of Kaneshiro’s job is taking care of Boyd Gaming’s top casino guests, sending Vacations Hawaii VIPs to events, parties and UH games and maintaining the kind of brand loyalty that drives Hawai‘i people to Boyd Gaming’s downtown casinos in droves and has landed Vacations Hawaii on the Star Advertiser’s Hawaii’s Best list for seven years in a row.

“Every day is different,” Kaneshiro says. In Hawai‘i, his day-to-day includes handling Vacations Hawaii’s TV, radio and print marketing and promotions, as well as numerous event sponsorships throughout the year. Two or three times a year, it includes heading to Vegas to do radio broadcasts and film telecasts like Hawaii News Now’s recent Sunrise morning show filmed at the Cal in September.

“Getting to promote my favorite destination and keep up with what’s going on in Vegas is a dream come true.”

But more often than not, he’s in Vegas for pleasure, not business. “I love to gamble, so Vegas is a good place for me—or a bad place,” he laughs. Michael Jackson ONE is his favorite Cirque du Soleil show at the moment, and he has a soft spot for the Donny and Marie Osmond show at the Flamingo, having grown up watching the Donny & Marie show.

“One of the biggest draws for our younger market is the value,” Kaneshiro says. “Realizing you can stay downtown and still go see Bruno Mars on the Strip. A lot of our customers who go five, six or even seven times a year are gamblers. They probably don’t care as much about entertainment or dance clubs, but I think the younger market certainly does.”

Now in its final stages, the Cal’s multimillion-dollar renovation has been a big draw for the company’s under-50 market. There’s also the recent revitalization of downtown Las Vegas, which includes an abundance of new bars, eateries, shops and live music venues in its progressive Fremont East district. “Getting paid to promote my favorite destination and keep up with what’s going on in Vegas is a dream come true,” Kaneshiro says. “Our customers love the product and so serving them is really fun and rewarding, too.”

It’s certainly made navigating the ups and downs of his more than 30 years with Vacations Hawaii that much easier. “When times get hard, just keep walking one step at a time,” Kaneshiro says. “Keep persisting and you’ll get through it. I tend to be a very positive person, so finding the positive side of any situation has helped me a lot in dealing with customers or situations in general.”

Luckily, Kaneshiro has plenty of fond memories to draw from. Like Vacations Hawaii’s first million-dollar keno win—a local guy from ‘Ewa Beach who picked his numbers based on a combination of his children’s ages—and crowning former Miss Universe Brook Lee when Vacations Hawaii ran its Miss Vacations Hawaii pageant, a preliminary for Miss Hawai‘i, in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

“I was just a little hapa kid from Hawai‘i who lucked out on a summer job that ended up to be my career,” Kaneshiro says. His mother—a practicing Nazarene—has even warmed up to Sin City, having on several occasions allowed her son to show her the non-gambling side of Vegas. “She’s even asked, ‘When’s our next Vegas trip?’” Kaneshiro laughs.