When Sukit Kanaprach first started The Orchid Lei Company in 2003, he was the company’s one and only employee. Kanaprach had to learn how to manage every single step needed to import and export orchid leis.
He dealt with local farmers on both O‘ahu and the Big Island, coordinated with farms in Thailand, handled the shipments, removed cargo from the docks, delivered the leis to customers and juggled invoices and payments.
It was a labor of love that Kanaprach has since expanded into a 12-employee operation out of Kalihi. The company provides leis for hotels on O‘ahu and wholesalers throughout Hawai‘i and the world. Now 40, the Bangkok-born business owner relishes overseeing a company that delivers flowers and “makes people happy.”
“Even today I don’t think I’m a president, I’m just one of the workers,” Kanaprach says. “We work together here—I can’t do it myself anymore. It would be impossible.”
The Orchid Lei Company formed as an off-shoot of ECAN, a Thai-based orchid lei company that Kanaprach’s parents purchased in 1992. Though he never intended to get involved in the family business, Kanaprach started putting in time while earning his master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology at Hawai‘i Pacific University.
That meant 4 a.m. wake-up calls, full days spent surviving the rigors of being the company’s sole employee, full evenings of night classes, then studying and homework until at least midnight.
It’s a grind that Kanaprach assumed without question. Even now, with a dozen full-time employees at his disposal to distribute the company’s 300 unique types of leis, he’s still up at 5 a.m. working seven days a week. “You have to love it,” Kanaprach says. “If there’s something that needs to be done, it needs to be done.”
That determination is how Kanaprach handles all the stresses of running a business with so many variables. When perishable orchids are transported across the world, a delay of a day or two can mean the loss of $15,000 or more in a single shipment. A slight malfunction or miscalculation of the temperature of the shipping container can result in a box of rotting flowers on arrival. A storm can alter timetables by a week. Sometimes, the country’s customs office fails to inspect the cargo before it spoils.
All this forces Kanaprach—whose calm, soft-spoken demeanor is surely an asset in this industry—to be a creative problem-solver. “It’s a part of business,” he says. “What can we fix? What needs to be delivered tomorrow? What needs to be done? What needs to be fixed? The flower part is the last thing we worry about. We just need to fix the problem first.”
A small shipment of a dozen premium leis was once held up by customs in Japan and wasn’t going to arrive in time for the opening of a temple there. Kanaprach had three days to find a solution. So he bought a commercial plane ticket for one of his workers, who brought the leis on the plane and delivered them in person.
That kind of personal touch is Kanaprach’s forte. Over the past year and a half, he has provided lunch for his workers on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays knowing that this small gesture of appreciation makes his employees—the backbone of the company—feel valued and work more efficiently. Kanaprach figures that this way, they don’t have to leave the company’s Kalihi office to get lunch three days a week.
Kanaprach also had to learn the hard lesson that sometimes, he can’t fix everything. Recently, one of the company’s employees was experiencing myriad personal issues. Kanaprach did his best to accommodate him, being as flexible and understanding as he could. Eventually, though, after the employee missed weeks of work without notice, Kanaprach made the heartbreaking decision to let him go.
“I almost feel like I failed him because I couldn’t help him,” Kanaprach says, with tears in his eyes. His candid empathy speaks to both his humanity and the weight of managing a dozen employees who have their own personal lives and responsibilities.
“He’s all about people,” says Kanaprach’s wife, Rebecca, who also works for The Orchid Lei Company. “He hopes that they can grow at the same time as we are growing together. Leave no people behind, because it makes you feel connected and it makes other people feel successful. It’s part of his fulfillment. We’re really grateful for the staff who are doing their best every day to make it work as a team.”
