LEADERSHIP IN MOTION WITH HPU ALUMNUS PAUL GENE

HPU MBA alumnus Paul Gene ’02 stood at the front of an HPU College of Business classroom in fall 2025 as a guest speaker, looking out at a room full of students leaning forward in their seats. On the board behind him, he wrote two simple words in neat block letters: Zero Defects (ZD).

“I learned this in a semiconductor factory in Seoul,” Gene told the class, drawing a small dot and circling it. “Fifty defects per million (DPM) units was considered a good month. That mindset, quality, attention to detail, and taking responsibility, is the same mindset you need to build a company, lead a team, or serve a customer.”

For nearly an hour, Gene shared how those lessons in quality, persistence, and vision carried him from a boyhood in South Korea, to Laie, to Downtown Honolulu, and eventually to founding North Shore Beach Bus, one of Hawaiʻi’s top-rated tour companies. His stories were practical and inspirational, the kind of real-world leadership insights he once went searching for as a graduate student at HPU.

“I chose HPU because the faculty members are connected in the real world,” said Gene. “Professors are working in the industries we want to learn. It’s not just theory. You get to learn firsthand from people who are doing the work.”

Long before he was a guest lecturer at HPU, Gene was a teenager in Jeonju City, South Korea, about a two-hour bus ride from Seoul. He attended the city’s top-ranked high school, where entrance exams and national rankings shaped long evenings of studying and high expectations at home. He dreamed of attending the national military academy, but when he did not pass the highly competitive entrance exam and another university path did not feel right, he completed three years of mandatory military service and began to look outward.

Gene set his sights on the U.S. and threw himself into preparing, studying intensely, passing an English proficiency test, and mapping out the next step. But the timing wasn’t right. With new responsibilities at home, he chose a practical path forward: he stayed in South Korea and found a position at a semiconductor manufacturing company in Seoul, using his strong English reading and writing skills to work with global clients like Intel and Motorola.

He learned the rigor of quality control and statistical thinking, how small errors add up, how systems hold (or fail), and how discipline becomes a kind of leadership. Those lessons stuck.

“I enjoyed that job and got to practice my English,” he said with a smile. “I learned about quality control! That experience really influenced my business acumen in Hawaiʻi.”

Around the same time, Gene felt a pull toward entrepreneurship. Seeing the strong demand for afterschool academies in South Korea, where students sharpen their English and math skill, he founded his own private tutoring school, hiring and managing teachers and building the business from the ground up. The academy quickly grew, and as the business stabilized, the dream of going to the U.S. resurfaced.

After years of thought and planning, Gene applied to Brigham Young University–Hawaiʻi (BYU–Hawaiʻi) and was accepted into the travel industry management program. In 1991, he moved to Laie on the North Shore of Oahu, where he would spend many years building a life and career in Hawaiʻi.

While at BYU–Hawaiʻi, Gene earned his undergraduate degree while working at the Polynesian Cultural Center, gaining valuable hands-on experience in hospitality and tourism. After graduating, he returned to the Laie campus as a recruiting director, traveling throughout Asia to bring ESL students and business executives to Hawaiʻi for short-term language training programs. Over time, the islands began to feel like more than a stop, they began to feel like home.

The entrepreneurial spark never faded; instead, it grew stronger with each passing year.

“I believe I’m a born entrepreneur,” said Gene. “I was looking for something more then. I decided to leave BYU and learn the tour group industry in Hawaiʻi, working first with a Korean tour company. It was mostly honeymooners coming to Hawaiʻi, so I thought, why not start a tour company for English-speaking visitors? I had the language, the experience, the degree!”

Before stepping fully into that new venture, Gene decided there was one more step he wanted to take: earning an MBA. With a full-time job and a growing family, he needed a program built for working professionals.

His research led him straight to HPU.

“The HPU MBA is tailored for full-time workers,” Gene explained. “You can go to school on the weekend and work during the week. That was very convenient for me, and for my classmates. I worked during the week and went to school for two years, and I enjoyed every minute of it.”

Gene took classes at HPU’s downtown campus on Fort Street Mall, studying in the heart of Honolulu’s business district and learning from faculty who brought their industry experience directly into the classroom. Gene graduated in 2002 with his MBA. He had once imagined returning to Korea to start a company there, but Hawaiʻi had become part of his enduring story. Rooted in the islands and the community, he decided to build his next venture in the place he now called home.

“In 2004, I was in my late-40s and decided to start my company,” he said. “A little late, maybe, but I had the education and experience, so I decided, why not? I saved the money and bought a tour bus.”

That first purchase marked the beginning of North Shore Beach Bus. Over time, Gene grew the company into a small fleet of buses and vans, drawing on the discipline he learned in the semiconductor factory and treating every guest experience as something to be measured, improved, and refined. He built a strong team of tour guides, reservation agents, and sales and marketing staff, all aligned around service and quality.

“TripAdvisor is important,” he said. “Our reputation there really mattered. Our company became the number one ranked tour company in Hawaiʻi on TripAdvisor for tours. That really mattered.”

Hotel concierges across Oahu began recommending North Shore Beach Bus to their guests, and word of mouth confirmed what Gene and his team had set out to accomplish. As the company grew, he began planning for the future. In 2015, his son Sunny, who had majored in accounting, joined the company and helped build strong partnerships with hotel concierges and online travel platforms, further elevating North Shore Beach Bus across Oahu’s hospitality industry.

After the pandemic, Sunny chose to pursue new ventures, and Gene again revisited the question of how to pass on his legacy. He sold North Shore Beach Bus to a company that would carry it forward, staying on as a consultant to help guide the transition and support the new owners.

Gene now has more time to travel and visit his children and 14 grandchildren. “I can see more of the world,” he said, “traveling to Korea and other parts of the world to visit family and friends.”

He also found himself drawn back to a familiar place: the classroom.

When Gene spoke to HPU business students in fall 2025 as a guest lecturer in a leadership course, he shared the lessons he had learned from every phase of his journey, failing an exam but finding a new path, serving in the military, carrying heavy responsibilities while building a career, growing a company from one bus to a fleet, and planning for succession with care and intention.

Today, Gene is in conversation about potential teaching opportunities at HPU, including the possibility of serving as an adjunct faculty member. He hopes to bring his experience in entrepreneurship, tourism, leadership, and strategic planning into the same kinds of classrooms where he once sat as an MBA student.

“I want to help the younger generation,” said Gene. “I want them to learn about business and entrepreneurship, not just from a book, but from real experience.”

To learn more about the MBA program at HPU, go to: www.hpu.edu/mba.