Team: Our Board

David ‘Kawika’ Kahoilua is a native Hawaiian that believes in the strong brotherhood between Hawaii and its Micronesian neighbors.

Kawika owns the Bamboo Grove Hawaiian Grille, one of the top Hawaiian restaurants in Oregon, and a regular supplier of food at our events.

Email: [email protected]

Kianna was born in the Republic of Marshall Islands but was adopted and raised in America since her earliest childhood. She has been serving communities since her young years, from youth counselor at summer camps in Oregon to volunteering and teaching handicapped children to ride horses for physical therapy lessons. She has worked with numerous NGOs, ranging from assisting Homeless food programs in the USA to the American Women’s Club in Copenhagen, Denmark.

She worked as a Domestic Violence Advocate for the Pierce County Domestic Violence & Suicide Hotline for three years, as well as a local Domestic Violence Women and Children Advisor for the Washington State Patrol. Always being a firm supporter of Women’s Rights and Child Protection, she has been a strong supporter and volunteer for the YWCA and shelters in both Tacoma, Washington and Portland, Oregon.

Kianna is often giving time to local sustainability initiatives, such as the Lake Oswego City Sustainability Board and the Lake Oswego School Districts Green Team. She helped facilitate the start of a greenhouse program for local food and education in the local school district, where she has volunteered her time for all four of her children in their classrooms.

In the last decade, Kianna has reconnected with her Marshallese heritage. Continuing her passion for serving communities, Kianna founded the international non-profit organization Living Islands in 2013 and co-founded the social justice organization COFA Alliance National Network in 2014. She continues to serve as Executive Director for Living Islands and as Board Member for CANN. Kianna is a strong believer in international community work and a fierce supporter of the United Nations and is a member of the United Nations Association. She is always working on connecting governments, organizational partners, commercial interests, Native Americans and indigenous communities across the globe.

Kianna’s next goal in life is to pursue an education and career in International Trade & Sustainable Development.

Kianna currently lives with her tri-cultural family in Lake Oswego, Oregon, with her four children and danish husband Jesper. With the full support of her family, Kianna is committed to her life goal of bringing development, opportunity and cross-cultural education to everyone.

Email: [email protected]

Tony de Brum (1945-2017) has dedicated a lifetime of public service in pursuit of an independent, secure and sustainable Marshall Islands, and he has courageously advanced his peoples’ vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.

Having witnessed the deleterious effects of US nuclear tests in his country as a young boy, Tony de Brum, as Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands, took the unprecedented step of filing lawsuits against all nine nuclear weapons states in the International Court of Justice in 2014, seeking to hold them to account for their failure to abide by the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and customary international law. As the architect of the Majuro Declaration for Climate Leadership, adopted in September 2013, Tony de Brum has also been instrumental in securing the commitment of Pacific Island States to adopt concrete measures to combat climate change.

Tony was a Board Member from 2014 and until to his passing away in 2017.

He will be missed dearly.

Neil Berl is a financial planner in Stevenson, WA.

Neil has been on the Board of Living Islands since the start in 2013 and until 2017. Neil was Board President from 2015-2017.