Gregg Yamanaka is confronting a job not unlike that of a stage director, but on a massive scale. The star in his case is Honolulu, preparing for a performance that could be monumental: serving as the host city for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum of 21 Pacific Rim countries.

This is a really big show, set for Nov. 12-13, 2011. Although that’s still a long way off, the newly appointed chief executive officer of the APEC 2011 host committee has had to hit the ground running.

His resume includes the top jobs in the alternative energy company Green Era Corp., and the destination management company MC&A Inc., but this is an order of magnitude greater than any previous event he’s overseen. Delegates include heads of state from each country and one of them — the Hawaii-born U.S. president — was the one who put Honolulu in this spotlight.

A successful APEC means a brighter future for Hawaii as a venue for more than vacations, so the pressure is definitely on.

Question: What is the job of the APEC host committee?

Answer: We have a number of hats we’re wearing. One of them is to be a support structure to all the governmental agencies — local, state, federal and international agencies and economies. … The second one is to interface with our community. This is our ohana.

We are here to promote Hawaii and to very proudly showcase Hawaii. This is the president’s hometown. He has selected us. It’s an honor and we want to make him proud by this.

And so we are going to include a diverse range of people and organizations from our community. We are in that feedback-seeking stage right now, where we want to see what the concerns are, what the needs are, what the opportunities are.

Q: What are these community discussions going to cover? Traffic?

A: We’re not going to avoid the traffic concerns, but we also want to be sure that everybody is prepared for the opportunities this presents. And this ranges from our retail institutions, our small businesses, to educational institutions, so that this is an opportunity for the youth of Hawaii to learn about international protocol, international relations, international economics. It’s an opportunity for us to also bring in the neighbor islands … in terms of economic benefits, as well as legacy issues.

Q: By legacy issues you mean … ?

A: In order to be able to provide the level of service excellence that’s going to be required for a meeting of this stature, we’re planning major training, education and probably certification processes for the volunteers that will be involved, as well as all the employees of companies that will be touching all the delegates and visitors.

Q: Can you be more specific about the training?

A: It’s going to be a broad area. One, it’s understanding APEC, our Asian and Pacific economies. It will be understanding international protocol, security procedures and how we can uniformly express our aloha spirit, and hookipa (hospitality).

Q: How would this be provided?

A: We are still in the stage of developing it. … And it would be not just for our entry-level workers. It would be including the liaison officers who will be working at the State Department level, handling the various international delegations so that they understand Hawaii, too.

Q: What do you want the delegates to see of Hawaii?

A: That we have the capacity to provide world-class business-support services to meetings, that it’s not just a leisure destination, that it’s a great place to do business.

Q: Are there major capital investments that would be required?

A: We’re still studying that. We don’t anticipate that there’s going to be a lot of major capital developments, but we’re not sure yet.

Q: A lot of hotels already have done renovations, right?

A: And we have ongoing upgrade programs that various other landlords and building owners are engaged in as part of their normal process, so I think the community is looking at ways to showcase Hawaii, too.

Q: What will the opportunities be for local businesses to participate?

A: There are a number of ways. First, most obviously, just by having over 20,000 delegates here there will be shopping, use of services, both contracted by the various delegations, by the host committee as well as all the various economies. On top of that, we are actively working with the National Center for APEC to look at what are the opportunities to develop other ways of exposing local businesses to the international marketplace.

Q: Anything like a fair, or expo?

A: It’s premature to know whether we can do that or not, but those are all discussions we are having to see what kinds of venues could we create, how can we showcase Hawaii’s products and services.

Q: How are security preparations being coordinated?

A: There is a very large subcommittee for security and safety. It involves the National Guard, Pacific Command, HPD (Honolulu Police Department), Civil Defense … We have a number of agencies working together in a unified approach.

Q: What is our particular security challenge?

A: We are fortunate that our HPD as well as our National Guard and PACOM (Pacific Command) and our Civil Defense are all well-versed in what is important to us in terms of hospitality and how we balance that, how we try to mitigate that with security measures, which are going to be necessary with 21 heads of state here. … We’ll be involved with them and giving our feedback so that we can have this with as little impact on our community as possible.

Q: Will there be access restrictions to Waikiki?

A: Again, we want to mitigate those. As an example: We’ve learned how rather than road closures there will be lane closures.

Q: What do you see as your major challenge?

A: Our primary challenge is that we have so much we want to accomplish and only 18 months. … In trying to showcase the diversity of our culture, our business community, our sense of place, there’s a lot on our agenda that we have to showcase.

Q: What interested you about this job, and what do you bring to it?

A: Let me approach it first from the side of what I bring to it. I have years of experience in the visitor industry and handling high-end events for major corporations and conventions. It’s my business to help businesses and people in their development, both through training, coaching and facilitation. As far as why I wanted this position, I think it’s a unique opportunity, an exciting opportunity for me to help our community on a scale that is unparalleled. I feel passionately about our community and helping all segments of it — community-based organizations, faith-based organizations and the small business community.

Q: Are you concerned about the airport renovation being done so that the first impression of visitors will be positive?

A: Our whole first-impression program is looking at the process of how we welcome the passenger. And it’s not just the physical environment, but it’s our hookipa, showing our hospitality from the moment they disembark to the moment they walk into their hotel room. … I know our chief inspector of customs and border control is one who’s very service-oriented here at the airport. So he’s looking at ways that he can improve the process, to streamline it.

Q: Is there a model city that we want to emulate here?

A: You know, I’d like to think that we’re setting the benchmark.

Q: Any final message about your mission?

A: What we want to express is that this is an inclusive process, where we are reaching out to the community, that this is all about Hawaii, this is Hawaii’s event. So we are going to embrace all segments of the community. We want to do this not just to promote tourism. This is about who we are, what we do. It’s to promote the future of economic development, and the legacy for generations to come.