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He’s been called the greatest salesman alive. But can Roald Marth arrange the purchase of Hawaii’s $2.3 billion electric utility?
The self-described venture capitalist, nerd and "part-time physicist" who moved to Hawaii 10 months ago says he can lead private investors to take over Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. and move the company off fossil fuels to 100 percent renewable energy production relatively quickly at a savings to electricity customers.
A few local business leaders who have met Marth say he is a convincing speaker, but they doubt that he can back up his plan with performance.
Others with experience investing in kamaaina companies note that privatizing HEI is not a new idea, and question the propriety of Marth seeking $20,000 from individuals to be part of his board guiding the effort.
Marth, who is 46 and has had enough success in business to live comfortably in Honolulu without working, acknowledges that he has never done anything close in size or complexity to what he has proposed for HEI. But he said that does not mean it cannot be done.
"I like to solve big, gnarly problems," said Marth, who likes to be called Ro. "I’m an entrepreneur by nature."
Marth was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, but spent most of his adult life in Minnesota. His father is a preacher and his mother is a teacher.
As a kid, Marth said, he received good grades in school but also was focused on making money. He said that when he was 12 he built toys and sold them at craft fairs, which put $27,000 in his bank account by the time he graduated from high school.
Marth spent three years at the University of Minnesota trying to earn a physics degree, but he said he dropped out because he was making too much money selling real estate, having obtained a license at 19.
Marth also became a motivational speaker, inspiring corporate sales forces and others to achieve, and at one time was the national spokesman for direct-to-consumer television marketing firm Guthy-Renker Corp.
Pat Di Placido, a marketing educational specialist with the Minnesota Department of Education, called Marth the "greatest salesperson alive" in a video Marth uses to promote himself as a speaker.
Dick Huart, identified as vice president of First Banks, said in the video Marth impressed him so much that he wanted to do business with him. "Roald is onstage all the time," Huart said in the clip.
Marth transformed his motivational speaking business, Roald Marth Learning Systems, into Superstar Computing, which provided technology and software training for the real estate industry. Marth and Elizabeth Chesen, who co-founded Superstar in 1992, sold the company in 1997 to Minnesota-based Merrill Corp.
Merrill said at the time that it paid $630,000, with potential additional payments up to $5 million depending on the company’s future performance.
Two other companies co-founded by Marth were TechnologyEvangelist.com, which today is a blog, and WhereToLive.com, a company providing Internet services to real estate agents.
WhereToLive, which also was co-founded by Chesen, received recognition at a Minnesota venture capital conference in 2002.
Marth said he sold his stake in the business about a year ago. Chesen did not return a call seeking comment. Another co-founder, Robert Carver, the company’s chief executive, also did not return a call yesterday.
It was a "midlife crisis kind of thing" that prompted Marth to move to Hawaii last March. He said he has visited Hawaii numerous times, and decided to move after meeting Mina Brinkopf, a Hawaiian Electric distribution planning engineer.
Marth said Brinkopf was concerned about the company’s path toward renewable energy, which some consider slow. So Marth set on devising a faster plan.
About eight months ago, Marth contacted Big Island farmer Richard Ha, who is pursuing alternative energy sources for his farm, to help pursue the HEI takeover idea as an equal partner.
Ha and Marth contacted Ted Peck, a state official in charge of the plan to make Hawaii less dependent on imported oil, in November. Peck, Ha and Marth are now equal partners.
Peck said he felt Marth’s business plan had the potential to go further than state efforts in reducing Hawaii’s dependence on oil.
"I wouldn’t throw away all I had to do this if I didn’t think this was the right thing for Hawaii," said Peck, whose state job was a civil service position not affected by the elections. "I didn’t leave because I had to."
Peck said Marth’s Midwestern style might strike some people as off-putting, but he believes Marth’s heart and focus are in the right place to benefit Hawaii.
"Ro came here and he listened, and he synthesized and put together a vision to help the state," he said.
