In a questionnaire from the state Senate this year before his confirmation as state comptroller, Bruce Coppa was asked to assess his strengths and weaknesses.
He said he communicates well with employees and customers to understand their concerns, believes in empowering staff, prefers face-to-face meetings to resolve issues, is proactive rather than reactive and wants to create an environment of cooperation instead of adversity.
His weakness? He likes the big picture and does not relish details.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie has turned to Coppa as his new chief of staff, hoping the experienced manager who was the director of the state Department of Accounting and General Services will help get his administration back on course after a turbulent 10 months in office. He will have to calm a staff shellshocked by the resignations of four top policy advisers, ensure state departments are operating effectively, and guide a famously combative chief executive toward a more productive relationship with the state Legislature.
His task is to get both the big picture — and the little details — right.
"It’s just bringing the teams together and finding a solution to the problem," Coppa said Monday. "If that means going down and talking to the Legislature to help do it, I’m going to do it. If it means going down and meeting with the departments and meeting with the people who are actually doing the work, I’ll do it.
"You can ask the people at DAGS my style. I’m not sitting in the office."
Coppa, 58, has an extensive background in business and labor. He was an executive at E.E. Black Construction for 18 years and was executive director of the Pacific Resource Partnership — a bridge between the Hawaii Carpenters Union and contractors — for 11 years.
He considers Bob Black, a conservative who led E.E. Black, as his mentor in business and Walter Kupau, the fearless business manager at the Hawaii Carpenters Union, as his mentor in labor.
"You couldn’t be one-sided, because I was representing labor and management," said Coppa, a Democrat. "And so when you look at business — it’s more Republican, right? — and then you have labor with the Democrats, so there was always that question of how do you come to the middle."
The middle ground, he said, was building a stronger economy that both management and labor could enjoy.
Coppa was also chief operations officer at the public relations firm Communications Pacific. He is still a Realtor associate and a partner and investor in commercial real estate development projects, but he does not believe those activities will pose conflicts for him as Abercrombie’s chief of staff.
People who have worked with Coppa describe him as confident and direct, and predict he will be comfortable in behind-the-scenes policy negotiations between the administration and the Legislature. Some Democrats, however, have privately expressed caution about the ties Coppa and James Boersema, Abercrombie’s new communications director, have to development and labor interests.
Coppa said he would spend the next few weeks with Amy Asselbaye, who resigned as chief of staff, and Andrew Aoki, who resigned as deputy chief, getting up to speed on the issues facing the administration.
"Amy and Andrew have set a good foundation for us on the ‘New Day’ plan. And I think now we’ll tap into other strengths to ensure that it continues on. Is there going to be shake-ups? No. We’re going to move this thing forward," he said.
"It’s about jobs. It’s about the economy."
