Job fair aims to fill health care positions
The Queen’s Health Systems is holding its third job fair to fill openings at the Queen’s Medical Center on Punchbowl Street and the Queen’s Medical Center West Oahu, which will open this spring.
The job fair will be on Jan. 25 between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the Manoa Elementary School cafeteria at 3155 Manoa Road.
Openings are for staff nurses, finance/information technology analysts, case managers, emergency room technicians, social workers, respiratory therapists and coders, as well as food service, clerical and housekeeping positions.
The hospital system held two job fairs in early November seeking to hire more than 200 workers for the two hospitals. Queen’s acquired the former Hawaii Medical Center West campus from St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii in December 2012.
Queen’s said Monday that its primary focus is to find candidates for its Punchbowl campus, as a result of attrition and vacancies as employees transfer to West Oahu.
Applicants can go to www.queens.org for more information.
Google to buy Nest Labs
NEW YORK >> Google will pay $3.2 billion to buy Nest Labs, which develops high-tech versions of devices like thermostats and smoke detectors. The thermostat is designed to learn how inhabitants like their homes to be heated and cooled. Once it learns consumers’ preferences, it automatically adjusts the temperature on its own.
Target shoppers urged to accept offer
The state Office of Consumer Protection is urging the 121,000 Hawaii residents who shopped at Target stores in the past two months to accept Target’s offer of one year of free credit monitoring in the wake of a massive data breach.
Target first reported last month that hackers stole credit and debit card information and personal data for 40 million customers in November and December. Last week Target revealed that hackers also stole a second batch of data that included names, mailing addresses, phone numbers or email addresses of up to 70 million people.
The state hasn’t received any complaints of fraud or identity theft related to the Target case, a spokesman said.
"The Office of Consumer Protection strongly recommends that all Target customers, regardless of whether they’ve identified suspicious activity in their personal accounts, take advantage of this offer," Bruce Kim, executive director of the Office of Consumer Protection, said in an email. "Additionally, consumers who have not done so already should take the proactive steps of changing their PIN numbers and passwords."
The Office of Consumer Protection is continuing to monitor the situation and has partnered with other states to investigate the security breach.
Consumers can register for free credit monitoring at creditmonitoring.target.com. The department also warns consumers that there might be "phishing" scams purporting to be from Target seeking personal information.
Hawaii is part of tourism marketing effort
A marketing campaign promoting the United States as the world’s leading destination for Europeans will include Hawaii in its push.
The "Discover America" campaign, by Thomas Cook Group in partnership with Brand USA, a destination marketing organization, is a multimillion-dollar agreement and will last initially for three months from its mid-January launch.
Promotional components will run simultaneously across the U.K., Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands across all media and marketing platforms, aimed at both consumers and the travel trade.
Wedding plans made easy with new app
Former Hawaii residents including Christina Farrow have launched AislePlanner.com, a wedding planning application.
With her partners, Farrow, a former Honolulu wedding planner, devised the app to address the need for a "dedicated wedding planning app that allowed for easy sharing and collaboration between couples, their vendors and their planner, thereby connecting them all to the planning process," she said in a statement.
AislePlanner’s backing so far is exclusively from Hawaii investors, as it hopes to showcase the state as a technology-friendly business environment.
Jim Beam maker OKs sale to Japanese firm
NEW YORK » The maker of classic American whiskeys Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark has agreed to be acquired by a Japanese company in a $13.62 billion deal that would create the third-largest global premium spirits business.
Shares of Beam Inc. rose 24 percent Monday after it said that it agreed to be purchased by Suntory Holdings Ltd., a Japanese beverage company. The combined company would have annual sales of more than $4.3 billion.
The deal follows other recent acquisitions in the alcohol industry, including Anheuser-Busch InBev’s $20.1 billion deal last year to buy the other half of Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo that it didn’t already own.
It also comes at a time when the taste for bourbon — a type of American whisky that is made primarily of corn and typically distilled in Kentucky — continues to grow domestically and abroad.
ON THE MOVE
Becker Communications has hired two new account directors:
» Jennifer Cheek has more than 15 years of experience as a communications executive, including serving as a development and community liaison for Kauai Hospice.
» Kam Napier was previously editor of Honolulu Magazine for eight years and worked at the magazine for 19 years in various positions. Before that he was marketing director at Diamond Head Theatre.
Maui Jim has awarded $260,000 to charities on Maui:
» Hale Makua Health Services received $150,000 in donations; Imua Family Services in Maui was awarded $50,000; Women Helping Women received $20,000; and the Maui Arts & Cultural Center was awarded $40,000.
