PU‘UNENE, Maui » “Hey, where you guys stay now?” Clyde Anakalea called into his radio. “You stay in the lowboy already? You guys passing 812?”

Wednesday was pretty much like any other day for Anakalea, working at Hawaii’s last sugar plantation. The harvest supervisor for Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. on Maui wanted to know when a driver of a rig carrying a tractor that grabs piles of sugar cane was going to arrive from a just-cleared field to field No. 704.

“You stay 809? Hurry up,” he bugged the rig driver.

Throughout the 36,000-acre farm, Wednesday was largely a typical day. But it also marked a midpoint in the final harvest for large-scale commercial sugar farming at HC&S, a captstone to 146 years in an industry that was once Hawaii’s biggest.

Alexander & Baldwin Inc., the Hono­lulu-based owner of HC&S, announced in January that it would be shutting down the plantation, citing a $30 million loss last year that it said it had little prospect of reversing. On Wednesday, A&B provided an update and a tour of the plantation for the media.

To date, about 200 of 675 HC&S employees have been laid off. Roughly half of this group, 92, have found other jobs. About 30 retired. Three relocated. And four are in training programs, according to HC&S.

Of those remaining, the strenuous and dirty work that runs 24 hours daily in the fields and at the mill continues unabated.

Burn cane. Plow cane. Haul cane. Wash cane. Crush cane. Boil cane juice. Clarify. Evaporate. Behold sugar.

Many remaining workers have seen friends and co-workers depart. For some, this has meant extra hours or new jobs available on the farm.

Some workers have plans. Others haven’t thought too much about life after sugar.

Anakalea, 60, is almost a year away from qualifying for retirement, which at HC&S is at 62 and for old-timers like him includes a pension. Anakalea plans to apply for unemployment benefits.

“I’ve never been unemployed before,” he said. “Hopefully I can get retirement.”

Joseph Avelana, a cane haul truck driver waiting for the cane-grabbing tractor to arrive at Field 704, is banking extra pay in the run up to the shutdown. Typically he works an eight-hour shift like all harvest workers who are divided into three crews that span 24 hours while one crew has a day off.

On Wednesday, Avelana was working 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., earning overtime to cover a shortage that doesn’t happen regularly but is happening more because of the wind-down, according to Mark Lopes, HC&S harvest manager.

About half of all HC&S workers are scheduled to work until the end in December.

But Friday will be the last day of work for Rosebello Magarin, a millwright in the machine shop where crews fix, fabricate and install parts for the factory. Much of the work there involves preparing for an annual rebuilding that won’t be necessary next year.

Magarin knew in March when his last day would be. “I was very sad,” he said. “No more job.” And it’s a good job, he added. One that pays $23.67 an hour. “We cannot find this kind of job already. Very said.”

One good thing for Magarin, who’s been at HC&S for 36 years, is that he is 62. So he’s set to retire with a pension.

Seven other machine shop workers will also have their last day of work on Friday, leaving the shop with 10 workers.

Koa Martin, a millwright slated to work until December, said the Friday cut will be the first reduction for the shop.

“This is going to be a major hit to our factory as far as maintenance,” he said.

Martin, a 20-year HC&S veteran who is 42 and has a younger brother working in the machine shop, said he hasn’t given much thought as to what will come next for him.

HC&S established a transition services office where a four-member team works with employees to discuss plans.

To date, nine job and resource fairs have been held, including one last week that attracted 47 employers and 300 HC&S workers.

“We want to be there to support them,” said Lori Terawagachi, a contractor hired to help run the office.

Every week, the staff updates a white board outside the office with a count of how many workers landed new jobs, and someone rings an old bell to signify each addition. So far, the bell has rung 92 times.

A weekly inspirational quotation also is written on the white board. This week it quotes Nelson Mandela: “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

Donald Gusman, a 62-year-old factory operations manager who has spent 43 years at HC&S, knows what he will do when the factory shuts down: take a long vacation and spend more time with his nine grandkids after a plantation worker’s life that kept him from spending enough time with his own children. But he is also concerned for co-workers.

“This company pays good,” he said. “The hotel can only take so many people. Construction can only take so many people. Maui — not a lot of jobs.”

One potential future job source could come from work HC&S is doing to grow diversified crops, including forage for beef cattle and plants for biofuel production. An agricultural park, which places a hiring priority for HC&S workers could be ready next year.

HC&S General Manager Rick Volner said workers possibly can return if the venture takes off as envisioned. So far, there have been tests for a variety of mostly fuel crops of which sorghum appears to have the most promise. Volner said about one third of the plantation is well suited for biofuel crops. Cattle could potentially take up another 10,000 acres, he said.

To help with this effort, HC&S hired Shyloh Stafford-Jones last year for his farming experience in Missouri. Jacob Tavares, another member of this team, oversees the cattle operation and also works in human resources.

Still, diversified ag won’t grow quickly enough to provide a transition for more workers.

“Last of the Mohicans here,” said Robert Luuwai, who joined HC&S in 1986 and is now vice president of factory operations. “When I started, sugar was big. There were 13 mills in the state. Not anymore.”

Luuwai has been a witness to innovations in the business but also to its demise. When he joined HC&S, there were pneumatic switches on an operating panel that today is controlled by a computer. He said in 1950 it took a crew of 52 to run the boil house. Today the crew is 15.

Overall, the mill has about 190 workers, down from 250 before the announced closure plan. On Friday, 20 more will be done because work producing Maui Brand turbinado sugar is complete and because of reductions in support operations that include the eight workers in the machine shop.

So on the last day of production, after the last cane hauler pulls up to the factory and renders what will become the last batch of boiled cane juice dehydrated into sugar, Luuwai, 56, will be out of a job too. “There will be no factory to run,” he said. “I’ll have to find something to do.”