Honolulu Office a 2009 Best Place to Work

Booz Allen’s Hawaiian office is honored with the award for the third time.

“Things are on a roll in Hawaii,” says Booz Allen Hamilton vice president Dave Karp. “Our Honolulu office grew 40% since last year, and is experiencing a tremendous amount of excitement and optimism.”

Dave Karp

And to underscore that enthusiasm, Booz Allen’s Honolulu office was named for the third time as a Best Place to Work in Hawaii. Sponsored by Hawaii Business magazine and the research firm Best Companies Group, the competition ranked the firm second on its list of best large companies that employ 150 or more.

Booz Allen was one of 59 local companies to make the April 2009 Best Places list, based on separate employee and employer surveys. “Our clients know that we deliver on our promises, and the market recognizes how good Booz Allen is at what we do,” Karp says.

Strengths evident among the Honolulu employees include a sense of camaraderie, client commitment, esprit de corps, and friendliness, he adds. “It’s a fun place to work and we have a motivated crew. There is a great sense of pride in helping our clients accomplish their missions.”

The Honolulu office is the center of Booz Allen’s regional Pacific business, which includes staff in Alaska, Guam, Korea, and Japan. “Spanning 15 time zones, the Pacific theater covers over half the word’s surface and includes 36 nations with more than 50% of the world’s population,” Karp says. Honolulu is the home of the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), which, with the Service Components and several non-DoD organizations, is one of the office’s primary clients. Most of the firm’s Hawaii staff work at client sites around Oahu such as Camp Smith, Hickam Air Force Base, Schofield Barracks, and Pearl Harbor.

“Our Hawaii-based clients have important roles in planning and protecting the nation’s security interests in the Pacific,” Karp says. “They need to know that the consultants with whom they’re working side-by-side are going to be there tomorrow.”

The firm has more than 400 employees in the Pacific—and that number is growing—with expertise in planning, defense consulting, cyber security, intelligence, civil engineering, disaster preparedness, transportation, information technology and assurance, and other skills in high demand, especially in the defense market.

Companies are selected for Best Place to Work from those that request a free policy assessment from Hawaii Business. Employees then complete a survey about their corporate culture, communications, work environment, relationship with supervisors, training, pay and benefits, and job satisfaction. Employers answer questions on pay, benefits, and policies. Employee responses comprise 75% of the total score; employer responses comprise 25%. Best Companies weighs the responses to determine the Best Places list.

story posted May 22, 2009