It is not enough for Shari Chang, CEO of the Girl Scouts of Hawai‘i, that women leaders make it past the “glass ceiling.”

She wants them to blast through the barriers that have traditionally held women back. If it takes a rocket, Chang is ready to help them start developing the skills that it takes to build it at the Girl Scouts’ STEM Center for Excellence at Camp Paumalu, a living laboratory for science, technology, engineering and math. The Girl Scouts of Hawai‘i, which started in 1917, is one of the oldest councils west of the Mississippi. Queen Lili‘uokalani, the last Hawaiian monarch, was the sponsor of the first troops, whose multi-racial makeup was groundbreaking for the time.

Chang is continuing in that pioneering tradition by creating more leadership opportunities, especially in STEM fields. She has even tapped some of Hawai‘i’s top female sales executives to teach this generation of Girls Scouts how to take cookie sales to the next level. In her work with the Girl Scouts, Chang is making up for lost time or nearly lost time. Around 2004, while battling a rare form of breast cancer, Chang was told that she had a 50% chance of dying in 10 years. She says that she made a will and underwent six operations and six months of chemotherapy. The deadline for her morbidity came and went, and in its wake emerged a powerful force for change. “I thought, ‘If you are only going to have X amount of time left, is this how you want to live it? It wasn’t. I made some big changes.” Taking a nonprofit leadership role at the Girl Scouts of Hawai‘i in 2014 was part of Chang’s building desire to pivot to the things that mattered most like shaping the next generation of female leaders.

In many ways, this is the job that Chang was born to do. During her 35-year tenure in Hawai‘i’s tourism sector, Chang rose to the most senior executive level in companies like Aston Hotels & Resorts and Aloha Airlines. It was in those jobs that she became known for her business acumen and mentorship and promotion of other women.

Chang immediately put her business skills to use upon joining Girl Scouts of Hawai‘i, which was undergoing some financial challenges. Within a year and a half, the organization was profitable. Next, she set about improving Camp Paumalu, which was on a beautiful 135-acre North Shore site but was in dismal condition. Soon, Chang was embarking on an ambitious plan to turn the location into an International Stem Center, which can accommodate 200. Carol Ai May, City Mill Company Ltd. vice president, who is on the Girl Scouts of Hawai‘i board, says Chang made major inroads once the Girl Scouts of Hawai‘i was picked to receive a Department of Defense Innovative Readiness Training Grant.

“Shari thinks Big, “Ai says. “This is a program not readily known and she just went for it. Now, the DOD has extended their program with GSH, allowing millions of dollars of labor savings to build the state-of-the-art STEM Center which can then be used by the Hawaii community and the world.”

Chang says the IRT grant supplied about $2.5 million worth of free labor helping raise 88% of the project’s $8.3 million within three years. The project, which started in 2019, has completed two phases. A 10,000-square-foot STEM Center was built in phase one, which included an innovation center, a computer lab, a dining facility with a full commercial kitchen and a new health center. The camp doubled its residential capacity in phase two with the construction of eight new solar cabins, and it improved shower facilities and roads. Chang says she has a dream some years into the future of embarking on a phase-three redevelopment to turn the camp’s old health center into a Girl Scout Museum. “I think it’s always nice to bring the history in so that they appreciate what they have,” she says.

Chang says she is a fourth-generation Girl Scout, who belonged to troops in four different states and Italy. She says Girl Scouts today have untold opportunities especially if they develop STEM skills and learn to empower each other. She says she tells the women that she mentors, “There is no good old girl network; there is a good old boy network and that’s what you are up against. “If you don’t work together, you won’t have a support system.” 

Lisa Kimura, Kaiser Permanente’s community health manager for housing and food security, credits her career success to Chang, who took the time to mentor her while she was a young marketing person at Aloha United Way.  “My life would have been hugely different if I had not met her. She recognizes the potential in people,” Kimura says. “Women have to work much harder to achieve the same things as men. She gets that and creates opportunities for people to be successful.” 

Cara Goodrich, director of sales and marketing at the Grand Naniloa Hotel, says when Chang was her boss, she taught her how to succeed in business, and as a mother by prioritizing work-life balance. “I had so much work that I was going to miss my daughter’s May Day program, but I remember Shari told me that if I didn’t go to the program that she would fire me,” Goodrich says.

At the same time, Goodrich says Chang taught her how to stick up for herself in business. “I showed up for a revenue meeting and a gentleman from India told me to sit on the side,” she says. “Shari came in and told me ‘Cara you have earned your place at this table’ and then moved everyone over to make room for me. Goodrich remembers that the guy was embarrassed and says that he didn’t mean it that way and Chang says, “You probably did.”

These days, Chang is steering young women into becoming “STEMinists,” a group she views as underrepresented in the industry. But STEM is making a difference, she says. Chang says Girl Scouting has as many as 80% of the current female tech executives in their ranks. She says that Girl Scouts also gets credit for having as members 92% of all female astronauts, 100% of all female Secretary of States, and 72% of all female U.S. Senators. 

“Girl Scouts is an amazing program. I think it’s great that they have kept innovative and relevant,” Chang says. Resilience also is key, says Chang, who honed those skills during her battle with cancer and other personal challenges. “We all know you can overcome some pretty tough things and still be a good person and do great things,” she says. 

Chang says she saw many examples during the pandemic of resilience and tenacity emerging from the Girl Scouts of Hawai‘i, who inspire her every day and give her hope for a better future. The pandemic has been hard on the organization; however, Chang says they have been able to pivot partly because of the creativity of the team and the resilience of its girls. While schools were closed and troops were banned from meeting, Chang says the organization scaled up virtual programming, which included hands-on activities.

“Every week we packed activity kits and shipped them to the girls,” she says. “We had girls from 41 states and 11 international countries paying and registering for Hawai‘i’s programs.” Chang says from March to September, Hawai‘i’s Girl Scouts earned 1,000 more badges than they did in previous years. Ai says Chang and the Girl Scouts of Hawai‘i “became a model for the National Girl Scouts as to how things can be done. 

“Girl Scouts of Hawai‘i is the smallest of one of the smallest Girl Scout organizations, but it has been recognized as one of the most innovative,” she says. “Shari does whatever it takes to get a job done. She personifies this quality.”

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