Current Employment Position(s)

Honorary Of Counsel

Year Joined Organization: 1971

Lawyer Overview

Jeffrey N. Watanabe is a founding partner of Watanabe Ing & Komeiji LLP. His practice includes providing firm clients with strategic advice aimed at achieving their objectives in the context of Hawaii’s unique business, political, regulatory and community environments and interrelationships. Industries in which much of Mr. Watanabe’s strategic counsel has been focused include hotel/resort development, the airline and passenger cruise industries, telecommunications and high tech arenas.

Mr. Watanabe is widely active in business and community affairs. He is a director of Alexander & Baldwin, Inc. and subsidiary Matson Navigation Company, Inc., Cellular Bioengineering, Inc., First Insurance Company of Hawaii, Ltd., Grace Pacific Corporation, Oahu Publications, Inc., Tissue Genesis, Inc. and Trex Enterprises Corporation and its subsidiary, Loea Communications. He was recently elected as the non-executive Chairman of Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc. and is a member of its subsidiary boards, American Savings Bank and Hawaiian Electric Company, Ltd.

He chairs the board of trustees of the Consuelo Zobel Alger Foundation, headquartered in Honolulu and Manila, and sits as a trustee of the Hawaii Community Foundation, HEI Foundation, The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii, Punahou School and Sesame Workshop headquartered in New York which he chaired until 2004. He is a member of the American and Hawaii Bar Associations, the Hawaii Business Roundtable, Hawaii Executive Conference, the Japan-Hawaii Economic Council and the Hawaii Asia Pacific Association.

Areas of Practice

• Public Affairs Group

West Practice Categories

Public Law

Bar Admissions

• Hawaii, 1968

Professional Associations and Memberships

• University of Hawaii Foundation (Member, Board of Trustees)
• Smithsonian National Board (Trustee)
• Hawaii State Bar Association (Member)
• American Savings Bank (Director)
• Grace Pacific Corporation (Director)
• Hawaiian Electric Industries (Director)
• Consuelo Zobel Alger Foundation (Chair)
• The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii (Chair)

Past Employment Positions

• State of Hawaii, Deputy Attorney General, 1968 - 1970

Education

• George Washington University National Law Center, Washington, District of Columbia, 1968
  J.D., Doctor of Jurisprudence
• University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California, 1965
  B.A., Bachelor of Arts

Fraternities/Sororities

• Phi Delta Phi

Address

First Hawaiian Center
999 Bishop Street
23rd Floor
Honolulu, HI 96813

Phones

(808) 544-8309

Faxes

(808) 544-8399

Emails

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Websites

http://www.wik.com