Hawaii landscaper thrives after two storms

When a second hurricane hit Abigail Santos’ landscaping business, she was ready to close shop and move on to something else. She could go back to nursing, or work a 9-5 service job. Anything other than having to pick up the pieces again from a devastating natural disaster.

“I’ll just go and be a cashier in the grocery store,” she says of her immediate thoughts after the second hurricane. “I don’t care; I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s too hard.”

Her husband Frank, who was also her business partner, had other plans.

“Frank likes a challenge,” she says. “He had to give me a pep talk. Also, we had employees that depended on us.”

The pep talk was all she needed, and 25 years later, No Ka Oi, (which means “the best” in Hawaiian), is a thriving $5-million business with 70 employees.

“We had such a great team and so many good people that everyone rallied,” she says. “We were very lucky to have those guys and gals.”

Read the full story from the December issue here.