Frank Naliboff Remembers DCC’s First Luxury Retail Project

Dickinson Cameron has a long and storied history in Hawaii. For more than 25 years, it has been a “home away from home” for our company. But the way we landed our first project there  is a story best told by Frank Naliboff, in his own words.

Chanel Kalakaua was the biggest job we had ever even looked at. It was a huge deal. When it came time to go out to Hawaii for a post-bid meeting, I knew there had to be something that would be our hook, our way of doing it better. We weren’t a Hawaii contractor. At the time, I didn’t really know much about Hawaii. The only thing we had going for us was my connection, Steve Nelson, who had initially contacted me about bidding on the project. So I started studying the job to see where we could excel. It was a very complicated three-story project. The most complicated thing about it was the HVAC system. I spent weeks focusing on that and making sure I knew everything there was to know about that HVAC system.

We get to the post bid meeting, and I’m all of 29 years old. This was the first time I had ever been to this kind of meeting. Chanel starts asking us questions, and then the engineer, Henry Hersch says, “Tell me about the HVAC system and how it works.”  This was my chance – I knew this thing cold. I told them exactly what was going on. When I finished talking, I just knew it. I had nailed it.

We take a break and go out onto the lanai, and Henry walks up to me and says “you’re my guy.” What an amazing feeling; pretty cool. Soon after, Steve comes out and tells me, “We are going to give this to you, with one stipulation – you have to be here.”

At this point in my life, I’m a new father, I have a new, struggling business, and now he’s asking me to move to Hawaii for 9 ½ months! I told him I appreciate the opportunity, but let me make a phone call. First call I made was to my wife. She was super supportive and said yes. My second call was to Nate, my business partner, and he said, “Absolutely! We have to do this.” So I moved out to Hawaii and spent ten months there.

It was super cool exposure and experience. We learned a lot. I know I learned a ton of stuff in ten months. Was it touch and go? Yeah, I got in my share of arguments. But they respected us because we stood our ground and knew what we were doing. At the end of the day, we delivered a beautiful project. And the people at Chanel were super happy. It put us on the map. It put us on the road to what has defined us all these years — luxury retail.