ABSTRACT
Paradise Cruiselines, Ltd. was founded by Jerry Smith, and his wife Chikako, in 1982. The company began with a handful of employees operating a Second World War era twin hulled catamaran with a capacity of 250 passengers. The company’s sole business was providing sightseeing tours by water into Pearl Harbor to visit the Arizona Memorial. The Pearl Harbor tours could only take the company so far, so in the late 1980s, Jerry and Chikako designed and launched a product the islands had not seen yet-–a sunset dinner cruise. At times, the fi rst year of the dinner cruise business was discouraging, as the 250-passenger vessel often left the dock with as little as two passengers. The successful Pearl Harbor afternoon cruises enabled the company to continue operating its dinner cruises despite little demand.
