THE RIGHT MOVES

The drones rise together off the launch pad, thousands of them, climbing in formation until they hang in the night air like a held breath. Then they begin to move. A honu (turtle) swims across the sky. A surfer drops into a wave. A company logo assembles itself dot by dot, 300 feet above the crowd, and the people on the ground tilt their heads back and forget, for a moment, to take out their phones.

HPU alumnus Ephraim Botulan '06 is a co-pilot for Sky Elements Hawaiʻi, the state's only drone light show outfit, formed when his own drone venture merged with Sky Elements, the largest drone show operation in the country. The drones are small, quiet, and choreographed by a central computer that flies each one along a precise path while its onboard LEDs cycle through programmed colors. A show begins as a storyboard, becomes an animation set to music, and ends as a piece of sky theater that leaves no smoke, no shell casings, and no startled dogs. In a place as ecologically conscious as Hawaiʻi, where fire risk is real and seabirds are easily disoriented by light and sound, the appeal is obvious. A drone show tells a story. Fireworks just make noise and are an environmental concern.

Drones are just one piece of Botulan's impressive portfolio. Since going full-time on his own ventures in September 2025, he has been building three ventures at once: the drone work, a consulting practice called Zenshin Group, and a minority stake in a downtown sushi restaurant. Twenty years in Hawaiʻi's marketing world brought him to this point, but the path was not a departure from anything. It was an arrival.

Ask Botulan what holds all of it together, and the answer is two words: loyalty and integrity. They are the through line of his career, and he traces them back to HPU.

Botulan grew up in Kalihi, the son of parents who encouraged their two boys early on to consider healthcare. His father has worked in the maintenance and engineering department at the Hyatt Regency since 1992. His mother is a CNA at a state hospital. Botulan went to St. John the Baptist for middle school and then to Moanalua High School, where he found his way into the media program and discovered he liked the seam where creativity meets commerce. "I gravitated towards media, marketing," he says. "I was able to mix the creativity of media and the sales and hustle of marketing. I really enjoyed that balance."

When it came time to choose a college, he had options. USC accepted him, but the price was excessive. He looked at UCLA, Loyola Marymount, Concordia, and University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. What sold him on HPU was a combination of money, place, and mission: a Spirit Club scholarship covered half his tuition, and after two years as a coordinator he earned a full ride. The campus was downtown, in the center of the business district, walking distance from the offices where Hawaiʻi's CEOs actually worked.

"HPU is in the heart of downtown," he says. "You are among real business leaders. I was able to have a part-time job downtown while earning my marketing degree. Being able to work at a company and walk to your classes is really something special and unique about HPU."

Botulan took MBA courses starting his sophomore year, called concurrent registration, offered at no extra cost, and he studied under professors who shaped how he thinks about business to this day, among them Dean Mani Sehgal, Ph.D., who taught part-time at the time, and his mentors Professor Joseph Ha, Ph.D., and Associate Professor Yooncheong Cho, Ph.D. What he absorbed from the classroom was technical. What he absorbed from the student body was something else.

"The student body at HPU is so diverse. I did not travel much growing up, so going to HPU and studying with people from all over the world was a great opportunity for me to grow as a person, both professionally and personally. I definitely learned about loyalty and integrity at HPU."

Botulan graduated in 2006 with his undergraduate business degree in marketing and went straight to Team Vision, a boutique marketing agency in downtown Honolulu, as an account coordinator. He was 21 years old, working in a modern office in downtown Honolulu, supporting account managers and running his own accounts. A year in, doing some real estate research on the side, he noticed something off in the numbers and started preparing himself for what was coming. The 2008 crash arrived on schedule. He was laid off, filed for unemployment, and kept his head down. "I was not in a slump," he says. "I knew it is what it is, and I must move on."

He soon landed at Hawaiʻi Business Magazine as an account coordinator and stayed for 10 years, working his way up to director of marketing. He helped produced the "Best Places to Work" list, ran corporate events, and got to know the state's CEOs on a first-name basis. When he was ready for a change, he moved to Lights On Digital, a marketing agency serving boutique hotels, and spent nine years there, eventually rising to vice president of marketing. He watched the client list grow from 20 to 50, learned the mechanics of Google and Facebook advertising, ran website refreshes, and helped the agency through its formative years. Two companies in 20 years. Both times, he moved up. Both times, he stayed until the work was done. That is what loyalty looks like in practice.

Loyalty runs both ways. In spring 2026, Botulan came back to campus, this time on the other side of the room, watching students present in HPU Assistant Professor Han Nee Chong's, Ed.D., public health leadership class and giving them feedback as an alum who had been where they are headed.

When students ask whether it is better to job-hop or stay put, his answer comes from experience. "Aim for a position that allows you to grow within a company. If you are going to be somewhere for a while, make sure you like where you are, and are advancing and improving your skills."

By late 2025, Botulan was ready to move on after a decade with Lights On Digital. He had already been building things on the side. The drone venture, which would merge with Sky Elements to become Sky Elements Hawaiʻi, was running. Zenshin Group, named for the Japanese word meaning "to progress, to keep moving forward," was taking on clients in business growth strategy, AI automation, digital strategy, advertising, and web design. And he had taken a minority stake in Currents (formally Aloha Bento), a restaurant tucked into the Tidepools lobby of Central Pacific Bank downtown, a few blocks from the HPU campus where he once walked to class between shifts. In December, he went full-time on all of it.

He is candid about what entrepreneurship actually requires. "Entrepreneurship is not easy and you have to be serious about it. You have to get to that point where you build up your cash flow and reputation before you step back a bit and can take some time off. Everything is up to you to succeed. There is the freedom in being an entrepreneur, but I am still in the phase of building."

The drones, when they finish their show, descend together back to the launch pad. The sky goes dark. The crowd, slowly, remembers where they are. Down on the ground, Botulan is already thinking about his next move.