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JACK MAGOON sat agonizing in his office late one night in January '83. Down the hall in the negotiating room, the atmosphere was bleak. Hawaiian's powerful unions would not agree to management's demands for concessions and there was only one thing left to do. Shaking his head in frustration, Magoon grimly told his new president, Paul Finazzo, to deliver the message, "Shut-her-down."
Within hours of learning that Hawaiian Air's management would actually go so far as to close the company, the unions gave in and the struggling company, which had just announced a $16-million loss for 1982, was back in business. That night in 1983 has been considered the pivotal point in turning Hawaiian Air around the night the airline showed it had guts. It was also the night that Hawaiian Air president and chief operating officer Paul Finazzo, who'd only been hired two months before, won the tough-guy, "shut her down" image that has stuck to him ever since. Despite the fact that it was Magoon who made the decision -- and who had everything to lose if it was wrong -- it's been Finazzo, the 55-year-old former Airlift International CEO, who's been given credit for restraining Hawaiian Air's unions and bringing the company back to profitability in 1984. Magoon, who controls 54 percent of the state's oldest local airline, just shrugs. "Paul has to make a name for himself in the community," he smiles.
That Finazzo has been written about and talked about as the man whose aggressive style has made the difference at Hawaiian Air, amuses Magoon. To a point. The 69-year-old businessman also wants to make it clear who's in charge: He is. "People don't know what goes on behind the scenes," he declares. Says Finazzo, "Even if Jack were to say I was his hatchet man, that wouldn't offend me. I'm a guy who deals in realties, even though I don't particularly consider myself a hatchet man."
When Magoon hired Finazzo in 1982, the then-chief executive officer knew he needed someone with a hardworking, outspoken, no-nonsense style who could help him handle the confusing atmosphere that had evolved since the airline industry's 1978 deregulation. It wasn't that Magoon himself wasn't tough enough. It's just that the business had changed so...