About

Hamakua Coast, Hawaii

Aloha! I’m Susie Collins, founder and editor of The Canary Report.

I keep busy doing a bunch of different things. I’m a writer working out of a home office, specializing in executive communications, with some freelancing in local and national politics. I give a lot of time to my community. And I’m an assistant to the chancellor at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

In 2004, I took leave from the university to manage the press office at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, followed by two months in D.C. where I was the sole staffer for Sen. John Kerry’s presidential debate preparation team. Before that, in 2002, I took a one-year leave from the university to be a grant planner at the Big Island AIDS Project.

I’ve been a community advocate and defender of the environment since my teenage years on the island of Molokai. In my senior year at my alma mater Molokai High School, I worked with the non-profit environmental group Common Cause on a door-to-door campaign to notify the public about a proposed resort development’s impact on water and land use issues. While a student at UH Manoa in Honolulu, I worked on the university’s 65-foot schooner Machias, sailing inter-island with fellow environmentalists teaching high school students throughout the state about the urgent need to protect ocean resources.

A lot of my after hours time these days has been spent as a leader and strategist for the grassroots group Protect Ookala, which is opposing the inappropriate placement of a veneer mill and power plant in my community. I also serve my community each election season as a precinct officer and caucus organizer. I was a founding board member of my community’s housing association, and am a past president and secretary.

I was born in San Francisco but at age six was transplanted to the island of Kauai, and after some initial culture shock, grew to love my new home. A childhood spent living, riding horses and playing in the country and wilderness areas of Kauai and Molokai taught me a deep love and respect for the land and culture.

After graduating high school in 1974, I attended UH Manoa and then Willamette University in Oregon majoring in Humanities. After working several different jobs that led to owning three bookshops on two islands, I returned to school in 1998 and earned a degree in English and a certificate in Women’s Studies at UH Hilo.

I live with my husband in Ookala, a former sugar plantation village of about 300 residents on the Hamakua Coast of the island of Hawaii. It’s a beautiful place with a tight knit community. This is a view of my home from the back yard. There’s a well worn path from the back door up to the garden room and chicken run at the left.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about The Canary Report. Write me at susie(at)thecanaryreport(dot)org, or feel free to leave comments on my blog.