Robert Rekward :: Fearless Leader

As the President of Tsunami Marketing, Robert Rekward leads the creative development process ensuring excellence in the creative product, brand development and strategy. He is supported by an award-winning team of designers, writers, multimedia and database specialists in the execution of that vision.

Robert is committed to ensuring an outstanding level of integrity and effectiveness in the final deliverables. As our "Fearless Leader," Robert is also a leading pioneer of the Internet and new technology on Kauai and throughout Hawaii, and enjoys teaching others about new technology. He is a recognized brand and technology expert and speaks at various trade shows and conferences throughout Hawaii. He also brings extensive print and online production experience to all of our projects, and intimate knowledge of Kauai's (and Hawaii's) visitor, resident, and business communities.

Valerie Rekward :: Queen Bee

Valerie Rekward has over 25 years of marketing and advertising experience. She understands most every aspect of advertising and marketing, having held numerous positions during her award-winning career -- account director, art director, designer, media planner and buyer, photographer, procurement specialist, printing technician, technical illustrator, job traffic controller, typographer -- and since 1993, she has been the managing partner for Tsunami Marketing, helping them achieve unprecedented success not only statewide but nationally as well.

Valerie is a jack-of-all-trades in the marketing world and knows what it takes to enable the whole marketing process from start to finish -- for clients, vendors, and for Tsunami Marketing. Valerie’s biggest strength is being able to look at and dissect most any communication’s challenge from multiple vantage points to achieve unmatched results for Tsunami’s clients. Prior to living on Kauai, Valerie managed successful marketing programs for a wide variety of Silicon Valley companies, including Intel, Tandem, National Semiconductor, and Zilog to name a few.

Susie Higgins :: Live Wire

After an initial visit over 25 years ago, Susie fell in love with the Garden Island and returned frequently. She eventually met her husband while on vacation here in ’98 and, after a long-time dream of making Kauai her home, returned in 2007 on a permanent basis.

Susie brings with her a wealth of knowledge in product positioning, brand strategy, identity differentiation, brand implementation and campaign development. For the past 18 years, Susie has been cultivating the client/agency relationship into a partnership of trust and organizing the many facets of marketing techniques into targeted, cohesive advertising campaigns. She has worked with every conceivable company type—from small, start-up “dot-coms” to international powerhouses like Chevron and Wells Fargo. Just prior to moving to Kauai, Susie and her husband spent almost a year overseeing the brand development and market launch of a boutique resort in Samoa.

Teresa Caires :: Sugar Mama

Teresa Caries has joined the Tsunami Marketing team as an accountant and office manager — she is responsible for all client and vendor finances and ensures that the office is constantly running at its optimum level.

Teresa brings a wealth of knowledge, experience and ambition to Tsunami Marketing. She holds both a BBA and an MBA from Chaminade University and University of Phoenix, with plans to secure her Ph.D. in the near future. Teresa's prior experience includes managerial accounting in retail sales, civil engineering, hotel, visitor/activity industries and with government and public agencies.

Teresa is also a lecturer for Kauai Community College's Business Department and an assistant coach for her daughters' cheerleading squad. In the little spare time that Teresa has as an accountant, mother of three, teacher and coach, she enjoys traveling and stays in shape with kick boxing, which also helps to keep the members of Tsunami Marketing's creative department in line.

Troy Arnold :: Penguin Wrangler

Troy is a renaissance geek who wears the “geek” badge with honor. His interests and work history in programming, p2p, social networks, open source, open standards, network security, privacy, and cryptography bring more than a decade of experience and a pile of acronyms to the Tsunami Marketing team.

Some interesting projects include: STOGIE, a trash-talking, database-querying instant messaging robot; search and information architecture for a leading web and print travel brand; online collaboration and project management applications for library systems.

With a firm understanding that the Internet belongs to everyone; that educated minds are tolerant minds; and that the internet is the best tool we have for nurturing the free exchange of information, culture and ideas, Troy loves that Tsunami’s work allows him to help shape what it will become. For Yang, Troy enjoys aggressive mountain biking with Tsunami’s Fearless Leader, and for Yin, donning a snorkel and sinking peacefully into the ebb and flow of the Pacific Ocean.

Gary Smith :: Alpha Geek

Gary Smith has worked in a variety of technical fields, including positions as a computer operator/technician at Wright Patterson A.F.B. (Dayton, Ohio), a web press operator for several newspapers in Ohio and both the Garden Island and Kauai Times newspapers on Kauai. He has also enjoyed positions as a darkroom technician/photographer for both Kauai newspapers, a screen printer for Island Art & Graphics, a computer specialist for Radio Shack, and for the past eleven years as a web developer/system administrator for Tsunami Marketing.

Web development has allowed Gary to draw on both his computer and graphic expertise. His interactive projects are database-driven, which allows him to create sites with advanced interactive capabilities. Past projects include e-commerce sites, calendaring applications, online reservation systems and content management systems to allow web site owners to make changes to their sites without any understanding of the underlying technology. He currently uses HTML, CSS, Javascript, MySql, PHP and Perl on his favorite web platform, Linux/Apache.

Vanessa Massoud :: Digital Seamstress

As a world traveler and scholar, Vanessa Massoud brings a breadth of experience to Tsunami. She has a biology degree from UC San Diego, where she worked on marine research boats, helped research African Elephant DNA, and studied ecology in Costa Rica. Vanessa has always been fascinated by science, but has also explored another passion—art and design.

She interned at Surfing Magazine, writing for surfline.com and print stories for SG Magazine. She contributed to Surf Diva as a photographer, surf instructor, and team rider; and freelance photographer for Korean Air’s Morning Calm magazine.

Working for clothing brand Ash Francomb, Vanessa decided she wanted to formally learn design. Studying fashion at the California College of Arts (CCA), and interning with bay area fashion brand Tea Collection provided the perfect playground to put her varied experience to work in a creative field. “I hope to do it all someday—clothing, architecture, interiors, whatever I can. In the words of Steve Jobs, ‘stay hungry, stay foolish.’”

Matt Hovland :: Producer

Matt Hovland's career path was determined in grade 5 when the results from his Suggested Areas of Future Employment Test yielded “Gun Shop Clerk” or “Production Manager for a small, successful Marketing Firm, in Hawaii”. Fortunately he chose the latter, and as fate would predict, is now part of the marketing team at Tsunami.

Matt relocated to Kauai from the mainland in late 2005. He comes from Florida where he worked in the production department at PUSH, a moderately sized ad agency in Orlando. He has been producing all forms of advertising messaging since 2000, including award winning print collateral, outdoor media, internet and broadcast radio campaigns. He holds a degree in Ad/ PR from the University of Central Florida, and also has experience in traffic management and copywriting.

When not producing the finest advertising mediums the garden isle has to offer, he enjoys Kauai’s pristine surf and hiking trails.