Lt. Governor Sylvia Luke, Featured Speaker for OWL March 2023
On March 13, we were fortunate to hear from Lt. Governor Sylvia Luke. She is Hawaii’s 16th lieutenant governor and only the third woman to hold the office. She shared her experience growing up as an immigrant and learning English while attending public school. While at the University of Hawaii she had her first foray into public service when she ran for student body president and won.
Lt. Gov. Luke recounted a story of being awarded a college scholarship from a Rotary club. She was invited to attend one of their meetings to accept her scholarship. She commented that she would like to join Rotary after college. The club members laughed at her because at that time women were not allowed to be members of many professional clubs including Rotary.
This experience helped fuel her passion, and she went on to have a successful career most notably as Chair of the Hawaii State House of Representatives Finance Committee for ten years before being elected Lieutenant Governor in 2022.
The Lieutenant Governor performs duties assigned by the Governor and serves as the Secretary of State for the State of Hawaii. In this role, one of her responsibilities is to provides authentication services for public and general documents used overseas such as birth and marriage certificates, legal name changes, etc. She noted the current process is antiquated and wait times are often long. Her administration is working to streamline the process and move to an online system. This is one example of how she aims to make administrative processes more user-friendly for residents.
One of many initiatives Lt. Gov. Luke is leading is called “Ready Keiki,” a public-private effort to ensure all Hawaii keiki will be ready for kindergarten and the future. Her goal is to create 80 preschool classrooms by 2024 and 465 preschool classrooms by 2032. Learn more about Ready Keiki here.
Lt. Gov. Luke was an inspiring speaker and graciously answered questions posed by OWL members and guests. We look forward to seeing her contributions during her term as Lieutenant Governor and in the future.