There also is a growing number of programs to acquaint prospective college graduates with job possibilities in the Islands, including summer internships through local companies and the state's community colleges that introduce young talent to potential employers, as well as the opportunity to send resumes to one of the economic development councils.

"People mail them in, and we have parents dropping them off," said Leslie Wilkins, vice president of the Maui Economic Development Board. "Sometimes they hand-deliver."

BARKING SANDS BOOMS

On Kaua'i, job growth at the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands has seen an increase of several hundred in the past few years, with around 1,000 people now working at the facility, said Mattie Yoshioka, president and CEO of the Kaua'i Economic Development Board.

"We get a lot of inquiries about job opportunities in the Islands, and we stumble on a lot of former kama'aina wanting to know what's going on in the tech field," Yoshioka said. "They're surprised about the job opportunities, so we've been hooking them up with companies in Hawai'i."

For Darin Millard and his wife, Erin, who grew up on Maui and Kaua'i, taking a Mainland job with General Dynamics in Virginia right out of college also was the linchpin that made coming home possible.

"Just the opportunity to move back was the deal-breaker," said Millard, who can go surfing after work on Kaua'i and whose wife is now a much-needed teacher in the Kaua'i work force. "We had the opportunity to be relocated in six to nine months and decided that would be our best way to get back home."

None of this means that all the factors that kept the state's skilled young people from coming home during the 1990s have changed that much. There's still a housing crisis, perhaps more severe than ever, and the rising median price for a single-family home on O'ahu — $668,300 in May — is keeping many out of the market. Rents also are high, and sometimes the returning kama'aina is back with Mom and Dad.

But having the high-tech jobs available now makes a difference, even though overall 2000 Census demographic data show the biggest return coming after age 45.

"A lot of people moved away because of the jobs when the economy wasn't so good through the 1990s," said Jon Sakurai-Horita, who operates the Kama'aina Careers Web site and serves as a matchmaker for Hawai'i employers and homesick locals longing to come home.

"When I go to events like job fairs and lu'aus (on the Mainland) I have a big banner that says 'Jobs in Hawai'i.' That draws them to my table, and they say 'What jobs? That's why I left Hawai'i.' Then I tell them more."

MORE CAN BE DONE

At a place like Enterprise Ho-nolulu, executive vice president Alex McGehee knows that Hawai'i is seeing an improvement in tech jobs, but he said there's still much to be done to offer anything close to what's available on the West Coast, for instance.

"We're closer than we were a couple of years ago, but we've got a ways to go," said McGehee, whose focus is nurturing economic diversity and the creation of industries with jobs averaging more than $50,000 annually. "But part of motivating people to come home is successfully telling our story that things are changing."

Of the approximately 600,000 jobs in the Islands now, about 6 percent are in the technology field, said McGehee, citing state statistics. That's up from about 5.4 percent in 2000 and around 2.5 to 3 percent in 1996. But the "tipping point" to make it very sustainable is 10 percent, he said.

Tom Cooper, manager of General Dynamics, and Patrick Sullivan, chairman of Oceanit, are two employers helping boost the state's high-tech industry along with hiring and bringing home highly trained kama'aina.

"We're big advocates of local kids, because they understand a lot of the values that we've built the company on," said Sullivan, whose 20-year-old company doing aerospace research and design, among other things, now has 120 to 130 employees. It soon will be hiring another 20 and spinning off a second company — Hoana Medical — that will be hiring 40 people.

"For a lot of them, they don't realize there's work here."

FAMILY MATTERS

The lure of family also is resonating more than ever.

That's what it took for 37-year-old Dan Inoshita to find his way back. His father was ill, and he came home to be with his family after a 16-year Mainland career that had him traveling the world as a product troubleshooter and working for companies such as Sony.

In the late 1980s, when Inoshita graduated from high school and then a Mainland college as a design engineer, there wasn't much of anything in the Hawai'i job market.

"It was Hawaiian Electric, Hawaiian Telephone or a copier technician," he said.

Being back in Hawai'i for an extended period gave him a chance to look around, drop in on a tech job fair, and see a changed state.

"It was a very different picture from the '80s," Inoshita said. He was so impressed by Oceanit that he accepted a job two weeks ago.

"It was surprising and a relief to know the economy was actually growing."

FOLLOWING PARENTS

That's also what brought the extended Matsushima family home — including Susan and Paul who came back in the mid-1970s after he worked for Boeing. Now two of their three children, who went to the Mainland for college and to launch careers, are back, helping run the multimillion-dollar agribusiness Alluvion that Susan launched. The firm's nurseries are on 20 acres near Hale'iwa, on the former Meadow Gold Dairy farm location.

After it took the senior Matsushimas almost eight years to get back, she was concerned their children would never have the same opportunity. Then her son, Chad, tired of the Mainland and moved back several years ago with his family. Now her daughter, Jodi Kusumoto, is doing the same.

"My daughter had been in Seattle for 16 years, and then in February she said 'I'm going to give you a really good birthday present, Mom,' " Matsushima said. "I thought it was another baby, but she said 'Mom, we're moving home.' "

Within three weeks, her husband, Rick, got a job offer and even though he took a pay cut, the family will be together, Jodi can be part of the family business, and their 2-year-old son Troy will grow up with cousins.

"No matter where you go in the Seattle area, the people who move to Seattle very seldom move home unless they're from Hawai'i," Matsushima said. "That's very telling of our state."

Many who fled the '90s downturn find a strong local economy changes things

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.