David Cole has been called a visionary and a high-tech entrepreneur who's out to save a plantation-era company from global competition.

Since his 2003 appointment as chief executive officer of Maui Land & Pineapple Co., Cole helped turn around the money-losing company, which had been hard-hit during the mid-1990s by low-cost pineapple producers overseas. With Cole at the helm, ML&P has produced a profit in all but one year.

But when ML&P announced last month it was laying off 274 workers, or more than a quarter of its staff, the company's 55-year-old CEO became the target of much criticism.

Two former ML&P executives and a former union leader said the layoffs could have been avoided. They criticized Cole for allowing the pineapple operations to wither. Meanwhile, Cole's supporters, including two ML&P board members and a current labor official, defended his actions as the best possible moves in a difficult situation.

Pineapple accounted for more than half of the company's revenues when Cole joined. Today, it represents less than a third.

"The company, as far as I'm concerned, is going in the wrong direction," said Mary Cameron Sanford, ML&P's former chairwoman and former publisher of the Maui News. "It seems that agriculture has taken a back seat, particularly pineapple."

Sanford said the company endured hard times before without resorting to large layoffs. It used other cost-saving measures such as reducing the dividend it pays to investors, she said.

Cole — who was picked to lead ML&P by Steve Case, the co-founder of America Online and ML&P's largest investor — said in a telephone interview that the company is doing its best to preserve its pineapple operations, which lost more than $60 million in the past three years.

Last year, Cole closed ML&P's Kahului cannery, laying off 124 workers.

The downsizing, Cole said, is necessary to preserve the remaining pineapple operation, which will be down to about 200 workers once the latest cuts are completed. The move is also needed to protect ML&P's resort and real estate operations, he said.

"He's tried harder than most to keep agriculture alive," said Walter Dods, an ML&P board member and chairman of First Hawaiian Bank. "He's tried real hard to do the right thing."

LAND SOLD OFF

Cole sold ML&P's Costa Rica plantation and sold off hundreds of acres of fertile pineapple-producing lands in Hali'imaile in Upcountry Maui.

"I don't think they're trying to make an honest go with pine," said former ML&P Vice President Douglas MacCluer. "Pineapple is not on their agenda. It's all shibai."

Cole said such criticisms don't recognize the harsh economic realities faced by the company.

With a nationwide pineapple market share of just four percent, ML&P can't compete head-on with corporations such as Dole Food Co. and Del Monte Fresh Produce Inc..

The pineapple business took more hits recently as fuel prices, fertilizer costs and packaging expenses soared.

In hindsight, Cole said he probably should have downsized the company's pineapple operations much sooner.

The latest cuts, which will save about $11 million in annual costs, transform the company into a niche player focusing on the local market and select specialty markets.

"I've seen a lot of second guessing by a lot of people who grew canned pine decades ago. It's just a very different business," Cole said. "Pineapple as a commodity is dead and buried."

Willie Kennison, Maui division director for the ILWU which represents ML&P's pineapple workers, believes Cole is making an honest attempt to save pine. Kennison cited $18 million investment in modernizing the company's Kahului cannery.

"At first, I was taken aback by some of the decisions he made but after talking to a lot of people, I believe he's trying to do his best. I just think it's bad timing on how things turned out," Kennison said.

"It's easy to point fingers but the biggest problem is foreign competition."

CASE BUYS 41 PERCENT

Founded in 1969 by kama'aina businessman Colin Cameron, Maui Land & Pineapple is one of the largest employers on the Valley Isle. Though publicly traded since 1969, the Cameron family owned most of the stock until Case acquired a 41 percent stake in 1999.

Prior to Case's investment, the company struggled against foreign competition in the same way that many of Hawai'i's sugar plantations struggled prior to their shutdowns in the early 1990s.

Cole's arrival on the scene was seen by many as a turning point.

The Kailua native and University of Hawai'i-Manoa graduate boasted all-star credentials: from 1994 to 1997, he served as a senior executive at America Online, first as president of AOL's Internet services company and later as president of AOL's new enterprises group.

Before that, he headed software company Ashton-Tate Inc., computer magazine publisher Ziff Communications and Internet-based software company NaviSoft Inc., which was acquired by AOL in 1994.

"David really is a visionary who is a couple of yards ahead of the game," said David Heenan, ML&P board member and former trustee of the Estate of James Campbell.

Cole also is ahead of most Isle executives when it comes to compensation.

In its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, ML&P said it paid Cole $4.1 million last year, making him the second-highest paid CEO in Hawai'i behind Alexander & Baldwin Inc.'s Allen Doane, who received $8.6 million.

Cole's 2007 compensation was more than double his pay in 2006 and represents a big chunk of the $11 million-a-year the company hopes to save this year from the latest downsizing.

Cole said most of his pay is in the form of stock and stock options, which is tied to how well the company performs.

John Arisumi, longtime Maui division director for the ILWU before he retired in 1991, said much of Cole's 2007 pay increase would have been better spent on the employees who lost their jobs last month.

"If that's his pay, that's nuts," Arisumi said.

"If Colin (Cameron) were here, this wouldn't have happened. He would have found a different way to survive."