Hawai'i's growing high technology community is all abuzz over budgets and tax credits. What we may not know is that in the '60s and '70s the building blocks for technology as an economic alternative were put into place by visionary leaders such as Sen. Nadao "Najo" Yoshinaga, who served in the Legislature from 1955-1974. He chaired the Senate's Ways and Means Committee in 1965-66, and from 1971-74.

When a legislator supports a new program, we may never know the hidden hand that recognized the good idea, or quietly slipped a key appropriation into the budget. Yoshinaga was such a leader — sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes going out front to run interference.

Legislative leaders often do not come up with proposals solely on their own, but have the gift of recognizing the best people and the best ideas. They are curious. They read. They reach out beyond Hawai'i's reefs to the national and international trends. They help bring the world to Hawai'i, and to take Hawai'i to the world.

Harold Masumoto, who served as Yoshinaga's chief of staff on Ways and Means, noted, "One way Najo stood out was that, unlike the present when we have some politicians with vision but limited political skills and some politicians with outstanding political skills, but limited vision, Najo had both vision and political skills to execute his vision."

Between 1965 and 1974 Yoshinaga supported funding for the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology on Coconut Island, the Kewalo Basin research lab, the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics Observatory on Haleakala, the Mauna Kea Observatory, the East-West Center, the medical school, the law school, and many more keys to our research and technology infrastructure. In 1965, The Research Corporation of the University of Hawai'i was created to cut through the red tape and facilitate interdepartmental initiatives, "for purposes of promoting, encouraging, initiating, developing and conducting scientific research and investigation in all branches of learning... ." There are so many public servants who have stories about how this or that new initiative would never have gotten off the ground if it were not for RCUH. He saw the need. He saw the potential. He acted. We benefited.

Happy to have health care? According to the journal Health Affairs, Hawai'i's Prepaid Health Care Act "was largely the product of Nadao Yoshinaga, a powerful state senator from O'ahu and a primary spokesperson for a Hawaiian style of social welfare liberalism."

In 1972, Time magazine featured a story on a bill that could limit the number of cars in our state: "The law is expected to be challenged in the courts. But State Sen. Nadao Yoshinaga, who drafted the bill, argues: " 'I am banking on the principle that the state has the right to use its power to protect the safety, health and welfare of its residents.' "

Yoshinaga would never say he did anything alone. The Legislature is, after all, a complicated arena of many players. Many egos and ideals are at play. Yet someone had to be the Top Chef in creating many a tasty multi-course policymaking meal. Yoshinaga was master of the legislative kitchen.

Recently, a small group of his admirers gathered to wish him well on his 90th birthday. Among them were current and former legislators, attorneys, UH leaders, activists, even a former governor, those who spent some time as his staff or under his guidance. His life in public service can serve as an inspiration, and a standard, for current leaders. As we face one crisis after another, we speculate how things might be going differently with one or two Najos still at the helm.

As Hawai'i celebrates its 50th year as a state, people should know that so much of what we take for granted as part of our preferred future was put in place by visionaries such as Nadao Yoshinaga. Hawai'i historians have noted that Yoshinaga was "widely recognized as the paramount figure in the Legislature" and was "one of the leading legislators of the entire post-World War II era."

Thank you, senator.

Jim Shon is a former state legislator. Twenty of Nadao Yoshinaga's friends and supporters contributed to this commentary, which was written for The Advertiser.