Ko\u02bbu Mo\u02bbolelo \u2014 My Story
My Story
From the Garden Island to Your Table.
Manny Manuel is a fourth-generation Filipino-American whose roots reach deep into the red soil of Kaua\u02bbi. This is his story \u2014 of heritage, service, homecoming, and the kalo plant that started it all.
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Roots \u2014 The Garden Island
In the early 1900s, Manny\u02bbs great-great-grandparents journeyed from the Philippines to the island of Kaua\u02bbi, Hawai\u02bbi, to work the sugar cane plantations in a place then known as Mana. Today, we know it as the Garden Island \u2014 and it remains the root of everything Aloha Gardens stands for.
Born in 1960, Emmanuel \u201cManny\u201d Manuel is a fourth-generation Filipino-American with Hawaiian culture woven into his upbringing. His grandparents arrived as small children. His parents were born on the Big Island. His father joined the US Army in the mid-1950s, and as a military family, they traveled the world.
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Service \u2014 From Missiles to Mainframes
Manny graduated from UTEP in 1985 with a B.S. in Computer Science and was commissioned into the US Air Force as a Second Lieutenant. His first assignment: Missile Launch Officer at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, assigned to the 66th Strategic Missile Squadron. He was hand-picked to support an ICBM \u201cFoot-Launch\u201d mission at Vandenberg AFB, California.
In 1986, he married his high school sweetheart, Virginia Carrillo, in El Paso, TX. By 1988, he was promoted to Captain and became a Missile Combat Crew Commander. In 1990, Captain Manuel transferred to Langley AFB, VA as a Computer-Network Programmer Analyst \u2014 later hand-picked to serve at Air Combat Command headquarters.
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The Return \u2014 Home to Kaua\u02bbi
In 1995, after much prayer, Captain Manuel and his family made a step-of-faith decision: leave the Air Force and return to Kaua\u02bbi. They arrived in early 1996, settling in Kekaha with his parents. His sons would have the grandparent-grandchildren relationship that matters.
Shortly after arriving, Manny was employed as a government contractor at the Navy Pacific Missile Range at Barking Sands. Year-round Hawaiian weather, a sandy beach across the road, and nine minutes door-to-desk \u2014 life was good. In 2000, a new opportunity called him back to Langley AFB, where he spent the next two decades as a systems administrator and database programmer across a range of government contractors. He also re-entered service as a US Air Force Reserve Individual Mobilized Augmentee \u2014 later promoted to Major, and retired from the Reserves in March 2011.
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Born in a Backyard \u2014 Aloha Gardens
In 2013, Manny and his youngest son Howie began building a backyard Koi pond in Hampton, VA. What started as a father-son project quietly grew into something bigger. The pond became a garden. The garden became a mission.
In April 2017, Aloha Gardens was born \u2014 a farm rooted in the spirit of Hawai\u02bbi, dedicated to growing fresh kalo and delivering it to Hawaiian families across the mainland who can\u02bbt find it locally. From the Garden Island to your table, with Aloha every step of the way.
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