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Technology helps cousins connect and launch a business in Lahaina

By Staff | Mar 21, 2013

Cousins Pam Webb and Charlie Osborne own Island Printing & Imaging in Lahaina. PHOTO BY WALTER CHIHARA.

LAHAINA – In another remarkable online outreach of the electronic age database, two people have connected through Google and Facebook to find that they have a grandparent that was born in Keanae here on Maui during the 1890s.

In researching their family heritage, Pam Webb and Charlie Osborne learned of the life of William Napiha’a Anderson of Keanae and continued to communicate via the web. They learned that Napiha’a had attended Saint Mary’s College in the Bay Area of California, playing football and competing on the swim team. He married twice – to Virginia Harte and Elizabeth Holiday – and raised a daughter and four sons in Oakland, with grandchildren following soon thereafter.

Webb and Osborne are two of these offspring that found their family connection about five years ago.

“We realized that we were related, cousins, a few years ago through our research on the Internet,” explained Webb from the second floor of Island Printing & Imaging, the business that she and Osborne own and operate in the old Lahaina Industrial Area.

The serendipity continued as they discovered that they shared similar business career interests in printing and reproduction. Webb had worked at Island Printing starting in 1991, while Osborne had launched his career in the field after graduating from California State University, Chico with a degree in graphic design.

In 2011, they decided to partner up and purchase Island Printing & Imaging at its new location two doors down from the Lahaina Sugar Cane Train station. The business has grown and flourished to new heights ever since.

“We’ve diversified the business to offer more services,” Webb said. “There is new digital imaging available for traditional uses such as advertising, business cards and sales literature. Things are constantly growing and improving.”

Osborne added, “Along with those commercial business uses, there is what we call ‘part two’ that involves the art reproduction side of the operation. This is high-technology computerization in wide format (44 inches by any length) in imaging and printing art and photographs. It is re-mastering and reproduction sometimes called ‘giclee.’ We have some new machines and equipment that enable us to reproduce in wide formats.”

Webb recalls past customers to Island Printing at its former location at Lahaina Square (near Ace Hardware) asking, “Where’s Pam?” Now you can find her, and Osborne, at their new location next door to Moore Interiors near the train station. Call 661-8849 or connect online at info@ipi.hawaii.net.