Benjamin Cayetano

(b. 1941)

Ben Cayetano grew up in Kalihi on O`ahu, raised by a divorced immigrant father from the Philippines. After graduating from Farrington High School, Cayetano attended UCLA and Loyola University Law School, working his way through school as a draftsman on the Apollo spacecraft project.

Cayetano began his career in government in 1972 when he was appointed to the Hawai`i Housing Authority by Governor Burns. In 1974, he was elected to the State House of Representatives, followed by election to the State Senate in 1978. From there he moved to the lieutenant governorship in 1986, a path several others had followed to the chief executive's office. Beginning in 1994, Cayetano served two terms as governor, holding his post as the highest-ranking Filipino-American official in the country. During his tenure, Hawai`i experienced an economic downturn, the state's teachers went on strike and the attorney general's office conducted a criminal investigation of Bishop Estate, one of the wealthiest private estates in the Islands. Cayetano married for a second time while in office, and presided over the first wedding reception of a sitting governor ever hosted in Washington Place, the governor's mansion.

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