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Leimana Pelton
Dean Johnston

Affiliations and Endorsements


Leimana Pelton >

Aloha and thank you for your interest in Bamboo Village Hawaii. My background education focused on business and art. I earned my degree from UCLA and have won around 20 awards working mostly with natural forms in sculpture and design. My skills are very broad which support my rural, self-sufficient lifestyle in Puna on the Big Island where I’ve lived for the past 22 years. I made a choice a few years back to go full time into designing and building with bamboo. At 53 years old, it wasn’t easy leaving behind previously successful designs of functional art and my fierce independence. But the Big Island needs a sensible industry here on the rainy side, and the time is now.

Hawaii has the potential for developing bamboo as one of the most important sustainable ag-crops of the twenty-first century, recognized and researched around the world. Lately, as the supply of quality forest products diminishes in the U.S. and the demand increases, there is a growing interest in bamboo. It revitalizes soil and builds topsoil and prevents erosion. It provides high quality timber. It also produces more oxygen than any other plant. During the past 6 years, I have studied with many of the top experts around the world, working towards establishing bamboo as an accepted building material by the international building code officials. Using all my available resources and skills, I have already built several structures on the Island that demonstrate what can be done. I am dedicating the remainder of my life to this worthy task but need the support of the people of Hawaii who understand the potential of the plant that survived the A bomb devastation in Japan.

With the encouragement of a core group of others, I am doing my best to expand the vision by enlisting the help of Sam, Dean and Sky who all believe that a Hawaiian grown bamboo industry is important enough to warrant their full participation, often without pay. Together we have formed B.V.H. as the hub to get this huge project rolling. If you or anyone you know who loves Hawaii can help in any way I can assure you that we will make the most and best of whatever you can offer from an endorsement to an endowment.

Many Mahalos,

Leimana Pelton,
CEO and Chairman
Bamboo Village Hawaii