Where Are They Now – Tacco Berganio

When Eustaquio Berganio graduated from Lānaʻi High & Elementary School in 1984, he already had a clear idea of the work he wanted to do in life. He knew it would involve using his hands, being precise, and building things with wood that were straight and plumb and sturdy.

High marks in Wood Shop classes had shown the young Berganio, known by friends and family as Tacco, that he had a talent for construction, and a gimlet eye for straight lines. He was (and still is) affable and warm, possessing the kind of personality that swings a door open in welcome — literally, in this case. When he was 14 years old, he began apprenticing himself as a rookie carpenter to friends who were renovating their houses on Lānaʻi.

“I was too young to get a driver’s license, so I would bike to Mr. Hokama’s house and to Mr. Cole’s house, and help wherever I could,” Berganio says. (Dennis Hokama was Berganio’s teacher at LHES and Joe Cole was an entomologist who was studying fruit flies on Lānaʻi.)

It was unpaid work, but that did not matter to Berganio. He saw the apprenticeship as the beginning of his life in construction. He refined his carpentry skills that summer and developed the exacting standards that the profession requires, where straight lines and solid workmanship always matter.

Berganio attended Pasadena City College in 1984, enrolling in the Construction Inspection track, a two-year program which offers instruction in all phases of inspections, from pre-grading and site preparation to the final inspection of a building. As part of the program requirement, Berganio and his fellow classmates built, from the ground up, two-bedroom homes, move-in ready for two families. He received a Certificate of Achievement in Construction Inspection at the end of his study at PCC.

He has been working ever since. That’s nearly forty years of construction work. He moved from California to Oʻahu five years ago to work as a finish carpenter at All Hamajang, a construction company. Its motto: “we do it nice, ‘cause we do it twice” is a tongue-in-cheek twist to the carpenter’s maxim to “measure twice, cut once”.

Berganio shows no sign of slowing down or of his passion abating. “My joy is finish carpentry. I work on windows, doors, trims, paneling, including cabinetry. There’s no room for error. If something is crooked, your eye sees it right away,” he says.

And continuing what he practiced decades ago, Berganio works only for friends and family. “We don’t do work with anyone we don’t know. That gives us control of the projects. My goal is to make people happy. I want to do great work at a fair price. I’m not here to make a million dollars. Make people happy, and make a living.”

It’s a simple philosophy that Tacco Berganio lives by, a life he first glimpsed when he was fourteen, a life where joy comes from building something solid and sound, hammer and nails in hand, elbow deep in sawdust.

 

“Where are they now?” features alumni from Lānaʻi High & Elementary School, shedding light on their journeys post-graduation.