Dana Butler

Dana E. Butler comes to us from the Puna District of Hawai’i Island where she lived for 14 years. She is a lifelong fan of public radio, first becoming a member of KCRW in Los Angeles when in law school in the 1990s. She became a member of HPR in 2016. She has a diverse background including law, communications, non-profit administration, volunteer management, fundraising, community outreach and budgeting.

She most recently worked with Hastings & Pleadwell, a communication company. She started her career as a business litigator in Southern California for 12 years. She gave up law to work for Kalani Honua, Inc., a non-profit retreat center in Puna, where she worked from 2010 until it closed in 2018 due to the Kīlauea lava flow. At Kalani, she was part of the leadership team and served as executive chef, overseeing a team of 40 staff and volunteers responsible for sustainably producing over 125,000 meals a year.

She is a graduate of New York University and holds a J.D. from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. She also studied environmental and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In her free time, she loves to cook local produce and listen to Hawai’i Public Radio. She is excited to explore life in Honolulu.