Meet Tess

MEET TESS

Faith • Family • Community • Service

Tess Abalos is an entrepreneur, small-business owner, experienced sales and management professional, community advocate, pastor, and candidate for Hawaiʻi State House District 29.

Her journey has taken her from music television and Honolulu’s entertainment industry to business and sales leadership across the United States and the Caribbean, entrepreneurship in Hawaiʻi, community outreach, ministry, grassroots campaigning, and public service.

Through every chapter of her life, Tess has learned that leadership begins with something simple:

Listen. Learn. Respect people. Take responsibility. Serve.

MUSIC TELEVISION, ENTERTAINMENT & VENUE EXPERIENCE

Before beginning her nationwide sales and management career, Tess managed the Honolulu office of The Box, an interactive music television network.

Her experience expanded beyond television into Honolulu’s entertainment industry, including club and venue operations, concert promotions, and live-event planning.

Tess worked directly with entertainers’ management teams while exploring opportunities to bring performers to Honolulu. Her responsibilities included developing proposals, coordinating directly with artist management, discussing performance and operational requirements, and helping organize the details involved in bringing entertainers to Hawaiʻi.

She also gained experience developing proposals related to entertainment venue operations.

This chapter of her career provided an early foundation in management, marketing, proposals, event coordination, professional communication, relationship building, and problem-solving.

It taught Tess how to take an opportunity from the initial conversation through planning, coordination, and execution.

BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP ACROSS AMERICA

Following her experience in music television and entertainment, Tess began a traveling career in sales, management, marketing, and business development.

Her career took her to all 50 states and many major U.S. cities, where she conducted business and sales while learning firsthand how different markets and communities operate.

Tess also managed and trained traveling sales crews and sales and marketing managers.

Managing teams while continually entering new markets required discipline, adaptability, organization, communication, and accountability.

She learned how to understand new markets, develop teams, establish goals, train and motivate people, solve problems, build relationships, and remain accountable for results.

Traveling throughout America also gave Tess the opportunity to meet and work with people from many different economic, cultural, and geographic backgrounds.

Those experiences strengthened her ability to communicate with people, understand different perspectives, and adapt to changing circumstances.

WITNESSING CRISIS & RESILIENCE

While her work took her across the country, Tess was in New York during the September 11, 2001 attacks.

She experienced the confusion, fear, and uncertainty surrounding that historic tragedy and witnessed how people and communities responded during an extraordinary national crisis.

The experience left a lasting impression on her.

Tess saw the importance of remaining calm amid chaos, helping one another, following emergency information, and having communities prepared when circumstances change without warning.

It also deepened her appreciation for first responders and for the resilience people can demonstrate during moments of tremendous uncertainty.

For Tess, that experience remains a deeply personal reminder of the importance of preparedness, steady leadership, compassion, and community during times of crisis.

BUSINESS ACROSS CULTURES

Tess’s professional journey also took her into the Caribbean, where she continued gaining business experience while working with people from different cultures and backgrounds.

She learned that meaningful relationships begin with listening and respect.

When working in different communities, Tess made an effort to learn useful words and phrases from local languages and dialects so she could communicate more personally and respectfully with the people she encountered.

Those experiences strengthened her ability to listen, adapt, communicate across cultures, lead diverse teams, and find common ground with people whose backgrounds or perspectives may be different from her own.

Those lessons continue to influence her approach to leadership today.

A LONG HISTORY OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN HAWAIʻI

Tess’s experience as a Hawaiʻi entrepreneur began years before Hawaii Green Products.

In 2007, Tess co-founded Hawaii Cleaning Care Supplies, supplying eco-conscious janitorial and cleaning products to businesses and customers in Hawaiʻi.

That experience gave her firsthand knowledge of commercial cleaning products, sales, customer relationships, purchasing, distribution, and the challenges involved in building and maintaining a local business.

In 2015, Tess founded Hawaii Green Products, continuing and expanding her work with eco-conscious cleaning products for commercial and residential use.

Her products are made in the United States through mainland manufacturing partners and shipped to Hawaiʻi for distribution. This allows her business to support American manufacturing while supplying businesses and households here at home.

Tess has continued supplying commercial and residential customers while also operating a local retail storefront.

Her hands-on experience includes working with manufacturers and suppliers, product development, purchasing, shipping and distribution, inventory, sales and marketing, customer relationships, retail operations, and business development.

That experience has also given Tess a firsthand understanding of Hawaiʻi’s unique business challenges—from mainland manufacturing and shipping costs to supply-chain disruptions and the additional expense of getting products onto Hawaiʻi shelves and into customers’ hands.

For Tess, conversations about small business, American-made products, shipping, supply chains, operating costs, and Hawaiʻi’s cost of living aren’t theoretical.

She has experienced them firsthand as a business owner.

A HEART FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE

Tess has been involved in houseless ministry and community outreach since 2015, working directly with individuals and families experiencing difficult circumstances.

Community outreach has allowed her to hear people’s stories and see struggles that cannot always be understood through statistics or government reports.

She has participated in outreach, listened to people, prayed with individuals and families, and worked alongside others committed to helping people move toward greater stability.

Those experiences strengthened her belief that lasting solutions require both:

Compassion and accountability.

Tess believes government has an important responsibility, but government cannot solve every community problem alone.

Families, nonprofits, churches and faith-based organizations, businesses, service providers, community organizations, and government each have a role in strengthening communities.

FAITH & MINISTRY

Faith has been an important part of Tess’s life and commitment to serving others.

Through years of prayer, intercession, ministry, and community outreach, she has served people from many different backgrounds and walks of life.

In 2023, Tess was ordained as a pastor.

Her Christian faith guides her personally and has taught her the importance of humility, compassion, integrity, responsibility, forgiveness, and service.

At the same time, Tess believes elected office carries a responsibility to every person in the district.

An elected representative should listen respectfully and provide constituent service regardless of someone’s political affiliation, faith, background, or personal beliefs.

GRASSROOTS & CAMPAIGN EXPERIENCE

Tess’s involvement in politics began long before her current campaign for office.

Over the years, she has participated in grassroots campaigning, supported other candidates, and served as a campaign manager.

She also learned by watching and helping with her father’s involvement in political campaigns and through her own involvement with experienced Hawaiʻi political figures, including the late John Carroll.

Those experiences allowed Tess to see politics from behind the scenes and reinforced an important lesson:

Public service isn’t about the title. It’s about the people.

It means showing up.

It means listening.

It means respecting people even when you disagree.

It means being accountable.

And it means remembering that elected officials work for the people they represent.

WHY TESS IS RUNNING

Tess is running for Hawaiʻi State House District 29 because she believes residents deserve representation that is accessible, responsive, transparent, fiscally responsible, and focused on practical results.

AFFORDABILITY & COST OF LIVING

Hawaiʻi families face tremendous pressure from housing, groceries, utilities, transportation, shipping, and other everyday necessities.

Tess believes lawmakers should consider how government decisions ultimately affect the household budgets of the people they represent.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Every resident deserves to feel safe at home and in the community.

Tess supports accountability, effective public safety, prevention, and cooperation among residents, families, community organizations, and law enforcement.

YOUTH OPPORTUNITY & PREVENTION

Tess believes prevention should begin before a young person becomes another statistic.

Mentorship, positive after-school activities, career preparation, apprenticeships, employment opportunities, family involvement, and early intervention can give young people alternatives to gangs, drugs, violence, and crime.

Young people need accountability—but they also need direction, opportunity, positive role models, and adults willing to invest in their future.

EDUCATION & FAMILIES

Tess supports quality education, safe schools, meaningful parental involvement, career and technical education, and pathways that prepare young people for employment and adulthood.

HOUSELESSNESS

Hawaiʻi needs practical approaches that recognize human dignity while also protecting public health and community safety.

Tess supports approaches that combine outreach, appropriate services, pathways toward stability, personal responsibility, and accountability.

SMALL BUSINESS & LOCAL JOBS

As a longtime entrepreneur and small-business owner, Tess understands the challenges of doing business in Hawaiʻi.

She supports an environment where local entrepreneurs can start businesses, create jobs, grow, and continue operating in Hawaiʻi.

ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY & DIVERSIFICATION

Tourism remains an important part of Hawaiʻi’s economy, but Tess believes our state should continue developing additional opportunities.

She supports expanding pathways in skilled trades, technology, healthcare, agriculture, entrepreneurship, manufacturing partnerships, and other industries capable of creating and supporting American jobs.

FOOD SECURITY & AGRICULTURE

Hawaiʻi’s geographic isolation makes food security especially important.

Tess supports strengthening local agriculture, supporting farmers, increasing local food production, and examining barriers that make locally produced food more difficult or expensive to bring to consumers.

RELIABLE & AFFORDABLE ENERGY

Tess believes energy decisions should consider environmental stewardship alongside reliability, resilience, and affordability for households and businesses.

HEALTHCARE ACCESS

Tess supports improving access to healthcare and addressing workforce shortages affecting communities throughout Hawaiʻi, including the neighbor islands.

INFRASTRUCTURE, EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS & RESILIENCE

Government has a fundamental responsibility to maintain essential infrastructure and help communities prepare for emergencies and natural disasters.

Tess’s personal experience witnessing a major national crisis reinforced her belief that preparedness should happen before an emergency, not after one begins.

Preparedness should be practical, coordinated, and focused on protecting people and communities.

GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY & FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY

Tess believes taxpayer money should be treated with respect.

Before creating or expanding government programs, lawmakers should ask:

What will it cost?

How will we pay for it?

Are we duplicating something that already exists?

How will we measure whether it works?

Are taxpayers getting results for their money?

ELECTION ADMINISTRATION

Tess supports elections that are secure, transparent, accessible, and worthy of public confidence, while respecting every eligible citizen’s right to vote.

REPRESENTING THE WHOLE DISTRICT

Tess is running as a Republican.

Her principles include fiscal responsibility, personal responsibility, public safety, economic opportunity, strong families, individual freedom, and accountable government.

But being a Republican does not mean listening only to Republicans.

If elected, Tess’s responsibility will be to represent everyone in District 29—Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and residents with no party affiliation.

People can disagree politically and still treat one another with dignity and respect.

Rather than beginning every conversation by asking:

“Is this a Republican idea or a Democratic idea?”

Tess believes elected leaders should also ask:

Will it help our community?

Can taxpayers afford it?

Is it fair?

Will it actually work?

Will we be accountable for the results?

TESS

T — TRANSPARENCY

Open and accountable government, responsible use of taxpayer dollars, and honest communication with constituents.

E — ECONOMY

Affordability, local jobs, entrepreneurship, small businesses, agriculture, American-made products, and opportunities that allow Hawaiʻi families to build their future here.

S — SAFETY

Safe neighborhoods, accountability, effective public safety, youth opportunity and prevention, preparedness, and stronger communities.

S — SERVICE

Listening to constituents, remaining accessible, responding to community concerns, and remembering that elected office is a responsibility to serve.

REAL PEOPLE. REAL STRUGGLES. REAL SOLUTIONS.

Tess’s journey has taken her from music television and Honolulu’s entertainment industry to doing business across all 50 states and the Caribbean; from managing and training traveling sales teams to building businesses in Hawaiʻi; from working with U.S. manufacturers and navigating Hawaiʻi’s shipping and supply chain to operating a local storefront; and from community outreach and ministry to grassroots political involvement and public service.

Different industries. Different cities. Different cultures. Different perspectives.

But the lesson has remained the same:

Listen. Learn. Respect people. Serve. Be accountable. Get the work done.

FAITH • FAMILY • FREEDOM

Together, We Can Make a Difference.