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Pono got his first bow at three years old. Not a toy — a real one. He spent every hour he could barefoot and outdoors, or working alongside his father on Molokai. When he was still too small to haul fence posts, he napped in the truck between runs. When he was big enough, he hauled them.

His mother says he's been obsessed with catching fish since he could barely hold a pole. His father was the island's chiropractor — Dr. Dean Keeaumoku Chow, D.C. — who has spent four decades as the only chiropractor most Molokai residents have ever needed. The two worlds Pono grew up in — the wild and the clinical — shaped everything he became.

Every summer, he goes back north. Bristol Bay, Alaska. Netting sockeye salmon. Hooking halibut. Crewing one of the most notorious boats on the bay. He started commercial fishing out of Homer at 12, became a charter captain, processed fish, built things, crabbed the cold water, and farmed the northwest corner of this country.

He's practically a pirate up there — and he wouldn't trade it for anything. That life forged something no classroom ever could. It's the grit that makes everything else possible.

Back home on Molokai, Pono is hard to find. Off in the jungle. Always busy, always moving toward something. He knows this island like the back of his hand — the paths the axis deer take through the valley and into the mountains, where the macadamia trees drop, where to find wild sea salt, what's running in which water and when.

The island has 7,500 people and around 50,000 axis deer. He farms the land, hunts the highlands, and draws on a lifetime of field experience to find opportunity in every hour outside. Odds are, anytime you leave the house with him, he's going to find or create an opportunity to harvest something.

Chiropractic runs in the family. Dr. Dean Chow has served Molokai for over four decades — combining adjustment with deep tissue work to give the island's people a real alternative to surgery and pharmaceuticals. Pono grew up watching that care in action. Understanding how bodies break down under physical demand — and how to put them back together — changed how he approaches everything. The wild. The work. The table.

The 'Grit to Grace' philosophy isn't a tagline. It's a lived thing — the discipline of a commercial fisherman, the knowledge of a lifelong Molokai guide, and the precision of a kahuna haihai iwi applied to every adventure.