EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Monarch Coffee
Abby Munoz is a coffee industry professional, consultant, and entrepreneur with more than a decade of experience in coffee production, quality, roasting, marketing, business development, and association leadership.

Alongside her husband, Sal, Abby helped build Monarch Coffee Farm into one of Hawaii's most recognized specialty coffee brands, earning numerous awards for quality and innovation while developing systems that elevated every aspect of the business—from customer acquisition and marketing to processing and roasting. Today, through Monarch Coffee Collective, she provides consulting services to coffee producers and agricultural businesses, specializing in coffee quality, post-harvest processing, business strategy, and customer acquisition.

Abby has served the Hawaii Coffee Association in multiple leadership roles, including Treasurer, Cupping Competition Chair, World of Coffee Coordinator, Conference Planning Committee member, and Executive Director. She is passionate about creating opportunities for education, collaboration, and industry growth while helping Hawaii coffee remain competitive on the global stage.

Known for her collaborative leadership style and commitment to excellence, Abby is dedicated to supporting coffee farmers, businesses, and industry partners while strengthening the future of Hawaii coffee for generations to come.

PRESIDENT

Honolulu Coffee Company
Ryson Nakamasu represents Honolulu Coffee Company, which has held a seat on the HCA Board for several years, with Ryson currently serving as President.

Ryson has been with Honolulu Coffee Company for 14 years, beginning as a barista and working his way up through warehouse management to his current role as Operations Manager overseeing 226 acres of farmland, including 55 acres of planted coffee. Honolulu Coffee operates cafés on every major island in the State of Hawaiʻi, coffee farms in Kona, and multiple café locations internationally, including franchises in Japan.

Ryson and the Honolulu Coffee team are committed to continuing their service on the HCA Board of Directors, strongly supporting the Hawaiian coffee industry through specialty coffee standards, volunteer hours, and the deep coffee expertise their team brings to the table.

VICE PRESIDENT

Kona Coffee Farmers Association

Suzanne represents the Kona Coffee Farmers Association and serves on their board as Vice President.  As an HCA member, she has been active in writing and securing over $150,000 in HDOA/DAB grants to benefit the organization. Suzanne has also served as a representative to the USDA Farm Service Agency State Committee, the USDA Coffee and Cocoa Crop Germplasm Committee, and the Hawaii State Board of Agriculture.  She has been involved in her family’s Lions Gate Farm brand since 1997, with 14 acres of coffee.

SECRETARY

Pacific Coffee Research

I bring with me a strong foundation of industry experience, including roles in both café and roastery management. I am a licensed Q Grader and professional coffee roaster, and have worked extensively across the specialty coffee supply chain. My volunteer work with the HCA reflects a deep commitment to the Hawai‘i coffee community. I have supported cupping competitions hosted by Pacific Coffee Research, co-led workshops at the HCA Conference, brewed coffee in the HCA booth at the Specialty Coffee Association’s Global Coffee Expo, and helped plan and coordinate the US Coffee Champs Barista and Brewers Cup Prelim Competitions in 2019, 2022, and 2023. Pacific Coffee Research (PCR), where I have served in a leadership role since 2021, has long been a dedicated partner of the HCA. PCR has provided vital services to the Hawai‘i coffee industry—services that were previously inaccessible locally. These include barista training, Q grading, equipment servicing and procurement, and certified educational programming. PCR is deeply embedded in the local and national coffee community, and I am eager to represent this perspective on the HCA Board. I believe my industry expertise, leadership experience, and collaborative approach will be valuable assets to the HCA as it continues to support and elevate Hawai‘i’s coffee sector.

TREASURER

Kona Hills

Fred Cowell is currently the CEO for Kona Hills, LLC. He was previously the General Manager of Kauai Coffee Company from 2015 to 2023. He has been an HCA board member since 2016 serving in many committees and positions including past president.

Misma Lani Farms

Victoria Magaña is a second-generation Kona coffee producer from Honaunau, Hawaii, and a graduate of the University of Hawaii at Hilo, where she earned a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration and Sociology. Victoria joined her family’s coffee business in 2017, a farm management and coffee milling operation encompassing about 12 individual coffee farms. In 2020, she launched Misma Lani Farms as a retail brand, sharing the family's coffee directly with consumers.

This past year, Victoria has volunteered on the Hawaii Coffee Association's Education Committee, helping with outreach efforts to better understand the needs and gaps facing industry members. She has also had the opportunity to represent Hawaii coffee through trade missions with the Synergistic Hawaii Agricultural Council, traveling to Taiwan and China to explore emerging markets and take part in coffee expos and cupping sessions.

For the past two years, Victoria has also volunteered at the HCA booth during the Specialty Coffee Association's annual U.S. conference, supporting and promoting Hawaii's coffee regions as a whole, not just her own farm. She enjoys this kind of teamwork and believes the whole industry benefits when growers show up for each other. After nine years of learning from her coffee colleagues across the islands, Victoria feels ready to take on a new role of service and would be honored to contribute to the Hawaii Coffee Association Board.

A Coffee Farm

Alla and her husband managed a 10-acre farm in Wood Valley for five years before partnering with James McCully in 2022 to establish A Coffee Farm, a vertically integrated, farm-to-cup coffee company based in the Ka'u region of the Island of Hawai'i.

Since 2019, Alla has been involved with the Hawaii Coffee Association as Event Coordinator, organizing the Association’s participation in Specialty Coffee Association events and its own annual conference. She has served as HCA Secretary since 2023.

Alla has also been an active member of the Ka‘u Coffee Festival planning committee since 2019, serving as Assistant Organizer and Media & Communications Lead.

Greenwell Farms

Ben Greenwell brings over 20 years of hands-on experience at Greenwell Farms, one of Kona's most storied coffee operations. Over the course of his career, Ben has worked across nearly every aspect of the farm, from field work and planting to roasting, packaging, and leading farm tours that educate visitors on the journey from seed to cup.

Today, Ben serves as Processing Manager overseeing both the wet mill and dry mill operations, while continuing to roll up his sleeves wherever he is needed. His deep roots in the day-to-day realities of coffee farming give him a grounded, practical perspective that he brings to everything he does.

Greenwell Farms has been a longstanding presence on the HCA Board of Directors, and Ben is proud to continue that tradition of service and commitment to Hawai'i's coffee community.

Kauai Coffee Company

Bronson has been with Kauai Coffee Company since 2013. A second-generation farmer, raised on Kauai and graduating from The College of Tropical Agriculture: UH Manoa- Bronson has a deep connection to Hawaii’s unique and diverse agriculture community. Since 2021, Bronson has held the position of Orchard Manager- overseeing operations spanning from nursery, planting, orchard maintenance, IPM, irrigation, crop nutrition, pruning, and harvesting. Bronson strives to continue to develop himself as an agriculture leader within the state; he is a Leadership Kauai Alumni (2020) and an Agriculture Leadership Foundation of Hawaii’s graduate of Class XVIII.

Maui Coffee Association

Chris Speere - President MCA / Founder Hale Ihe Consulting. Mr. Speere’s experience includes 48 years of culinary industry expertise, with 32 years of food product and recipe development, curriculum development and grant management at UH Maui College. Since his semi-retirement in 2020 he has been active in the development of the Maui Coffee Associations - Maui Coffee Academy. His activities include securing funding for major coffee processing equipment, the purchase of coffee based educational supplies and the creation of a series of 10 educational coffee videos for MCA members and the greater Maui coffee industries use and enrichment.

With his wife Becky, who is also an accomplished chef, they operate a diversified farm in Huelo offering a selection of unique organically grown tropical fruits and vegetables to local chefs and mixologists.

Island Sun Coffee

I am an owner of Island Sun Coffee. We are a family owned and operated Kona Coffee Farm since 1998. We process seed to cup doing all of the processing on the farm, shade grown & sundried coffee.

I have served on the Hawaii Coffee Association Board for many years and was your past Treasurer and previous Secretary. I currently, serve on the Conference Committee for the last six years.

Hawai'i Coffee Growers Association

Kimo was hired by Amfac in 1979 as a diversified crops supervisor at Lihue Plantation on Kauai. He moved to Pioneer Mill Sugar Company in 1982 as an assistant Agronomist and became the head of Ag research in 1987. His team planted the first coffee test plats at Pioneer Mill which eventually grew to 550 acres of specialty coffee under the limited business name of Ka’anapali Estate Coffee, which was a subsidy of Pioneer Mill. In 1999 Pioneer Mill Co. closed its sugar operations and likewise, its coffee operations in 2001. In 2003, Kimo launched Maui Grown Coffee Inc. (MGC) through a lease of the former abandoned Ka’anapali Estate Coffee Farm with his former employers and landowners, JMB Realty, who had bought AMFAC in 1988. MGC was successful in saving 500 of the original 550 acres from the demise and continues to supply Maui origin coffee throughout Hawaii, mainland, and international destinations.

Big Island Coffee Roasters

Lora is a roaster and part of the QC team at Big Island Coffee Roasters, where she has worked since 2023. Her first introduction to the coffee industry was in 2018, when she moved to a farm in Ka'u and got to experience all the stages of coffee farming. In 2020 she joined the Ka’u Coffee Mill team, where she got the chance to operate the Diedrich CR-50, which sparked her passion for roasting. She is a certified Q-Grader, participated as a judge for the 2024 Kona Cupping Competition and the 2026 Best of Hawaii Cupping Competition, and is continuing her education in roasting and sensory skills.

Hawaiian Goat Coffee

Payman has been working in the Kona Coffee industry for the last 5 years. I've represented Hawaii Coffee at trade shows in the US and across the world in the past few years. I've also been helping local producers and Coffee professionals by hosting coffee cupping events in my roastery. As a young professional, I believe my perspective as well as my experience can continue to help shape the future of our industry. He will be representing Hawaiian Goat Coffee.

Royal Aloha Coffee Company

My name is Scott Snyder, and I am the Chief Executive Officer for Royal Aloha Coffee Company d.b.a. Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii. Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii was born on the Big Island in 1989 and is dedicated to marketing, educating, and sharing premium Hawaiian coffees through 40+ U.S. franchise locations and soon through an additional 100+ shops in development including re-establishing stores throughout Hawaii. Bad Ass Coffee currently has one location in Maui following a lost location as a result of the Lahaina fire in 2023. It is also opening the first of 10 new locations in Honolulu this Summer. The company also promotes and educates online customers from around the globe to the unique coffee product that is Hawaiian Coffee.

Following two prior owners, I acquired the assets of Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii in 2019 with a vision to rebrand, refocus and relaunch the brand with an authentic commitment to honoring the Hawaiian Coffee culture and farmers with consumers worldwide. As part of that commitment, I joined the HCA in 2019 and am nearing the end of my first year of service on the HCA Board of Directors. I would like to continue that service by being re-elected to the Board of Directors for the upcoming term.

Prior to Bad Ass Coffee, I have a track record as an accomplished business owner, executive, award-winning marketing strategist, and business consultant with a consistent track record of transforming early-stage brands into category contenders, and re-inventing existing brands to realize new levels of success. I was a founder of Xylem Digital, an international digital marketing & strategic growth agency that facilitated the rapid growth and expansion of nearly 40 brands in the food & beverage space including Chipotle, Jimmy Johns, Jamba Juice, Einstein Brothers, Red Robin, Jack Links, Chili’s, Church’s Chicken, Fresh Express/Chiquita, Noodles and more.

When I’m not working, I enjoy visits to see my HCA friends in Hawaii, but I currently live in Denver, CO with my wife, Daria.