Two months after Katie Cherrington moved to Maui, the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century struck her family’s neighborhood. In the aftermath of Lahaina’s tragedy, Cherrington has observed a community banding together and has seen principles in action that are taught at BYU Marriott.
“When you have tragic circumstances, people come forward with amazing compassion,” says Cherrington, who earned an MPA in 2009 and then spent 14 years as an HR business partner. “That servant leadership—people rallying around each other—was beautiful to witness.”
Cherrington and her family moved to Maui after her husband, Kurt, a 2017 BYU Marriott EMBA grad, began working as director of finance at Marriott Vacations Worldwide. The island had been incredibly windy on August 8 because of a nearby hurricane, which caused power and cell service outages and consequently shut down the school that the Cherringtons’ three boys attended.
“I heard there was a small fire in the hills but that it had been contained,” Cherrington recalls. “Later that afternoon I started to smell smoke, and I thought, ‘That’s weird. Could that be from the fire this morning?’ I opened my front door and saw a massive cloud of dark smoke.”
Although Cherrington couldn’t see flames, she knew something had started up again. “Let’s go to Dad’s resort and see if the pools are open,” she instructed her kids.
During the next 12 hours, devastation swept their neighborhood, and the family learned that the home they were renting was damaged in the fire. Cherrington and her children were able to fly to Utah a couple of days later, where they stayed through the fall. Kurt, although displaced, remained on Maui to work.
While in Utah, Cherrington helped gather supplies and send them back to the island, including a large duffel bag full of garments, which were distributed at a beachside sacrament meeting on the Sunday following the fire.
The Cherrington family reunited on Maui just before Christmas. Cherrington, who worked as senior people business partner at Qualtrics before moving to Hawaii, is now homeschooling her children because their school burned down. She is also volunteering with the Red Cross and plans to return to the professional world later in 2024.
“In the MPA program I learned about all these awesome nonprofit organizations,” Cherrington says. “It was interesting to be on the other side of it and to be served by the Red Cross. From an organizational perspective, I feel lucky to see that—and also to see the wonderful members of the Church and the community come together. That’s very much the Hawaiian way. We’re all ‘ohana, and we’re all community.”
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This article was published in BYU Marriott's 2023 Annual Report, page 14.
