Cayetano, Benjamin J. (Benjamin Jerome), 1939-

Benjamin Jerome Cayetano (born November 14, 1939) is an American politician and author who served as the fifth governor of the State of Hawaii from 1994 to 2002. He is the first Filipino American to serve as a state governor in the United States.

Born in Honolulu, he graduated from Farrington High School there before working a series of entry-level jobs, such as a metal-packer in a junkyard, truck driver, apprentice electrician, and finally as a draftsman. Frustrated by what he felt were racially motivated and politically unfair hiring practices, he moved to Los Angeles, California in 1963 in pursuit of an education in law. After attending Los Angeles Harbor College, Cayetano easrned a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles and a J.D. from Loyola Law School at the Loyola Marymount University. Recruited upon graduation by a highly regarded Hawaii law firm, he returned to Hawaii where he was admitted to the Hawaii Bar and entered private practice as a trial attorney. In 1972, he was appointed by then Governor John A. Burns to the Hawaii Housing Authority, the state agency responsible for developing and managing public housing for low income people.

In 1974, he won election to the Hawaii State Legislature. During two terms in the House of Representatives and two in the State Senate, he held several important posts including serving as chairman of the Senate Ways and Means and the Majority Policy committees, respectively. In 1986, he was elected lieutenant governor. His accomplishments in that post included educational reform, the streamlining of election laws, and most significant, the conception and implementation of the A-Plus After-School Program.

On November 8, 1994, Hawaii’s voters elected Benjamin J. Cayetano governor of the state, making him the first Filipino-American governor in United States history and the nation’s highest-ranking elected public official of Filipino heritage. Faced with the worse economic crisis in the state’s history, he organized a task force of business, labor and legislative leaders and developed an economic recovery plan. Confronted with a storm of criticism and opposition from factions opposed to his proposed reforms, Governor Cayetano nevertheless implemented civil service reform, reduced the size and growth of the state government to less than the rate of inflation, pushed through and implemented one of the biggest reduction of state taxes in the nation at the time, built a record number of public schools and homes for native Hawaiian homesteaders, constructed a new state convention center to boost tourism, a new state art museum and began construction of a new medical school-research center for the University of Hawaii.

On January 19, 2012, Cayetano came out of retirement to run for the office of Honolulu Mayor. Though placing first in the nonpartisan primary election, he subsequently lost the general election.