Allan Parachini is Civil Beat’s Kauai columnist. Indulging a passion he first developed 35 years ago, he makes furniture in Kilauea, on the island’s North Shore. He is represented by the Halelea and Black Pearl Galleries on Kauai.

But before furniture, he had two previous careers. From 1965 to 1991, he was a reporter for newspapers and wire services, primarily in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. He was a medical writer for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Los Angeles Times, where he worked for 13 years. From 1991 until 2010, he held headed public affairs operations at the ACLU of Southern California, the California Community Foundation and the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Allan is a graduate of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication and held a fellowship in drug abuse reporting at the Columbia University School of Journalism. He was an adjunct instructor in public relations, reporting and news writing at Northwestern University, Occidental College, DePaul University, the University of Southern California and Cal State Los Angeles.

He’s a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, PEN America, the Furniture Society and the Urban Salvaged and Reclaimed Woods Network. He serves on the board of the nonprofit Hawaii Forest Industry Association. His wife, Gina Lobaco, is a fundraiser for The Nature Conservancy.

His furniture emphasizes native Hawaiian woods, usually combined with upcycled materials from items like forklift pallets and shipping crates.

He’s interested in stories that illustrate, if only in a small way, challenges—political, social and other—the island faces and what events today may imply about Kauai’s future.