Kauai engineer’s career, cancer survival and rescue work inspire team

Sharlalin Iseri’s path on Kauai is less a single career than a map of the island’s working life. The Native Hawaiian engineer, born and raised on Kauai, has moved from construction and electrical distribution to hospitality, then into hands-on building work at Nordic PCL Construction, where she is now the most experienced senior project engineer on the team. Her story shows how island careers are often built by layering industries, skills and relationships over decades.

A career shaped by Kauai’s real labor market

Iseri started working at 21 in construction and electrical distribution, a field that gave her early exposure to how projects move, how materials flow and how local businesses depend on one another. She later rose to general manager of OneSource Distributors Kauai, part of a billion-dollar company with international operations, before spending nights at the Aloha Beach Hotel to add hospitality experience to an already demanding work life.

That mix matters on Kauai, where a steady career often depends on flexibility rather than a straight line. After more than 30 years in distribution, she shifted into hands-on construction, building pools and custom homes before joining Nordic PCL in 2022. In practical terms, that meant she brought to the job site not only engineering and management knowledge, but also an understanding of how resort work, local vendors and island operations fit together.

Cancer changed the way she leads

Iseri’s professional reputation is tied to endurance, and not just at work. The story of her Stage 4 cancer survival adds another layer to how she approaches the job. Facing what she describes as a 20 percent chance of survival forced a hard reset on her sense of priority, reshaping how she thinks about work, family and what matters most.

That perspective shows up in how she leads on the Hōkūala Hotel project. Instead of treating the job as a series of tasks and deadlines alone, she says she values the team like family. On a complex resort project with multiple moving parts, that kind of leadership is not sentimental, it is operational. People stay aligned longer, communication matters more and the work feels grounded in the relationships that keep island projects moving.

Why Hōkūala is such a complicated build

The work at Hōkūala is not a simple hotel renovation. Nordic PCL has broken the project into separate permit packages so different pieces can move forward at the same time, while the resort remains active. The company says the work is split into four groups: site, public and back-of-house, specialties, and guestrooms and suites.

The scale is substantial. The resort area covers roughly 600,000 square feet and requires coordination with more than 120 vendors and subcontractors. A March 2026 NAWIC Hawaii project tour said phase 1 is a 43,000-square-foot clubhouse remodel that includes a new restaurant, a reimagined golf clubhouse and a hotel lobby and reception area. Later phases add three new hotel structures totaling 92,000 square feet and 210 keys.

One of the most important details for anyone watching construction on Kauai is that the project is being built while the property continues to operate. The project team is rerouting the existing golf cart pathway to minimize disruption, which is the kind of adjustment that sounds small but can shape how a resort functions day to day. For island residents, the point is clear: large developments here are rarely built on empty land, and every phase has to thread through an existing community and business footprint.

What the broader development means for Kauai

Hilton has announced the new hotel as Hale Hōkūala Kauai, Curio Collection by Hilton, the brand’s first hotel in Hawaii. The 210-room new-build property in the Hōkūala Resort community is owned by Silverwest Hotels and managed by Hilton, with an opening expected in fall 2026.

The hotel is only one part of a larger long-range plan that has been described as a $750 million to $800 million development across 450 acres. That broader Hokuala master plan is expected to include 468 units, along with hotels, townhomes, oceanfront homes, golf-course homes and community amenities. For Kauai, the significance is not just the scale of the investment but the kind of work it generates: engineering, construction, permitting, subcontracting and long-term maintenance all become part of the local economy.

Nordic PCL’s approach reflects that reality. The company describes itself in Hawaii as an ohana-based construction partner with more than 80 years of local construction experience, and says it focuses on hospitality, healthcare, education, residential and infrastructure work across the islands. On a project like Hōkūala, that background is more than branding. It is the difference between a crew that parachutes in and one that knows how to work with island schedules, island suppliers and island expectations.

A life that extends well beyond the job site

Iseri’s work is only part of the story. She also rescues, rehabilitates and rehomes stray animals, donates to shelters and shares her home with five senior rescue dogs, a myna bird and a rabbit. That kind of care fits the same pattern that shows up in her professional life: steady, hands-on, and rooted in responsibility rather than appearance.

Her family story carries the same theme of discipline and mobility. Her daughter graduated as valedictorian and summa cum laude from Kauai High School, then went on to the University of Washington. She completed four years of a medical internship in Australia and later became a project manager in Tennessee. For a Kauai family, that path underscores how island upbringing can launch careers that stretch far beyond the county, even when home remains the anchor.

What her story says about work on Kauai

Iseri’s career is a reminder that Kauai’s workforce is built from adaptability. People move between industries, learn on the fly and carry those lessons into bigger responsibilities. In construction especially, the island’s projects depend on people who understand both the technical work and the human side of doing business here.

At Hōkūala, that means managing a phased resort project, keeping 120-plus vendors and subcontractors aligned and reducing disruption to an operating property. In Iseri’s case, it also means leading after surviving a disease that forced her to rethink what success looks like. Her story lands because it connects the island’s biggest development questions to something more immediate: the kind of workers who make those projects possible, and the resilience it takes to build a career on Kauai without losing sight of family, service and community.