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Toni Bissen
Hawaii
Toni Bissen is the executive director of the Pū`ā Foundation and has held the position since 2000. She handles all day-to-day operations of the organization. The Pū`ā Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit charitable organization that was established in 1996. It was established as part of the apology, redress and reconciliation process between the Native Hawaiian People and the United Church of Christ (UCC) for the Church’s complicity in the events of 1893 involving the overthrow of the Hawaiian Constitutional Monarchy. As part of the redress process the UCC provided the Foundation with both funds and real property assets. The Foundation focuses its efforts in the following program areas: 1) Research Development, 2) Product Development, and 3) Forum/Dialogue Development.
Ms.Bissen has worked in the Native Hawaiian rights area for a number of years, as well as worked with, and for, various non-profit organizations both as an attorney and administrator. She was a co-instructor for Native Hawaiian Rights Clinic at the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law; she served as a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii where she handled welfare and housing cases; she engaged in the private practice of law at the Law firm of Paul, Johnson, Park & Niles and she was a project manager with the Native Hawaiian Advisory Council where she worked in the area of Native Hawaiian water rights.
Toni holds a B.A. in Marketing and Communications from the University of Hawaii and has a Juris Doctorate from the District of Columbia School of Law, now known as the University of the District of Columbia, David A. Clarke School of Law, Washington, D.C. She graduated cum laude and was the managing editor for the DCSL law review. She is married and has two daughters.