The university's lead application programmer analyst for PeopleSoft brought a somewhat unique hobby with him when he came to Laie almost a year ago: temple riding.
Tom Bloss, who received a BYU-Hawaii outstanding service award on August 22 for his work as the lead technical person in implementing PeopleSoft student systems, is a member of the Temple Riders Association, a Latter-day Saint oriented group who enjoy riding motorcycles.
He explained the TRA got started in 1987 when two Latter-day Saint couples in Salt Lake City decided to combine a motorcycle run in northern Utah with visits to the Ogden and Logan temples. Since then, membership has slowly spread across the continental U.S., and there are even chapters in Alaska, Australia and Hawaii. However, Bloss and his wife, Nancy, are believed to be the only members in Laie.
Likewise, since the temple is only a few blocks from his home, Bloss spends most of his saddle time cruising Oahu and particularly enjoys riding his "beautiful blue-and-white 1999 Yamaha Royal Star, a 1,300cc touring cruiser which I've named Blue,” along the windward coast.
"I've been riding motorcycles for 20 years,” said Bloss, who's from Syracuse, New York, where the weather equates with seasonal down-time. "I used to make sure I rode my motorcycle on my birthday before I put it away. My birthday is on November 13. Among my riding friends, I was the first one out in the spring and the last one out in the fall."
"Biking is not for the faint-hearted, but I don't think it's the risky thing a lot of other people seem to think it is," he said, adding his dream ride would be to cruise the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Vancouver.
"The longest ride I ever took, right before I became a Temple Rider, was for 17 days. I went all the way out to Longmont, Colorado -- a suburb of Denver, and back. I did 3,450 miles. My longest day was [from] Longmont to Independence, Missouri, which was 694 miles."
"Temple Riders are a unique organization because it's motorcycles and being LDS,” Bloss continued, noting he joined after meeting a member while on parking detail at the Hill Cumorah Pageant near his home.
"Over here I've linked up with the Hawaii chapter; there is one, headed by Ana and Ben Char who live in Waimanalo. There are four couples in it."
Bloss said he tries to take Blue out at least twice a week, otherwise he's been busy implementing PeopleSoft. "This is the first semester we're totally under PeopleSoft. It's the new computer system that's been introduced into most facets of university administration. Financial has been up for a while. Student administration is live as of this week. HR and payroll will be up as of January 1st."
"The new PeopleSoft application is really state of the art,” he continued. "It's also used Church-wide, so we're now on the same financial systems the Church uses, and it's being introduced into all of the universities in the CES system."
"The process to get it installed has been quite an arduous task. It's required the cooperation and hard work of many people on campus, for which I am very appreciative."
"I feel it's a great privilege to be 'tending the Lord's vineyard' in this beautiful place, and help make the administration work better so we can serve the wonderful students we have here."