Maile Tomlinson Meyer-Broderick (born May 10, 1957) is a KÃÂnaka Maoli community advocate, entrepreneur, small-business owner, nonprofit executive director, publisher, and consultant.
Maile was born and raised on the island of Oûahu in the ahupuaûa of Kailua. She is KÃÂnaka Maoli with Hawaiûi and Maui lineages and also has ancestry from China, Germany, and England. Maile grew up in a family of seven siblings and was raised next-door to her twenty-one first cousins. Maile's mother, Emma Akana Aluli, was the youngest of six siblings, and she started the Young of Heart Workshop & Gallery in 1972, a nonprofit organization focused on connecting with youth through art and creativity. Maile's father, Harry King Meyer, ran the Hawaiiana Hotel down on Beachwalk in 1952. Maile's entrepreneurial, small-business and nonprofit interests have strong connections to her parents and her larger family. The Aluli family is made up of many activists, artists and KÃÂnaka Maoli leaders including Irmgard Farden Aluli, Noa Emmett Aluli, Yuklin Aluli, Manulani Aluli Meyer, and Meleanna Aluli Meyer.
Maile graduated from Punahou School in 1975 and later attended Stanford University, where she earned a BA in Graphic Design and Photography and met her husband, Michael Broderick. She received an MBA in Arts Management from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles. She returned to Hawaiûi with her husband in 1988 after working in photography and advertising.
Maileûs first job on Oûahu was as a marketing director for the Bishop Museum Press before she started Native Books Inc. in 1990. Native Books Inc. started as a business that focused on selling books connected to Hawaiûi. In 1993 Barbara Pope, Nelson Foster and Maile Meyer started ûAi Pà Âhaku Press, allowing them to publish and distribute high-quality books about Hawaiûi and the Pacific, focusing specifically on cultural traditions and natural systems. In 1995 the small, mail-order business NàMea found a home in downtown Honolulu when it became Native Books & Beautiful things, a co-op that included locally made cultural implements, clothing, food, gifts and more. Maile went on to open and then close several other locations in the span of 15 years including locations in Kalihi, the Hilton Hawaiian Shopping Center, Waikëkë, and on the island of Maui. By 2020, there were two locations left, NàMea Hawaiûi (renamed from NàMea Hawaiûi/Native Books) at Ward Center and the newly opened Native Books located at Arts & Letters Nuûuanu.
Through ûAi Pà Âhaku Press, Native Books and Kaiao Press, an imprint of Native Books, Maile Meyer has worked to print, reprint and distribute many books about Hawaiian culture, Hawaiûi's history, and all things Hawaiians. Some notable books published through 'Ai Pà Âhaku and distributed by Native Books include
Maile continues to run the nonprofit started by her mother, previously known as the Young of Heart Workshop & Gallery, and renamed Puûuhonua Society in 2004. Through her work as the executive director she supports programs such as Keanahala, a group of pandanus weavers focused on revitalizing the Hawaiian cultural practice of weaving lau hala, Aupuni Space, a contemporary art studio and gallery, and Contact, an annual contemporary Hawaiian art exhibit.