A FATHER AND DAUGHTER CREATE stormwater innovation,
with the water in mind.
Kai Pono Solutions was created around a simple idea: stop pollution closer to where it enters the stormwater system.
What began as a practical storm-drain concept developed from decades of construction experience has grown into a patented stormwater treatment platform focused on accessible pretreatment, simpler maintenance, and protecting the waterways downstream.
Keep waterways beautiful, healthy, and better protected.
Storm drains connect streets, parking lots, construction sites, and developed land directly to the waterways around us. Kai Pono exists to reduce the trash, sediment, chemicals, and other pollutants that can move through those systems and ultimately reach oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams.
Our focus is practical: create stormwater technologies that are effective enough to matter, simple enough to maintain, and flexible enough to be used across a wide range of sites.
A practical approach to a very large problem.
Kai Pono is built around three ideas that have shaped the company from the beginning.
Protect the Water
Reduce the flow of trash, sediment, chemicals, and other pollutants into the waterways that communities depend on for recreation, ecosystems, public health, and quality of life.
Make Treatment More Accessible
Environmental protection should not automatically mean oversized infrastructure, difficult maintenance, or costs that put effective treatment beyond the reach of communities and project owners. Kai Pono is designed around compact installation and practical long-term service.
Learn From the Drain
Storm drains can tell us a great deal about the pollutants moving through a watershed. Kai Pono's long-term vision includes helping make stormwater treatment increasingly informed by site-specific contaminant data and field performance.
A father-daughter idea two decades in the making.
Kai Pono came together from two very different perspectives: a lifetime around the ocean and decades spent building the infrastructure that moves stormwater.
Growing up with the ocean.
Navy McKee grew up on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, where the ocean was part of everyday life. She experienced firsthand how dramatically coastal water could change after a storm, from clear blue water to runoff-clouded conditions carrying material from the land.
Years later, while studying business and entrepreneurship at San Diego State University, that experience became the foundation for a larger question: why do so many pollutants still travel through storm drains without meaningful treatment at the source?
Built from jobsite experience.
Dan McKee spent decades in construction, working his way from laborer through superintendent roles on structural concrete, roadway, bridge, and flood-control projects.
After years of working around conventional storm-drain protection, he developed an alternative concept intended to provide more meaningful treatment while remaining practical to build and maintain. The idea remained a drawing for years until Navy decided to bring it forward.
Field experience met entrepreneurial drive.
Dan brought the construction and flood-control perspective. Navy brought the urgency, business focus, and determination to turn the concept into a company. Together, they built Kai Pono around a shared belief that protecting waterways requires solutions that work not only in theory, but on real streets, real jobsites, and real maintenance schedules.
The people who started it.
Navy McKee
Navy leads Kai Pono's business development, strategy, market positioning, and mission. Her connection to the ocean began in Hawaiʻi and evolved into a focus on building practical technologies that reduce land-based pollution before it reaches waterways.
Dan McKee
Dan brings decades of construction experience, including work in structural concrete, roads, bridges, and flood-control infrastructure. His field experience informed the original Kai Pono concept and continues to shape the system's practical design and installation philosophy.
Different disciplines. One water problem.
Kai Pono brings together engineering, construction, environmental, business, and communications expertise around one objective: creating stormwater systems that perform in the real world.
Jack Dickson
Lead Structural Engineer
Edward Banuelos
Lead Mechanical Engineer
Bailey Schantz
Lead Chemical Engineer
Lanie Schwartz
Director of Marketing
The idea is getting noticed.
Kai Pono has been featured by organizations and media covering ocean innovation, entrepreneurship, stormwater technology, and emerging environmental solutions.
Better treatment starts closer to the source.
Kai Pono continues to develop the technology around a simple operating principle: intercept pollutants early, keep treatment accessible, and give engineers and municipalities more flexibility in how stormwater systems are assembled.
Continue improving the platform
Develop modular configurations, filtration options, and field-tested applications around different site conditions and pollutants.
Build better treatment trains
Work with complementary technologies so upstream pretreatment, downstream filtration, infiltration, storage, and reuse can operate as coordinated systems.
Learn more from stormwater
Continue exploring how field information can help project owners better understand pollutant loading, maintenance needs, and the performance of individual stormwater assets.
Have a stormwater problem worth solving?
Whether you're evaluating Kai Pono for a project, looking for a treatment-train partner, interested in piloting the technology, or simply want to learn more about the company, we'd like to hear from you.