PRESIDENT GRACE TO RETIRE, JARED HESTER TO SUCCEED HIM AT PCC

During a special PCC board meeting on the morning of April 6, 2026, in the Hawaiian Journey Theater, chairman of the board of directors Fraser Bullock announced (by direct broadcast from his office in Salt Lake City, Utah), that P. Alfred Grace will retire as president and chief executive officer of the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie, Hawaii, effective May 1, 2026. 

Bullock also announced at that meeting that Jarod Hester, who is currently both the Polynesian Cultural Center’s chief financial officer and chief operations officer, will succeed him that day. (Hester’s successor has not been named yet.)  

First student-worker named PCC president & CEO: Grace, 65, will step down as the Center’s longest-serving president and CEO, and the only one to work there as a BYU–Hawaii student. 

The board of directors appointed him to that position in 2013 to succeed Von D. Orgil (who had been called to serve as a Latter-day Saint mission president in California at that time). President Grace had previously served as the PCC’s chief operating officer and vice president of sales and marketing. 

Grace, a New Zealand Māori originally from Turangi, North Island, New Zealand, initially attended Brigham Young University–Hawaii on a rugby scholarship in the mid-1980s and later joined the PCC Reservations Department as a sales guide after BYUH discontinued the sport. After graduating in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in travel industry management, he began working as a full-time sales account executive at PCC’s Waikiki sales office.  

Hester, who is also from New Zealand, grew up in the Auckland North Shore area, and earned a bachelor’s degree in commerce and accounting from the University of Auckland. 

Before joining the Cultural Center as financial controller in 2013, he had worked at the Church’s Auckland-based Pacific Area office as the Area Financial Controller, and later as the Area CES Director of Administration, with responsibilities supporting S&I and Church Schools throughout the Pacific. 

 The PCC named Hester its chief financial officer in 2017, and just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, added chief operating officer responsibilities to his portfolio.

Before Grace outlined some of his future plans, he stressed he just felt it was time, and added that he had not been asked to leave, has no full-time church calling or other job opportunities awaiting his availability, or any serious health issues that he knows of. 

Instead, he plans to continue to live in Laie and spend “family time with my children and grandchildren,” possibly volunteer to serve in the Laie Hawaii Temple, and/or perhaps as a senior missionary once or twice with his wife, PCC alumna Valerie Enos Grace, and take care of some do-it-yourself tasks around the house. 

“I truly and deeply love the Polynesian Cultural Center,” President Grace said, adding that he has no doubts that President Hester will do a fine job. “He has a big, strong Polynesian heart.” 

 To which Hester joked he feels somewhat like a (New Zealand) “hobbit” next to the burly Grace, who pointed out the new president has the support of his Māori wife, Pria Lee Ann Pene Hester,” who is also from the Auckland area and currently works as a BYU–Hawaii retail manager. 

Finally, Grace encouraged Hester to “never forget, we’re here to support our students,” to which Hester responded with the answer to the well-known Māori New Zealand proverb: “What is the most important thing? The people, the people, the people.”