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Amfac was not always a globetrotter. The company was formed in 1849 by a German sea captain, Heinrich Hackfeld, to sell parasols, silk waistcoats, bird cages and window glass to the Hawaiians. Later, changing its name to American Factors, Ltd., the company became one of Hawaii's celebrated "Big Five" factoring agencies that grew to power by handling financing, shipping, insurance and other services for the sugar plantations. Walker's father, whose own father had been Chancellor of the Exchequer under Hawaii's King Kalakaua, became president of the company in 1933 and ran it until 1950. But he never expanded beyond Hawaii.
Walker was named president in 1967 despite—not because of—the fact that he was the ex-chiefs son. The company frowns on nepotism, but Walker had proved himself a personable and smart executive who had a talent for enforcing tight financial controls. Now 50, he joined the company in 1947 after attending both Harvard and Columbia's School of Business. Walker, who is in his office by 7:30 a.m. and takes home only a half-hour's work, likes to operate his company informally; he even answers his own telephone. Twice a year he huddles with a dozen top officers at Silverado, a company-owned resort in California's Napa Valley, for a free-swinging critique of operations, a management device that Walker claims stimulates his executives.
For reshaping Amfac, Walker has been richly rewarded. Last year he was the highest-paid executive in Hawaii, collecting $174,000. Though he can afford better, he lives in a less than fashionable subdivision on the rainy windward side of Oahu, and has given up golf in favor of gardening and mowing his lawn with a small tractor. Explains Walker: "I crave solitude at times, and golf is a competition amongst men. I get enough of that in eight hours of work every day." But Walker may one day have to give up his enviably relaxed life-style on Hawaii. By the end of 1974, the company will consolidate several of its operations in San Francisco, a more logical center for Amfac's expanding empire.