Retired executive and teacher Randolph Moore has been named the state Department of Education’s interim deputy superintendent of operations, bringing his extensive background in business and education back to Hawaii public schools.

Moore holds a blend of experiences — executive roles at large business organizations throughout the state, including Castle &Cooke and Oceanic Properties, as well as experience as an assistant superintendent and a middle school teacher, and leading the University of Hawaii Board of Regents.

“The DOE is chock-a-block with very good people, so it’s nice to be back in that environment,” Moore said about returning to the department.

In his new role, Moore will oversee “key centralized functions in the department, including facilities, fiscal services, talent management and information technology,” according to a DOE news release last week.

“If you look at the Department of Education’s primary goal being educating students, in order to accomplish that, there’s all this back-of-the-office stuff like the facilities, the school bus, the school lunch and the accounting system, procurement, on and on,” Moore said. “That back-of-the-house portfolio is what’s under the deputy superintendent of operations.”

Moore succeeds Curt Otaguro, who stepped down from the department this month.

“I’m very appreciative to Randy for being willing to continue his service to public education and our students in this key leadership position,” Superintendent Keith Hayashi said in the news release. “With his distinguished background in business, higher education leadership and philanthropy, Randy will help strengthen the Department’s capacity to deliver on our strategic goals.”

After over three decades working in business, Moore earned a teaching degree from Chaminade University and began a second career as a public school teacher at Central Middle School (now Ke‘elikolani Middle) teaching math and special motivation classes.

He said he became a public school teacher with the intention of eventually becoming a school principal — a role he said “really makes a school.” While working his final business job at Kaneohe Ranch, Moore became involved with the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation, which periodically received grant requests from public schools.

“I got interested in public education through learning about what makes schools robust and said, ‘OK, maybe I’d like to be a principal someday.’ Of course, you’ve got to be a teacher first, but I got sidetracked and I never got to get into school administration,” Moore said. “I got interested through asking, ‘How can public schools be better?’”

In 2006, Moore joined the department’s executive leadership team as assistant superintendent of what was then the Office of Facilities and Support Services, overseeing facility construction and maintenance, as well as food and transportation services.

After Moore’s retirement from the DOE in 2012, he served for a decade on the UH Board of Regents, including four terms as chairperson and three terms as vice chairperson.

Now back to work at the DOE, Moore said he thinks “the better the department does its job, the greater the impact on students.”

“We educate students, but I like to think of our job, really, as empowering students,” Moore said. “I think that the objective of public education is to empower students to achieve, to have their own lives, to be productive and satisfying, and have them be contributing members of the community.”