Rob Poleki

“A life experience where an experience definitely opened my eyes is when I received a packet from the USPTO - The United States Patent and Trademark office. As I opened the packet there was a letter that began with, “Dear Robert Poleki, you are an official Inventor.” The USPTO just issued me my first utility patent on Washie. It took me three years. to get approved. It really didn’t hit me that I was an actual inventor of something until I got this letter, that my name will go down history as an inventor. Forever known that in 2018, in history, Robert Poleki is an official inventor.

What the heck? I never even thought as a kid that I would become an inventor. I just had my eye on the prize, so I kept grinding, figuring it out and went and did it. Becoming an official inventor the phrase, “a go getter”, came full circle for me.

“People who know me, all see me first as this 6 foot 2, 300 lb Samoan dude. When I go to these conferences, I am the only brown face there. Being Polynesian embraces the values that my parents taught me to be a humble to a point. It has built me to be a real honest business man, and doing things straight up.

There’s a point in time where we have all been taught our values as Polynesians but sometimes that can contradict what we do in business. Samoans have been taught to take a back seat and be humble andI shouldn’t ask questions. In our culture, we share so much and are so modest which are great values to have but there’s a way to go about it.”