It was two legislators - Sen. Kouchi (who is now Senate President) and House Rep. Scott Nishimoto quietly put through a resolution "asking" the Hawaii DOT - Airports to look into possibly changing the name. What happened next was completely out of the public realm as DOT-A employees put through a name change request to the FAA, and had it approved - again completely out of the realm of the public. Not to say that this is universally loved or not loved, but the only time the public could have even made a peep on this was when the resolution was going through the legislature in the last days of the (2016 I believe) session.