A retired Hawaiian Telcom employee called me the other day to ask if I knew how long the local phone company’s bankruptcy will last.

That’s a good question. After all, it looks like it’s going to be a complicated reorganization in which the company has to slug it out with its big creditors, namely its bondholders.

The case also will require regulatory oversight by the state Public Utilities Commission, which can draw out the bankruptcy.

Here’s my best guesstimate: About a year. A year-and-a-half at the most.

The company has cash -- about $75 million -- to pay its expenses and the various bankruptcy fees, which can add up during a complicated reorganization like this.

It’s always a good sign when a company seek bankruptcy has a lot of cash. During its 2003 bankruptcy, Hawaiian Airlines went in with a lot of cash and emerged as a stronger, more efficient company.

Aloha Airlines, on the other hand, entered its first bankruptcy in 2004 with just $3 million in cash. Aloha was down to $3.8 million in cash when it filed for bankruptcy for a second time this March. It eventually shut down on March 31.

As for Hawaiian Telcom, I’m not sure if the company is going to get much in the form of new loans while it’s in bankruptcy so its cash holdings are going to be key.

(The company already owes about $1.3 billion to its various creditors so it’s not likely to get much in the form of debtor-in-possession financing. DIP financing is probably pretty scarce theses days and even in good times, the interest rates are pretty onerous, approaching the double-digit, credit card-like rates.)

Hawaiian Telcom’s cash holdings of $75 million would take 18.5 months to burn based on the company’s operating losses for the year.

According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company’s operating losses for the first nine months this year is about $35.7 million a year, or about $4 million a month.

But you also have to add in the bankruptcy fees -- for attorneys, investment bankers and consultants -- which pile up in this type of case.

In the Hawaiian Airlines bankruptcy, fees added up to about $1 million a month. Hawaiian Telcom’s fees will probably be in that ball park.

But you can’t underestimate Hawaiian Telcom Chairman Walter Dods dealmaking skills.

As CEO of First Hawaiian Bank, he negotiated the company's sale to BNP Paribas, which added billions of dollars to the value to the local bank.

As a trustee of the Damon Estate, he engineered the $480 million sale of the trust’s Mapunapuna lands to Massachusetts-based HRPT Properties Trust in 2003.

Hawaiian Telcom has said that it has spoken with 12 investment groups about a buyout or an investment in the company. Management is also speaking with its current owner the Carlyle Group to restructure the company and pour more money into the local phone company.

For Hawaiian Telcom, the sooner a deal is struck, the better the deal will be for the company, its employees, its customers and its creditors. -- especially if its in the first year of the bankruptcy.

But if the bankruptcy goes well into the second year, the company will probably be negotiating from a weaker position because it won't have a lot of cash and has to take whatever offer is on the table at the time.

It was the closest thing to an “Eddie Would Go” moment that I've ever written about.

An hour after the terrorist began shooting up the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel, former Hawaii resident Raymond Bickson faced a moral dilemma:

As the CEO of the company that owns the hotel, should Bickson have joined his wife in leaving the hotel grounds, escaping the bullets and grenades of terrorists whose main mission was to kill as many American and British citizens as they could?

Or should he stay to help his employees and guests escape the carnage and assist military officials take back the landmark, 105-year-old hotel?

Ten hotel employees died in the 60-hour tragedy at the Mumbai (formerly Bombay) resort. Hotel general manager Karimbir Kang's wife and two children were killed during the first night, according to wire reports.

I’m pretty sure that most CEOs would have turned tail but the 1973 Saint Louis School graduate remained on the grounds for nearly a day to help guests and employees find safety. (See:).

One long-time family friend said Bickson saw himself as a captain who doesn’t flee a sinking ship.

His mother Joan Bickson told me during a telephone interview that she knew her son would remain on the grounds simply because he was his father’s son.

The elder Bickson was legendary Hawaii tourism executive Irwin “Bick” Bickson, who was one of the co-founders of Budget Rent A Car in Chicago in the 1958 and opened the Honolulu franchise in several years later.

Bickson's calm under fire was a sharp contrast to the sorry performance of the honchos of the Big Three automakers, who flew their corporate jets to Washington, D.C. seeking a government bailout.

If the Fortune 500 companies has this kind of character in their penthouse offices, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be in the economic mess we’re in today.