Big Island Gets 30 Meter telescope

[Sean]

I'm happy to see the TMT here. It's nice to see the building of something that is for the sake of knowledge. Good job to all involved.

Sean

[TomK]

mgeary - that's a very good point and in fact I'm one of those people. Moved here 13 years ago from the UK for a job at one of the observatories and have been here ever since. I'm now a permanent resident and am looking to get citizenship. There are many others like me where I work and I'm sure several others working at other telescopes.

There is one other point to be made I think. It's very likely, I feel, that the TMT will try and employ some of the local knowledge and experience of staff (e.g., astronomers, engineers and technicians) already working at current observatories and so those places will look for replacements. These are places that already hire from the local community and will undoubtedly do so again (it is, after all, much cheaper than importing staff), so in employment terms I still think there will be many benefits, perhaps just not always direct ones.

Tom

[Kapohocat]

Isn't this an opportunity too for any of the "kids" whose grew up on the Big Island but graduated from Standford, or Cal Tech, or MIT or ? with education and exp in this field who having been living elsewhere to have an opportunity to apply for a job and move back?

I wonder what the stats are on people who were locals that are getting hired for the high tech jobs and moving back to the Big Island ?

We have a whole crew of kids from Keaau HS in the early 2000's who went to big time math and science colleges. Might be nice to have even a little possiblity of jobs for them.

[TomK]

Kapohocat - two things. Firstly, I doubt those statistics exist although I would also be very interested in seeing them if they did. What I can tell you is that I know several people who work at the observatories who initially moved off the Big Island to Oahu and worked there until they came back to take a job at the observatories. I am sure there are cases where people moved back from the mainland as well (I will try and see if I can remember any). Secondly, you mention some of the top universities, but it really isn't necessary to have graduated from an ivy league university to work at the observatories - most people who work there, including astronomers, certainly didn't!

I don't want to discourage anyone from trying to get into one of those universities, just saying it's not necessary in order to be employed at an observatory, you just need to be good at what you do and be enthusiastic!

Tom

[TomK]

PS. There's an interesting discussion going on in the comments on this blog post on the Big Island Chronicle. I've made the odd comment myself. Pros and cons have been mentioned although I have to say the cons so far are in the minority. Some of the anti-TMT comments are interesting to read if a little misinformed.

Tom