High Tech Hawaii: Part 1

When you think of Hawaii you think of sun and relaxation. There's a lot more to Hawaii today than just agriculture and tourism. Hawaii has gone hi-tech and we're going to show you some of the companies that are making Hawaii one of the fastest growing hi-tech hubs in the country. Join us for part one of our look into Hawaii's hi-tech world. [Episode #1820, First broadcast: of 1/30/2001] Trex Enterprises Trex Enterprises began operations in Hawaii in 1991 by performing R&D and maintenance at the Maui Space Surveillance Site (MSSS) on Mt. Haleakala on Maui. Since then they have substantially expanded their work in both technical scope and in geographic location. At present they have R&D laboratories and coating facilities on Maui and Kauai at four separate locations. On Maui they develop Active Pixel Image sensors for use in consumer, military, and medical products. On Kauai they're developing advanced materials for the semiconductor and biology industries. In the near future, they anticipate taking the R&D into commercial manufacturing operations in Hawaii, on both Maui and Kauai. AEOS Telescope The Advanced Electro Optical System (AEOS) facility on the Hawaiian island of Maui can pinpoint anything from high-flying aircraft to satellites orbiting earth hundreds of miles up. But this giant 3.67-meter azimuth-elevation telescope couldn't do its job without some high-tech ground anchoring achieved through state-of-the-art structural engineering. The AEOS telescope, owned by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, is not like fixed-position telescopes used for astronomy. The finely tuned 150-ton optical instrument is designed to swiftly scan the heavens both horizontally and vertically, locking on to and tracking moving objects such as the space shuttle. Micro Gaia Micro Gaia, Inc. is a microalgal biotechnology company based on the island of Maui specializing in the efficient mass-cultivation of microalgae for the global market. Using the breakthro