This is the fourth in a series on how to become a visionary. One key to attaining this rare intellectual level is travel. For me, the first two "trips" had to do with spending a little less than four years each at Stanford and LSU. In the mid-70s, two-weeks on a wind energy and hydrogen fact-finding mission inspired me to apply these experiences in my three-year "trip" to the U.S. Senate, a future posting.
The First Energy Crisis of 1973 triggered a meeting of ten engineering faculty members at the University of Hawaii, where we were asked to pick a topic from a list of ten. I had the least seniority, and got stuck with wind energy, something certainly beyond the ken of a biochemical engineer. I'm not sure if I even had ever seen a real windmill in my life.
Not sure where the travel funds came from, but in 1974 I made plans to visit Lou Divone, who then headed this program in DC, and his organization was called the Energy Research and Development Agency (ERDA), the predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy. In those days I already thought that the future of energy had to be hydrogen, for this is what our Sun and all stars use to create fusion energy.
Learning that someone named Nejat Veziroglu at the University of Miami was hosting the first gathering of hydrogen romantics, I thought, why not make a Miami stop? So I was there for the first major hydrogen conference, from which came the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy.
Then on to ERDA, where Divone did not think much of a future windpower program for Hawaii, as his information base of wind speeds came from airports. Hawaii is blessed with mountains which channel the winds. So, anyway, he suggested that I attend the meeting of the Wind Power Division of the American Solar Energy Society, which was to be held in a few days in Boulder, Colorado, to ask for help.
When I arrived at that session, the meeting had already started, so at one point I mentioned that I had just seen Lou Divone and he asked me to ask you for assistance. When a field is just beginning, and, remember, this was 1974, no one knows much about the subject. Half an hour later I was elected to become the next chairman of this division. The current leader was Frank Eldridge, who had recently published Wind Machines. I don't remember the details, but I somehow convinced Frank to come to Hawaii. He and his wife did, and they helped us get started.
As an aside, I also met with Andrew Trenka, who ran the national wind energy test center in Colorado. A few years later I hired him to manage the OTEC program for the Pacific International Center for High Technology Center. He knew nothing about ocean energy, but twenty years later we ended up co-authoring through John Wiley & Sons Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion for the United Nations.
Thus, in just one trip, I not only began to establish my information base for hydrogen and wind energy, but set in motion various activities that led me five years later to originating legislation in the U.S. Congress to create national programs in both fields.
Absolutely must show you 12-year old Ansley Burns, for while her singing talent might not be exactly fabulous, she has gumption, plus cuteness, and made the next round of America's Got Talent.
Gotta also show Andy Rowell, who also stumbled through, in a most startling way, by using a karaoke technique that was, well, memorable. However, not sure if this is worth six minutes of your life.
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