University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Luke Flynn has been selected as the university’s nominee for the Governor’s Award for Distinguished State Service as Employee of the Year. The award honors the state’s executive branch employees and managers who exemplify the highest caliber of public service and dedication to serving the people of Hawaiʻi.
As the director of the Hawaiʻi Space Grant Consortium and the Hawaiʻi Space Flight Laboratory, Flynn has brought tens of millions of dollars to the university.
He oversaw the production of the university’s first space rocket launch—overseeing the design, construction and testing of the university’s satellite and the instruments that were launched on the rocket. As a result of his leadership, the university attracted several requests for additional space missions, as well as the construction of different satellites and/or instruments for other satellites.
- Related: UH plays a vital role in Hawaiʻi’s first space launch, April 10, 2013
Space is the next frontier for UH, April 11, 2013
Flynn also assisted UH Community College’s (Windward, Honolulu, Kauaʻi and Kapiʻolani) in drafting a successful NASA grant for $500,000 to operate Project Imua—a program to engage undergraduate students in project-based research with real-world STEM applications by developing small payloads for space flight.
- Related: Project Imua team looking forward to third rocket launch, March 7, 2017
His colleagues say that Flynn “has been an inspiration, catalyst and driving force for engaging UH Community College students and faculty in aerospace education and career awareness” and he “has almost single-handedly created a space program within the State of Hawaiʻi.”
