{"id":222406,"date":"2025-09-22T10:54:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T20:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=222406"},"modified":"2025-09-22T10:54:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T20:54:21","slug":"vision-uh-driven-industry-partnership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/09\/22\/vision-uh-driven-industry-partnership\/","title":{"rendered":"Late Sen<\/abbr>. Inouye\u2019s vision of a UH<\/abbr>-driven industry partnership"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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Pisces V deploying sediment samplers at the munitions site. (Photo credit: Environet\/UH<\/abbr>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Throughout his remarkable 49 years in Congress, the late Sen. Daniel K. Inouye fought hard to bring in billions of dollars in appropriations to help establish or bolster industries with significant, long-term impact to Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>, including agriculture, astronomy, education, high-technology, military and research. While he helped to position the state as a viable player in these industries and strengthened the state\u2019s economic resilience and sustainability through the federal appropriations process, he knew this would not last forever. Inouye envisioned similar growth opportunities for Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s small businesses centered around partnerships on U.S. Department of Defense (DOD<\/abbr>) projects with the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>.<\/p>\n

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U.S. Sen<\/abbr>. Daniel Inouye (in red Aloha shirt) and Joseph Pickard (left) with the first unexploded ordnance class in Waikoloa on October 18, 2010. (Photo credit: Environet)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Sen<\/abbr>. Inouye was well-aware that most of the DOD<\/abbr>s large contracts in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> were being awarded to mainland companies, with only little pieces of it going to local companies as subcontracts,” said UH<\/abbr> Mānoa Interim Provost Vassilis L. Syrmos. “To even the playing field, he stressed that UH<\/abbr> research must effectively collaborate with local small businesses to develop the necessary expertise and capabilities to successfully compete with the mainland contractors for big-dollar federal projects that are in our backyard.”<\/p>\n

Unexploded ordnance removal, undersea munitions assessment<\/h2>\n

During World War II, the U.S. government turned nearly 200,000 acres of ranch land into the Waikoloa Maneuver Area to train its troops. For the better part of two years, the area was pummeled by explosives, including aerial bombs, artillery rounds and grenades. While a couple of clean-up attempts were made following the war, it was estimated that about 20% of unexploded ordnance remained.<\/p>\n

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Unexploded ordnance team performing analog detection surveys. (Photo credit: Environet)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a result, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE<\/abbr>) initiated a third clean-up effort in 2002. At the time, the UH<\/abbr> Mānoa College of Engineering<\/a> was already working with a small environmental firm called Environet, Inc<\/abbr>. on developing the use of ground penetrating radar technology in aerial flyovers as a faster and cheaper alternative to putting huge teams on the ground. Environet had done prior related work and was already familiar with the clean-up site process through its research partnership with UH<\/abbr>.<\/p>\n

Prior to 1970, the DOD<\/abbr> had disposed of excess, obsolete or unserviceable munitions, including chemical warfare agents, in the ocean waters off the U.S. coasts, including the Hawaiian Islands. In 2007, the U.S. Army embarked on the Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Undersea Military Munitions Assessment to learn more about the condition of these munitions and of any potential pollution that could cause harm to humans and ocean life. The seven-year project involved the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, UH<\/abbr> and Environet, who had the flexibility to pivot their land-based unexploded ordnance expertise to the open ocean.<\/p>\n

Both projects marked a huge turning point for Environet, as the interesting work and publicity generated helped to attract job candidates from varied disciplines, enabling the company to grow and expand its field of expertise. Starting with a handful of employees on Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Island, the company helped establish the GSI<\/abbr> Family of Companies (GSI<\/abbr>), which employs nearly 400 staff and now has offices in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>, Colorado, Maryland, New Jersey, Washington, Guam and Japan. Read more about GSI<\/abbr> in this Noelo<\/em> story<\/a>. Noelo<\/em> is UH<\/abbr>\u2019s research magazine from the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inouye envisioned similar growth opportunities for small businesses centered around partnerships on U.S. Department of Defense projects with UH<\/abbr>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":222407,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[179,182,1505,1467,1363,158,947],"class_list":["post-222406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-college-of-engineering","tag-engineering","tag-innovation","tag-manoa-excellence-in-research","tag-manoa-research","tag-publication","tag-uh-system","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/system-noelo-pisces-v.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222413,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222406\/revisions\/222413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}