Patrick Takahashi was born and grew up in Hawaii and obtained chemical engineering degrees up to the PhD from Stanford University and Louisiana State University.  He has spent 37 years at the University of Hawaii and was a Professor of Engineering and Director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, and is now Director Emeritus.

He has worked for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on laser fusion, the NASA Ames Research Center on Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the U.S. Senate as a staff member for the late Spark Matsunaga, where he helped draft legislation on ocean energy, wind power, hydrogen and ocean development.  He helped bring to the Hawaii the U.S. Department of Energy Hydrogen Center, Department of Interior Marine Minerals Technology Center and National Science Foundation Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center.  He was the co-founder of the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, which succeeded in attaining net positive with an open cycle OTEC facility.  He served as Secretary of the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority and Chairman of the U.S. Secretary of Energy’s Hydrogen Technical Advisory Panel.

He was awarded the Bechtel Energy Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Spark Matsunaga Memorial Hydrogen Award from the National Hydrogen Association and Ocean Pioneer Award from the Ocean Energy Council.  He recently published two books:  SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth (SimpleSolutions.Book1.com) and SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity (www.SimpleSolutionsBook2.com).

(Rev. 04-02-2008)