Group 70 Goes Global

If you thought local "design" firm Group 70 International did just that, you wouldn't be alone. Principal George Atta says a lot of people assume the company does strictly architecture, planning and design. But the company has a fourth arm, technology, and, over the past decade, Group 70's tech division has taken on some pretty sophisticated projects, from a telescope replacement project for The University of Hawaii Hilo to master planning the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology.

George Atta, Principal, Group 70 International Photo: Scott Kubo

Its most significant technological involvement to date, though, is a partnership with the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB), which, along with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, manages all of the world's air traffic. According to Atta, all three aviation groups began a simultaneous upgrade of their navigation systems in the early '90s, from old, radar-based systems to modern GPS systems that will allow for more accurate coverage of the world's air space. "This upgrade could potentially double the capacity of the system for air traffic," he says. "Meaning, we could start seeing and tracking twice as many planes in the air with the same margin of safety."

Under the new system, Japan, the United States and Europe are each responsible for a single satellite and a handful of monitoring stations, which is where Group 70 comes in. JCAB hired the firm a decade ago to find a local site for one of its global satellite-monitoring stations, and, upon selection of a site in the hills above Makakilo, asked Group 70 to stay on and manage the project locally.

"It's been an evolution for us. We went from helping them with getting permits and the construction, to becoming property managers, and now we act as representatives of [JCAB], handling all the monthly maintenance of the station," says Atta, who notes that the contract with JCAB right now is worth about $230,000 annually, but will increase to around $350,000 sometime in late 2006/early 2007, when JCAB's satellite (which is currently in a test phase) is actually operational. "That's the dollar value. But the actual value, we feel, is more symbolic. It's that we're here, in Hawaii, and are a part of a high-tech network of facilities tracking one-third of the world's air traffic. This partnership is symbolic: if you can find the proper niches, Hawaii can play and succeed in the high-tech field."

>>LONG LIVE THE FILM BLOG Mynette Louie, Industry Coordinator, Hawaii Film Office Hawaii Film Office Commissioner Donne Dawson got more than she bargained for last fall when she tasked Mynette Louie (the young, energetic New York native who had been newly hired as the office's Industry Coordinator) with handling all things legislative. What Louie began as a series of emails updating industry types about the status of bills and committee meetings dates, she soon turned into a local film blog covering everything from 'how to submit testimony to the legislature' to where the characters from Lost like to hang out during their free time. "Now that the leg isn't in session, there's no urgency in terms of meeting dates, or writing testimonies but I realized this was a good central repository to disseminate information about the local film and television industries, and a good way to keep drumming up public support for it," says Louie, who writes and posts all of the blog's content herself. The goal, she says, is for the blog to be a resource to people in the industry, lawmakers and those just interested in local film and television. And, as we discovered, it's also a good place to find the latest and greatest on everything Lost. The blog address is: http://hawaiifilmoffice.blogspot.com.