Walter Steiger is Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy at the Unversity of Hawai`i at Manoa, where he had served as the department chairman for a number of years. Since retiring from UHM in 1980, he has served as the manager of the Science Center of the B.P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu until 1986, and from 1987 to 1992 as the site manager of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory on Mauna Kea. From 1982 to 1984 he served on the UH Board of Regents. Since 1993 he has been a lecturer in physics and astronomy at UH-Hilo.
Steiger received a B.S. in physics from MIT in 1948, after having served three years in the military. It was his military experience that brought him to Hawai`i and changed his life forever. After receiving an M.S. in physics at UH in 1950, further graduate work at the University of Cincinnati led to a Ph.D. in physics and an offer of an assistant profesorship at UH.
Although teaching duties were very heavy, the need for a research program at UH was clear. In an attempt to take advantage of Hawai`i’s natural assets, he proposed to look into the potential of an astronomical observatory on one of Hawai`i’s high mountains. This initiative led to the establishment in 1957 of an interim solar observatory on Oahu at Makapu`u Point and later, in 1961, a permanent facility on Haleakala
Acknowledgements
I want to take this opportunity to thank my family for support and patience during the years of the developments described in this essay and now in the recollection and synthesis of the materials to get them down in writing!
I also want to thank my many friends and colleagues who encouraged and supported this project, and especially Gareth Wynn-Williams without whose encouragement and creative skills with HTML, this would never have come to pass.
In Memoriam
Sadly, Walter Steiger died in February 2011, at the age of 87.
He will be greatly missed.
Some of his many friends have penned their tributes in a Memorial Page at