Each year between 2500-3000 scouts, students and teachers visit Green Bank, West Virginia, typically in small groups of a few dozen students with their teachers, for sessions lasting several days. They are housed in the site “bunkhouse” and take meals in the cafeteria. They receive in-depth tours of the electronics labs, training, use of the 40-Foot Telescope, and interactions with the site staff.
Richard Emberson
Richard Emberson was the assistant to the President of Associated Unviersities, Inc at the time of the founding of NRAO. In 1957, he became the project manager for the development of Green Bank, West Virginia as our observatory site. He was a trained scientist and a skilled administrator. While construction delays continued to plague the 140-foot (43-meter) telescopes project, Emberson’s leadership skills supported the Observatory’s efforts to fund, design, and build a world-class telescope in the interim, the 300-foot. After AUI, he became the Executive Director of the IEEE.
Paul Vanden Bout
Paul Vanden Bout became Director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory on 1 January 1985 and served until 31 May 2002. Vanden Bout’s directorship included the construction of both the Very Long Baseline Array and the Green Bank Telescope, the linkage of the VLBA Pie Town antenna with the Very Large Array, planning for and initiation of VLA upgrade, two major radio telescope surveys, the design and development of the MMA, and its evolution into ALMA. He played a key role in forging the ALMA international partnership, and funding for ALMA construction was approved before he stepped down as Director.
Otto Struve
Otto Struve was the first Director of the NRAO, taking office on July 1, 1959. Before coming to Green Bank, West Virginia, Struve was an eminent scientist at the Yerkes Observatory Chicago. He founded the McDonald Observatory in Texas before moving to the University of California at Berkeley in 1950. He became interested in radio astronomy there, and was on the search committee for our first Director. Before resigning in 1962, he helped ensure the NRAO had a world-class telescope, the 300-foot, while the troublesome 140-foot (43-meter) telescope was still under construction.
Morton Roberts
Morton Roberts had a long association with the NRAO, starting in 1964 when he joined the Green Bank staff in West Virginia. He moved to Charlottesville, Virginia when offices opened there in 1966. In 1969, Roberts was appointed Assistant Director of Green Bank, and moved his family back to West Virginia. In 1970, he stepped down, and was a Senior Scientist studying the structures of galaxies using the 300-foot and 140-foot (43-meter) telescopes. In 1978 Roberts became the Director of NRAO, a position he held until September of 1984.
John Findlay
John Wilson Findlay joined the NRAO staff in the Electronics Division in 1956 as employee number five. He later served as Deputy Director and as Assistant Director in Green Bank. He planned and supervised the design and fabrication of the 300-foot telescope and the 36-foot telescope on Kitt Peak. He led the technical group that designed and constructed the 28 Very Large Array (VLA) antennas. One of Findlay’s best-known research contributions to astronomy was his effort over a long period of time to establish an absolute calibration at 21 cm, for which he constructed in Green Bank the Calibration Horn Antenna, known as Little Big Horn. Findlay was involved in the international effort to protect radio astronomy frequencies from interference.