RCHS Meeting with Dave Molinaro from HCATT

Our speaker will be Colonel (Ret.) David H. Molinaro, Director, Hawaii Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies (HCATT). 

Leads a consortium of Air Force, State of Hawaii, and other key stakeholders in demonstrating, validating, and integrating the latest hydrogen fuel cell and environmentally compliant technologies for use by the Air Force. HCATT has evolved over 20 years of DARPA, APTO and AFRL demonstrations in alternative and renewable energy projects in Hawaii and is complemented by a significant investment by the National Guard Bureau and the Hawaii Air National Guard. 

The first initiative is the Pacific Energy Assurance and Renewables Laboratory (PEARL) microgrid, a project focused on developing an integrated microgrid utilizing 100% renewables, a variety of energy storage technologies, and cyber secure control system for sustained “off the grid” operations by the 154th Wing, Hawaii Air National Guard. The second initiative is continuing the development and demonstration of various FCEVs, support equipment, and hydrogen infrastructure in an operational military environment. The first hydrogen production and fueling station was established by HCATT to serve as a model for other Air Force installations and is currently the leading hydrogen vehicle and infrastructure activity in the DoD. 

Dave joined the HCATT team in April 2016 and began his tenure as Director in August 2019. He is a 30-year Air Force/Air National Guard professional with extensive CEO level experience in joint operations, strategic planning, logistics, aircraft maintenance, human resource development, and congressional advocacy. Prior to HCATT, Dave worked with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Infrastructure Protection where he conducted comprehensive classified and unclassified analysis of the nation’s critical infrastructure and provided strategic-level recommendations to DHS leadership. He brings extensive project management experience as he was directly responsible for the $400M logistics conversion of the Hawaii Air National Guard’s F-15 Eagle to F-22 Raptor.