World’s Leading Space Engineer, Maxwell W. Hunter, to Serve as Chairman of Advisory Board for Cala Corporation’s Undersea Hotel Project
John P. Del
Favero, President of the Advisory Board for the Undersea Hotel Project
of the Cala Corporation announced today that he has
recruited Maxwell W. Hunter to serve as Chairman of the Advisory Board
for Cala Corporation’s Undersea Hotel Project.
Hunter’s initial objective will be “to guide the recruiting
efforts to build a team of world-class experts from various
engineering and scientific disciplines for service on the Advisory
Board.”
When asked why the world’s leading rocket designer and space
engineer would join an undersea hotel and resort project as he nears
his retirement years, Hunter said: “I spent four decades cultivating
project development money from U.S. Presidents and the Congress in
order to build advanced space systems designed to protect our American
way of life and to explore the vast ocean of space.
“At this stage in my life — and the state of the world — I am
quite content to assume a leadership role in an international,
pro-environment, marine-tourism project that can spread the word about
the beauty of earth’s oceans and allow tourists to enjoy the
exploration of marine life in a fascinating new way.”
Maxwell W. Hunter spent over four decades in the aerospace
industry, during which he was a Presidential Advisor on U.S. National
Space Policy and the recipient of a NASA Public Service medal for “the
definition and promotion of the Space Shuttle and its utilization.”
During two decades of work at Douglas Aircraft Company, as Chief
Missiles Design Engineer and, later, Chief Engineer of Space Systems,
he was responsible for the design of the Thor and Nike-Zeus rockets,
as well as the engineering of all Douglas space efforts, including the
highly reliable Delta launch vehicle and the Saturn S-IV stage of the
Apollo moon rocket program.
Hunter later spent more than two decades working for Lockheed
Missiles and Space Company, where he was the program manager of the
Hubble Space Telescope during the creation of the design. In the early
1990’s, Hunter was instrumental in convincing the White House and
Congress to finance the development of an operational prototype of the
world’s first fully reusable rocket, the DC-X, which was successfully
flown a dozen times at White Sands, New Mexico, by the McDonnell
Douglas Corporation.
Hunter briefly commented on the economic prospects of the Cala
Corporation Undersea Hotel Project. “Adventure tourism and eco-tourism
are emerging growth areas on the leading edge of the global tourism
industry. This type of marine tourism experience combines the best of
both of these fast-growing tourism markets. This is a savvy business
move by a proven businessman with experience in developing and
profitably operating five-star hotel and resort properties in Europe,
America, and the Pacific Rim, Mr. Joseph Cala.”
Hunter’s legendary design philosophy of elegant simplicity came
through in his comments on the engineering challenges faced by this
advanced marine tourism project: “There are intriguing parallels
between engineering orbital life support structures and an undersea
resort complex. Both involve designing habitats for securely
sustaining human life in a sealed pressure environment. In both cases,
one needs to design prefabricated components that need to be
transported to the local environment and then modularly connected in a
pressure medium that requires maximum safety measures during
construction.
“These operating habitats also require dynamic station-keeping
mechanisms to maintain the location and equilibrium of the structures
in the face of gravitational and dynamic external forces. Lastly, in
both marine and space habitats, it is imperative to build-in
redundancy and operational safety in all vital structural and life
support systems.”
Hunter added: “What I bring to the Cala Undersea Hotel Project is
good ol’ fashioned American ingenuity and the cold-blooded engineering
rationality that a project with this type of risk-reward ratio
requires. I’m confident that the Advisory Board we build can
effectively counsel the designers, engineers, and contractors on this
project to foresee and work around the inevitable trouble spots of
such a novel project.
“The synergy created by having an optimal mixture of world-class
marine and space engineers from various disciplines will provide
tremendous guidance to this project.”
Hunter concluded with some thoughts on the role of the Undersea
Hotel Project Advisory Board: “Our prime objective will be to produce
a futuristic tourism experience that will ensure the safety and
pleasure of both our human and marine visitors as well as a uniquely
profitable investment experience for Cala Corporation’s shareholders.”
Hunter graduated with an A.B. degree in Physics and Mathematics
from Washington and Jefferson College and an M.S. degree in
Aeronautical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. He also attended the Advanced Management Program of the
Harvard Business School.
He is Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi, and a Fellow of the American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Astronautical
Society, and British Interplanetary Society. He is also a member of
the International Academy of Astronautics and an honorary member of
the Japanese Rocket Society.
He also received the Werhner von Braun Memorial Award of the
National Space Society for “lifelong contributions to the fields of
rockets, missiles and spaceflight.” He has authored over five dozen
technical papers, including “Are Technological Upheavals Inevitable?,”
published in the Harvard Business Review, and a rocket propulsion
textbook titled “Thrust Into Space.”
About Cala Corporation
Cala Corporation is an expanding global hospitality company
headquartered in San Francisco/Silicon Valley with offices in Oklahoma
City. For more information about the Cala Corporation, visit
http://www.calacorporation.com or call 405/235-4960.
The information in this news release includes certain
forward-looking statements as defined in the “Safe Harbor” provision
of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These
statements are based upon assumptions that are subject to significant
risks and uncertainties.
Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in
forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance
that the expectations of any of its forward-looking statements will
prove to be correct. This press release was prepared on behalf of the
Board of Directors, which accepts full responsibility for its
contents.
Contact: Cala Corporation, Oklahoma City
405/235-4960
