Meet the EOA Team
Robert Brand – EOA International & Australian Events Manager
Robert’s skills are ideally suited to being the International Events Manager for this global event. He is a seasoned Event Manager nominated for awards including a disability access award by creating a “world’s first” with real-time transcription for broadcasting conferences globally for the hearing impaired.
At the age of 17, during his term breaks from college, he wired up the audio and video connections for NASA’s equipment in Sydney, Australia for the Apollo 11 mission. He worked for nearly 20 years supporting communications for most NASA and many ESA missions. In 1975 Robert toured many NASA facilities in the US. On many occasions he was stationed at Parkes in support of ESA’s Giotto probe to Halley’s comet and the Voyager probe to Uranus and Neptune. Robert has awards from NASA in support of the STS1 and other shuttle missions.
In recent years he has assisted in trying to find NASA’s lost data tapes of the Apollo 11 mission and to document the history of Apollo 11 and other space activities that Australia was involved in. He has lectured overseas on Australia’s involvement in space. He has worked extensively in locating 3D Apollo mission photographs (stereo) and making them available to schools for resources. He has also donated his time to local schools to educate students on space and the Apollo missions.
Robert Passed both his amateur radio license of proficiency and his ship’s radio operators certificate while in his mid twenties and is currently been actively involved in installing and maintaining radio systems in extreme conditions such as underground road tunnels, powerline tunnels and mines.
Robert is currently Director of a successful telecommunications company and is very active supporting Green initiatives and disability access. He is a member of the Australian Computer Society’s Communications Board (MACS). He heads the telecommunication work-group in the NSW Green IT Task-force. Robert’s unique experience and abilities have been able to grow EOA to fruition in record time.
Pat Barthelow – Founder and EOA USA Events Manager
Pat proposed the foundation event for EOA: “World Moon Bounce Day”. Pat has worked in Telecommunications both in the US and Australia. He has worked in advanced RFID applications including timing race car performance on the track.
He has been a Ham Radio operator for 43 years, and is now having fun with Big Dish Moon bounce after major early interests in HF CW, DXing, and Contesting. Pat recently formed a team that successfully resurrected an abandoned earth station with a 30m (100ft) dish and conducted moon bounce – also known as EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) transmissions.
Fresno State University B/S, Surveying/Photogrammetry, including geodesy, Remote sensing. FCC commercial, and extra class Amateur Radio licenses. Land Surveyor in Training license; experience in cadastral, boundary, and construction surveying, precision GPS. Oceanography, underwater acoustics
Arctic Oceanographic Expedition, Arctic East, 1986, on behalf of the US Navy. Physical oceanography , mapping polar region oceans, Greenland, Baffin, Ellsmere Island.
Recently awarded a membership in the National Space Society Member number 2087213. The NSS chapter is affiliated with JP Aerospace, a Not for Profit company, involved with, and proven in NASA-backed near space research projects, with Balloon borne near space packages, for science, research, and science outreach.
Participation in the National Space Security Office-sponsored Committee on Space Based Solar Power. (SBSP)
Lifetime avocation of Amateur Radio, since 1966, with Weak Signal, Morse Code, Antenna Design, Propagation modeling, “DX”ing and Contests, EME being a special interest.
Pat has drawn together a strong project team to make the US events a reality. In this photo of Pat, he is on a 25m (80ft) tower on a 1,000m(3,500ft) ridge overlooking the Salinas Valley in the US.
