Toolmaker for the Cosmos
My passion for toolmaking started in my youth. First, it was Soap Box Derby, followed by Human Powered Vehicles, namely my streamliners and hydrofoils. Throughout this time, dad was a professional telescope maker both at Kitt Peak and on the side at home.
After graduating with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1979, a couple of years into my profession as a helicopter autopilot specialist, I was snagged by my father and pulled away into the large telescope realm. My first job was for Doctor Charles Townes, the Nobel laureate and co-inventor of the ubiquitous laser. Not only did I have a lot to learn from dad in optical fabrication, but more practically, I needed to create the polishing machines and tools for our large optics. In this case, we were to fabricate two two-meter flats and two 1.65-meter parabolas for Townes’ Infrared Spatial Interferometer.
After a ten-year stint learning from the master optician, my father, I went back to school, this time for an advanced degree in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona. I felt right at home as a grad student under the football stadium at the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab, creating 8.4-meter telescope mirrors. After graduation, I was off to Eastman Kodak for more large optics, this time classified lightweight optics.
In 2004, I was lured away to California for the James Webb Space Telescope as the Chief Engineer in charge of polishing the Beryllium mirror segments. Webb was more than a job; it was a passion. This was for something greater than us. This was for the Cosmos.
Yes, I’m a toolmaker. Specifically, I make telescope mirrors. I have helped create some of the world’s greatest telescopes over the last forty years. As I like to say, “I’m not Carl Sagan or Stephen Hawking, but I did make their telescopes!” If I may share an analogy, the Astronomers are the race car drivers, and we built their Formula One beauty and we are the enablers of their amazing science.
Glen Cole
