Update: Tom Silva

After graduation, I attended the University of Hawaii in the Fall of 1966.  

I volunteered for the United States Air Force following my freshman year and did my Basic Training with Tsune Nakago, whom you may recall from Maryknoll.  I spent four years doing intelligence work, first at the National Security Agency (NSA) and, later, in the Philippines at Clark Air Base in direct support of operations in Vietnam.  I returned to UH in September, 1971 and graduated in 1974 with a BA in Anthropology. 

After graduation, I followed my passion and worked as an archaeologist for the Archaeological Research Center Hawaii on Kauai. I worked throughout the islands and in American Samoa, but passion eventually met with financial reality.  I leveraged experience gained in commercial diving and fishing while still in school and went to work for McWayne Marine Supply.  I travelled throughout Hawaii, the Pacific and Asia representing McWayne and U.S. Divers Company, the American branch of Jacque Cousteau’s company.   I was later hired as U.S. Divers’ Manager of Product Development in California, where I did R&D and product development on new SCUBA products and technologies in Europe and Asia. 

In 1982 I began a 28-year career with Pacific Gas and Electric Company working in energy management.  Later, I focused on regulatory work and managed corporate relationships with major biotech, telecoms, energy, and petroleum industry companies in California. I retired in 2008, and began working for Chevron a week later.  It’s been eight years and I’m still doing the work I love.  I now focus on power generation, renewable resources and regulatory issues. 

Along the way, I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, got married and raised a daughter.  My wife, Cindy, a USC graduate, is in her third term as an elected member of the Walnut Creek City Council; she has served twice as mayor. Our daughter, Katie, is married to a U.S. Navy helicopter pilot, Carson, and both are University of Washington graduates. They have a new baby daughter, Adelaide. 

For fun, I’ve run the Honolulu Marathon, climbed Mt. Whitney with Jim Shelton and for many years I raced sailboats on San Francisco Bay. In 2004, I sailed from San Francisco to Hawaii in a small boat. I took up bicycling again in my fifties and have ridden in the French Pyrenees. Cindy and I love to volunteer and travel in our free time.