On-Site Director of Operations

Jamey is the Director of Operations at Apache Point Observatory and manages the personnel at Sunspot Solar Observatory, serving as a technical resource for facilities on both sites. For the Dunn Solar Telescope, he is responsible for ensuring the telescope’s employees have the support they need to maintain operations—which, in Jamey’s words, includes “a lot of staying out of the way!”

He and his family moved to Sunspot after he accepted a position at APO in June 2020. Because he grew up in a small town of around 6,000 people, moving to Sunspot didn’t feel like a drastic change. He now enjoys driving up and down the mountain to Sunspot and appreciates that there are always a variety of things to learn at the observatories, which keep him happily busy at work.

A traveler at heart, Jamey has been all over. Since working at APO and Sunspot, Jamey, his wife, and their three daughters have enjoyed traveling across the continental US in their RV. One of their greatest trips was over 5,000 miles round-trip and involved visits to five national parks, including Olympic National Park.

Jamey graduated from the University of Oregon with bachelor’s degrees in physics and political science in 1993.  He chose to study political science in tandem with physics to exercise his brain in different ways. After earning a Master of Science in Astronomy from San Diego State University, he moved to Hawaii to take a position at Mauna Kea, working at the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT).  Later, he moved back to the mainland and worked at Palomar Observatory in San Diego, CA before coming to New Mexico.

Noting the signifcance of these observatories, Jamey says, “Having a nighttime (APO) and daytime (SSO) observatory so close to one another that are run by the NMSU Astronomy department makes working at Sunspot very noteworthy. The ability to observe day and night is unique and a phenomenal resource for NMSU.”