Maui County offers rich cultural diversity as well as unparalled natural beauty. It also has some distinct competitive advantages that make it an ideal location for certain business sectors. It also provides a quality of life that you will find in few other places on earth.

• Where else in the world can you go surfing early in the morning in warm ocean waters before going to work at one of the world's top supercomputing centers?
  
  
• What other locations can boast that they are one of the top five night viewing skies in the world?
  
  
• Where else will you find state-of-the-art biotechnology facilities while driving up a 10,000 foot high dormant volcano?

Agriculture and agribiotech are industries with distinct advantages. Maui's temperature only varies about ten degrees a year. It offers varied ecosystems from rainforest to desert, ocean to mountain stream, and an abundance of sunshine. Maui has plenty of available agricultural land and is an ideal testbed climate, producing up to three crop cycles per year (depending on the crop).

Astronomy and adaptive optics are flourishing in Maui County. Atop Haleakala is a thriving astronomy and space research community. Scientists and technicians are engaged in projects such as focusing on the sun and solar system, stars and interstellar matter, astrobiology, planetology, galactical formation, and cosmology.

The Maui Research and Technology Park in Kihei is home to businesses in this growing field. Organizations such as Mosaic, Maui Scientific Research Center, and the Maui High Performance Computing Center all contribute to and benefit from the growing space/astronomy/adaptive optics sector.

Dual-use technology development also thrives on Maui, growing out of our strong defense sector. Maui offers a remote location, ideal for "Stealth mode" development of new technologies.

Marine research can include Maui's winter visitors, the humpback whales, or its regular residents, dolphins, sea turtles, marlins, and sharks, as well as the coral reef and its inhabitants.