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To borrow from Star Trek, you could say that Enrico Palermo is, in engineering terms, going "where no man has gone before" - and UWA was his launch pad. When Enrico and Nadia Palermo left steady jobs in the resources industry as the boom ratcheted up, the graduates were pursuing Enrico's dream to get involved in the space industry.

Today, he is Vice President of Operations for Sir Richard Branson's The Spaceship Company (TSC) building the world's first fleet of commercial manned spaceships. Joining Virgin Galactic in 2006, Enrico was the first engineer to lead operations in Mojave, California, from business plan concept to fully-fledged spaceship assembly and test operation. At UWA Enrico received a prestigious Clough scholarship among other awards, and he counts his involvement with UWA Motorsport and CEED as being invaluable.

As a secondary student, did you have a clear idea of what you wanted to study?

I've always had an interest in science, mathematics and their application to how things work. As a teenager I developed a passion for space exploration and space science. It was a relatively easy decision for me to pick a double bachelor's degree in Science (Physics, Applied Mathematics) and Engineering (Mechanical) at UWA - it offered a broad skills, experience and communication base which I thought would be important down the road.

How did you view your future career when studying at UWA and what were the ‘landmarks' that helped to shape your career?

Whilst studying I could see opportunities to take many different paths. I intended to pick up engineering design experience early in my career although I felt my strengths were in leadership and project management. Although I had a passion for space I knew it would necessitate moving overseas - driving me to pick up German in my final years at UWA.

Pursuing opportunities and real-world projects during my studies at UWA was critical. I joined the inaugural UWA Motorsport (UWAM) Formula-SAE team in 2001 working on the car's wiring and electrical systems, followed by being responsible for the engine in the 2002 car. I was fortunate to be the first driver of a UWAM car in competition driving in the skid-pan event in 2001. Projects like that were invaluable as they required a multi-discipline team to work together in achieving a common goal.

I also completed a Co-operative Education for Enterprise Development (CEED) project with Rio Tinto in mine planning as part of my Mathematics honours thesis. This exposed me to the challenges with optimisation in a practical environment and dealing with immense amounts of data.

Finally, I picked up great experience on vacation employment, including time at Woodside's LNG plant and working with Andersen Consulting on an enterprise wide IT systems implementation and business process reengineering project.

Another UWA landmark was having support from great supervisors and mentors at UWA including Angus Tavner and Alastair Mees who were driven by technology application and practicality. I've been fortunate throughout my career since UWA to have had great leaders and mentors to learn from.

What are the major challenges of your current role and what are the personal qualities that have proved to be assets in your career?

At The Spaceship Company and Virgin Galactic we are building the world's first ‘spaceline', something no one has ever done before. There is no ‘yardstick' for what hasn't been done before - we are ultimately driven by achieving milestones and ensuring the safety of our product. Leading the operations for TSC - which is a startup - I constantly review how we employ and marshal our resources to the priority of the day. Days and weeks can be long but you don't notice because we're passionate about our vision. We operate from a relatively remote location (Mojave, California) so attracting talent, particularly those with families, can be difficult at times - being far from loved family and friends in Perth, I can certainly understand why.

I have found that genuinely caring for the wellbeing and morale of my teams has been an asset, along with keeping calm in stressful or pressure situations, so you can think clearly through issues. Working for a startup requires me to be adaptable - things never pan out exactly as you expect, so you need to be open to making course corrections. Another personal quality is the willingness to take risks, make sacrifices and move laterally with my career choices. As an example, my wife Nadia (who studied Commerce at UWA) and I decided to quit our steady jobs in Perth in the resource industry, just as the resource boom started to ratchet up, and headed to Europe in pursuit of our goals.

What is your working day like and how do you relax?

It is a super exciting time to be at TSC and Virgin Galactic - a culmination of many years of hard work. When we moved to Mojave we started with a business plan and a tiny leased office at the spaceport. TSC now operates three main buildings, has extensive capabilities and our team is topping 275 talented individuals. Recently my boss and I abandoned our office and moved to our assembly and test hangar shop floor. Directly opposite my desk the assembly of TSC's first SpaceShipTwo is rapidly taking place. To my right is the first WhiteKnightTwo mothership which we took delivery of from scaled composites earlier this year - I was lucky to observe her through all stages of her build and test. In the other corner of our hangar our flight simulator is going through its verification and testing phases. Later this year we hope to have our first spaceflight and shortly thereafter commence commercial operations.

To relax, Nadia, my son Nicola and I take every opportunity to hit the road and explore. We've set a goal of visiting all of the USA's world-class National Parks - no easy task! We've visited 20 out of 59 so far, several of them multiple times.

What does the future hold?

Right now my focus is doing everything I can to support our goals of getting to space and starting commercial operations, then shortly after completing TSC's first spaceship. Beyond that I see plenty of new exciting opportunities in scientific research, small satellite launching, fast inter-continental travel and beyond.