There's an interesting parallel to the start of radio astronomy in the United States. Immediately after World War II, the US largely ignored radio astronomy in the 40's and early 50's while the British, Dutch, and Australians turned their experience with radar to astronomy. The US in the early 50's now turned to make up lost time, and through the recently established National Science Foundation (NSF, est. 1950) created the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The parallel is, that there were no people with the appropriate skills to create an observatory within the US, and they specifically hired one of the world's leading radio astronomers, the Australian Joseph Pawsey, to be the NRAO's first director. Tragically, he died of cancer shortly after beginning the job, but the NRAO went on to pioneer some of the most sensitive radio telescopes ever built, like the Very Large Array.