Hobby-Eberly Telescope operations model

The Hobby-Eberly telescope (HET) is an innovative, low cost 9- meter class telescope that specializes in visible and near- infrared, queue observing mode spectroscopy. The operations costs for this telescope follow the capital cost model, being approximately 15 - 20% that of other 9-meter telescopes. In this contribution we describe the HET operations model and our early operations and scientific experience with this telescope, emphasizing those aspects that most directly impact the scientific productivity of the HET and describing the actions we have taken to optimize the telescope's scientific return.