Dr. Don Walsh

Dr. Don Walsh is President of the Oregon-based consulting company, International Maritime Incorporated, which he founded in 1976. Over the past 20 years, the company has completed consulting projects in 22 nations.

From 1948 to 1950 he served in the U.S. Navy as a crewman in torpedo bombers. Entering the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, he graduated with the class of 1954. Most of his 14 years at sea, including both the Korean and Vietnam wars, was in submarines. From 1968-1970 he was captain of a submarine in the Pacific Fleet. On shore duty assignments he worked in ocean science and technology. At retirement in 1975 he held the rank of Captain.

After retirement he became dean of marine programs, and professor of ocean engineering, at the University of Southern California. At USC he established and directed the Institute for Marine and Coastal Studies. In 1983 he left the University to establish his consulting business as a full-time enterprise.

Educated in three universities, Walsh has a BS in engineering from Annapolis; an MS and PhD in oceanography from Texas A&M University, and an MA in political science from California State University at San Diego. In addition, he spent 14 months as a resident fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian in Washington.

Walsh has had over 200 papers and articles published, and edited five books on ocean-related subjects. Over the past 35 years, his lecturing activities have taken him to 60 nations where he has given more than 1,500 lectures, TV and radio appearances. Since 1994 he appeared in nearly two dozen television programs on ocean topics. In addition, he has been one of the technical advisors for such films as "Gray Lady Down", "Raise the Titanic", "Hunt for Red October", and "Abyss".

As an adventurer-explorer, Don Walsh has worked in the oceans, polar regions and space. From 1959 to 1962 he was the first commander of the U.S. Navy's Bathyscaphe Trieste, a deep diving submersible. He was designated U.S. Navy deep submersible pilot #1 in 1959. In 1960 he and co-pilot Jacques Piccard dove Trieste into the deepest place in the World Ocean. This was Challenger Deep near the island of Guam; the depth was nearly seven miles. In subsequent ceremonies in the White House, President Eisenhower, presented awards to Walsh and Piccard.

Since the 1960s Walsh has been involved in diving operations with 12 different manned submersibles, piloting four of them. He has also participated in sea operations with remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) a class of unmanned submersibles.

In 1971, Walsh was a member of Operation Deep Freeze '71, and spent over a month on the ice in Antarctica. His contributions to polar exploration were recognized in 1973 when a mountain ridge in the Antarctic was named for him. In 1997 he was on an expedition to the North Pole on board a Russian Nuclear-Powered icebreaker. In 1999 he plans to return to the North Pole with a joint US-Russian exploration expedition.

From 1965-68, at Texas A&M, he worked with NASA, during the late Gemini and early Apollo programs, to determine how spacecraft could be used to study the oceans. Walsh became one of the first oceanographers to work with remote sensing from aircraft and spacecraft.

Don Walsh is one of 20 living Honorary Life Members of the Explorers Club and is a current director of the Club. He is also an Honorary Life Member of the Adventurers Club and a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society.

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