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Mike deGruy Specializing in underwater and on-water photography, Mike deGruy's 20-year
career has allowed him to film in the world's most remote and spectacular
locations for his own productions, as well as for those of the British
Broadcasting Company (BBC), Public Broadcasting System (PBS), the National
Geographic Society, and many others. Together with his wife, Mimi Armstrong
deGruy, Mike owns the Santa Barbara-based production company called The
Film Crew, Inc. Their inventory includes full production and post-production
facilities in Super 16mm and 35mm, all with professional underwater housings.
The company owns a full range of underwater lighting in both tungsten
(traditional) and HMI (high-powered), as well as an underwater digital
Betacam.
Pat Hickey was hired as a mechanical technician by the Alvin Group in 1987. Approximately one year later, he passed his qualifying exams and became a certified Alvin pilot. Pat is no stranger to working world of marine science and technology. Born in Alberta, Canada, Pat's father worked in the oil field business and, as a result, Pat spent a great deal of his young life overseas. He attended high school in both Australia and Singapore, where he obtained his SCUBA-diving certification. After graduating from high school, he returned to Canada and enrolled in Mount Royal College in Calgary. Not one to find contentment confined to a classroom, Pat left Mount Royal and went to work "offshore" for various commercial diving firms, many of which used remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). Over the years, Pat worked on oil and gas rigs and construction barges worldwide. Employed by companies such as Underwater Specialists, Oceaneering International, Martech, and Subsea International, Pat has found himself in ports in Asia, Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico, and the North Sea. Pat applied for the position with the Alvin Group and was hired by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in 1987. At the time, the Alvin team also included Dudley Foster, now Submersible Engineering and Operations Coordinator at WHOI, and Steve Etechemendy, currently at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institution (MBARI) in Moss Landing, California. Five years after becoming an Alvin pilot, Pat took on the additional role of Expedition Leader. What does he like best about his position with the Alvin team? "The different personalities you meet on cruises," Pat answers. The variety of people he comes in contact with during the time at sea helps to keep his job interesting. However, being at sea 8 months out of every year has its drawbacks, including "zero social life." But, for someone who claims that he doesn't "like office jobs," the benefits far outweigh the costs of this offshore lifestyle, especially when it comes to visiting new ports of call. Last November, during his first cruise to the Southern East Pacific Rise, Pat spent time on Easter Island. Pat enjoys expeditions to 9º North; it's one of the "easier spots to dive," especially for someone who's dove here more than 150 times. Back to top.
Born in Laurel, Maryland, Emory Kristof's interest in the underwater world began at an early age. After seeing Jacques Cousteau's revolutionary film "Silent World" in 1955, he was hooked. With the patented "Jacques Cousteau" oval mask, a snorkel, and a pair of fins, he spent many days diving to the bottom of Georgetown's community swimming pool, picking up pennies and hairballs whenever he could ("I kept the drain clean!" he says proudly). He got his SCUBA certification in 1962 from American Water Sports, a dive shop in Washington, DC owned by a group of salvage divers. It was this group of divers that helped Emory pull off a stunt for "Old Line", a humor magazine published by the University of Maryland, where Emory earned a degree in photojournalism. The stunt poked fun at the campus flooding problem and involved the women's swimming pool, desks, chairs, typewriters, books, and a beer keg. Needless to say, although photos from the "underwater campus" appeared in "Humor," the magazine was kicked off campus and Emory was out of his job as its associate editor. In addition to the humor magazine, Emory worked on the university's yearbook; he earned the editor position in his junior year. Photos from his coverage of the University of Maryland-University of Miami football game and post-game celebration were not only included in the yearbook, but appeared in the Washington Post's Sunday supplement as well. Emory said his work on the college yearbook got him his first part-time job at the National Geographic Society. Emory was one of two students chosen to participate in a summer intern program initiated by Bob Gilka, then Director of Photography for National Geographic magazine. Bob's decision was based largely on the color "picture story" Emory had put together for his yearbook, an innovative color spread that also won him "College Photographer of the Year." He was also the first intern to be hired as a freelance photographer for National Geographic. The year was 1963 and his assignment was to photograph John F. Kennedy's funeral procession. Emory was the only photographer to get a shot showing most of the famous dignitaries who took part in the procession. This work and other assignments for National Geographic paid for his senior year at the University of Maryland. Upon graduation, National Geographic hired Emory full-time. His first major assignment was a story on the "boys in blue" - the U.S. Air Force. Doing research for this story brought Emory to Edwards Air Force Base in California where he was given flying lessons from the best jet fighter pilots America had to offer. According to Emory, after 9 months on the job he had 3 hours of personal "stick" time. The contacts he made during this assignment resulted in an invitation to cover the space program - from the Gemini project to the first Apollo mission. Keeping his love of the underwater world alive, Emory kept "sneaking" underwater photos into the magazine. Recognizing Emory's desire to take underwater photos, Bob Gilka sent him to Bermuda to document salvage diver Teddy Tucker's discovery of a 17th century shipwreck. The National Geographic writer accompanying Emory on this trip was the then-unknown Peter Benchley; interestingly, the time spent long-lining for sharks with Teddy formed the basis for Peter's most famous novel, Jaws. One of Emory's next assignments was to work with underwater photographer David Doubliet to capture images of the legendary "Loch Ness monster." Although they never saw the elusive beast, David and Emory experimented with underwater lighting systems in an attempt to illuminate the dark waters of the infamous Scottish lake. Unbeknownst to Emory at the time, what he learned from these early experiments would help him later with his work on hydrothermal vents. In 1974 Emory was assigned to cover Project FAMOUS, the French-American Mid-Ocean Undersea Survey that used Alvin and the French bathyscaph and Cyana submersibles to view the seafloor. It was during this assignment that Emory first met Bob Ballard, and the two conceived of the idea to do a story for National Geographic on Ballard's upcoming expedition to search for hydrothermal vents. Prior to this vent expedition, Bob Ballard had been using "ANGUS," a camera sled towed behind the ship, for "underwater reconnaissance." ANGUS, however, had a few limitations, one of which was the quality of its images. Always "one step ahead of the curve" on photography technology, Emory came up a color camera system that included extreme wide angle lenses, all the equipment needed for an onboard color film processing lab, and one of the best camera technicians at National Geographic. Using this system, Ballard and his expedition team found 5 vents along the Galapagos Rift. The photographs taken by Emory's cameras were among the first-ever of the vent biological communities. In 1979, Emory and Ballard returned to these same hydrothermal vents along the Galapagos Rift to record footage for a National Geographic magazine article and a National Geographic/PBS television special. It was during this time that Ballard and Emory first toyed with the idea of trying to locate the RMS Titanic. In 1985, eight years and a series of camera and lighting systems tests later, Emory and Ballard found the famous shipwreck using Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's (WHOI) towed imaging sled called ARGO. In 1986, Ballard went back and actually visited the 12,400ft (~3800m) deep wreckage using the Alvin submersible. Emory has continued to locate and photograph other famous shipwrecks, including the Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in Lake Superior during a storm. Another wreck he found and photographed near the Philippines dated back to 1600. He used remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to image his "all-time favorite" wrecks; two well-preserved sailing warships that were sunk in Lake Ontario in 1813. In 1988, Emory came up with the idea of doing an IMAX film about Titanic. With support from the Russian Laboratory of Manned Submersibles that owned and operated the two MIR submersibles that would be used to document the shipwreck, Emory approached IMAX with the idea. IMAX contacted producer Stephen Low, and the expedition to film the Titanic in IMAX format began in 1991. Titanica, the framed result of more than 50 "mags" (rolls) of film and the incredible power of HMI lights, was released in 1993. Emory's work in deep-sea environments expanded to include the Monterey Bay and Carmel undersea canyons located just off the coast of Monterey, California. In 1988, for his first story on these canyons, Emory and scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) used Alvin and "fish bait" to lure deep-sea creatures in front of the cameras on the awaiting submersible. Emory and MBARI scientists were also the first to discover cold-water seeps in this same area. Emory also used "rope cams" to lure creatures to awaiting cameras in Rongelap, one of the Marshall Islands. In 1997, stationed off the south island of New Zealand, Emory deployed his baited rope cam in an attempt to attract a creature that has so far eluded his camera lense: Architeuthus, the giant squid. After 30 years, Emory left National Geographic, but continues to work for them as a freelance photographer/videographer. Representing National Geographic on our expedition, Emory's assignment is to bring back high-def images to accompany a follow-up article to the one printed in 1994 about one of Rich Lutz's 9° North visits. Back to top.
Kristen joins the 9? North expedition as a science writer/editor from the University of South Florida (USF) Department of Marine Science in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was also recently named Director of a newly established Science Journalism Center at USF. Kristen is working toward a medley of goals on this cruise. She plans to craft a series of articles to be published in various magazine/newspaper media outlets, implement a 9º North component to an existing middle school outreach program called Making Waves that she manages, and design other outreach components that will highlight the cutting-edge research being done on hydrothermal vents at 9° North. As one of the world's most extreme, most fascinating, and least well understood environments, Kristen is confident that, presented effectively, the "hot off the presses" hydrothermal vent information is the kind of "stuff" that gets students psyched about science. Kristen is also busy running around the Altantis with Jill Zande to help in posting this awesome web site for your information and enjoyment. Kristen's been working at USF since she earned dual master's degrees in May 1998: an M.S. in Marine Science and an M.A. in Mass Communications/Journalism. Besides acting as department science writer/editor, she also enjoys teaching a scientific writing class for graduate students along with department chairperson Dr. Peter Betzer. She's still adjusting to her life as a "real person," and the memories of eating mustard sandwiches as a graduate student are still painfully fresh. Prior to her stint in the sunshine state, Kristen worked hard (so she could play harder) while earning a double bachelor's degree in Biology and English from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. There, she spent lots of time working as an athletic trainer for the football, soccer, lacrosse, and softball teams, and mentions a trip to the tropical St. John in the Virgin Islands for a marine biology course as another educational highlight that sold her on the idea of working in marine science. "Snorkeling and scuba diving on an assortment of reefs in the Virgin Islands, hiking through the mountains, waking up with wild donkeys at my door.That works for me," she said. Kristen was born in Lawrenceville, New Jersey but she spent the summers growing up on the shores of Long Beach Island, New Jersey. "Ever since I was a kid in pig-tails exploring the shores of New Jersey, I knew I was headed for a career in marine science. I've always been fascinated by the power of the waves, the rhythm of the tides, and the shells on the shore, and I couldn't help but smile every time I was at the beach." Besides the ocean, Kristen's other passion is writing. While intrigued by all facets of science, she doesn't consider herself the "laboratory type" and she was always interested in too many things in science to research just one of them. A career in science writing was the answer for her. Kristen's been thrilled with the opportunities, such as this cruise, that have presented themselves in her relatively short working career to date, and she looks forward to lots of traveling in her future. A trip to witness the launch of the "Autosub" remotely operated vehicle (ROV) in Scotland is next on her list of places she hopes to visit. Who are her heroes? "Every member of my family. The Kusek clan includes Mom and Dad (my dreamweavers), sister Kimberly, bro-in-law Bill, and just-born niece Avamarie - all in Jersey - also sister Cherie, bro-in-law Brooke (who feed me) and pooch Sandi in Florida, and younger brother/pro golfer/Parrothead Rob at Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina. In her spare time, Kristen enjoys kayaking on Tampa Bay, surviving her sister's cardio-kickboxing classes, biking, fishing, and trying anything she hasn't done before. She also heeds the words of Jimmy Buffett: "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." Back to top.
Stephen Low Productions Inc. is a team of motion picture professionals dedicated to the conception, production, distribution, and marketing of leading-edge giant screen film experiences. Established in 1986, the Montreal, Canada-based company has developed powerful cinema experiences for major corporations, world expositions, museums, and science centers. The company is a key user of both 2-D and 3-D IMAX, the world's most advanced cinema technology. In the pursuit of extraordinary imagery and dramatic subjects, Stephen Low Productions' team members have, among other things, put IMAX cameras into formation with flying geese, paddled them through the underwater habitat of a family of beavers, and navigated them through the wreckage of the Titanic 2 ½ miles below the surface of the North Atlantic. Each motion picture developed by the company poses its own unique creative and technical challenges, but the fundamental challenge of delivering a powerful and enriching audience experience is one that never changes. With highly successful IMAX productions exhibited worldwide, Stephen Low is recognized as a leading director of films for the giant screen. In addition to Titanica, included in his repertoire of movies are: Across the Sea of Time, a time-travel epic for Columbia Pictures and Sony New technologies; Skyward, a flight with a flock of Canada geese; Super Speedway, a look at the life of the legendary racecar family, the Andrettis; Beavers, a dazzling visit to the aquatic habitat of a family of beavers; and the ground-breaking 3-D film, The Last Buffalo, an award-winning production in IMAX 3-D format that takes viewers on a surreal exploration of the badlands of Alberta, Canada. Bringing out the drama in a non-fiction documentary is a key strategy in Stephen's approach to filmmaking. He uses real people and real situations to tell a story, create character development, and capture emotions in a way that makes audiences feel they are watching a drama. On this expedition to 9° North, Stephen is finally realizing an 8-year dream: gathering footage for a "pure science and natural history" documentary on the hydrothermal vent communities in IMAX. Back to top.
Director of the Center for Deep-Sea Ecology and Biotechnology at Rutgers University since 1995, Dr. Rich Lutz has been teaching and conducting research at the university for 20 years. Rich grew up in Arlington, Virginia, where he began his academic career as an undergraduate at the University of Virginia majoring in biology. From there he entered graduate school at the University of Maine, working within the Oceanography department under the tutelage of Dr. Herb Hidu. For his dissertation, Rich conducted research on the intertidal mussel Mytilus edulis; he studied everything from its shell structure for indications of growth rate to its life history for the purpose of raising the species commercially. After completing his Ph.D. in 1975, Rich continued his work on Mytilus edulis as a post-doctoral fellow with Dr. Hidu. In 1977, he moved onto Yale University, where he took a post-doc position in the laboratory of well-respected deep-sea ecologist, Dr. Don Rhoads. There he continued to work on shell structure as a measure of growth rate in shallow-water mollusks, specifically mussel and clam species. It was during his post-doc at Yale that Rich had the great fortune to take part in one of the first expeditions to hydrothermal vents. He remembers being aboard the R/V Lulu, Alvin's original support vessel, in the eastern Pacific in 1979 with such deep-sea pioneers as Robert Hessler, Howard Sanders, Fred Grassle, and Ruth Turner. They were participating in the first biological expedition to hydrothermal vents sites along the Galapagos Rift. Vent sites along the Galapagos Rift were first discovered in 1977 by a team of geologists, including chief scientist Jack Corliss and Bob Ballard, who discovered the Titanic. Prior to 1977, geologists towing instruments behind research vessels had detected temperature anomalies along the Rift, an indication of hydrothermal plumes. The 1977 geological expedition sought to identify the source of these heat anomalies by actually visiting the seafloor in Alvin. It was then that the amazing biological communities associated with the hydrothermal plumes were first seen. The 1979 expedition that Rich took part in was the second of that year that focused on studying the vent organisms. Rich and advisor Don Rhoads had been asked to investigate the growth rates of the mussels and clams found there in an attempt to answer two of the most puzzling questions: 1) How old are these organisms?, and 2) Do they growth faster or slower than their shallow-water relatives?" Rich recalls his first-ever Alvin dive to the hydrothermal vents: It was Alvin dive #986. Those were the days when they used to paint the dive numbers on the steel weights used for ballast. As we began to travel along the bottom, I remember worrying that we weren't going to find the mussel beds that we were looking for. Then, suddenly, as we came over the crest of pillow lava, the community spread out before us. I remember sitting on the bottom thinking, with 1-½ miles of water over me, this has to be the most exciting environments I've ever witnessed; I had reached a stage in my career that was the culmination of all the scientific experience I'd had up to that time. It was a truly magical dive. Ironically, when I returned to this same site nearly a decade later on Alvin dive #2016, I looked out my view port to see, lying just beneath us, Alvin weights with #986 written on them. It was like seeing an old friend. Now Rich returns to 9° North as leader of an expedition that will make history: the first-ever attempt to film these biologic and geologic wonders in IMAX format. Imagine, one day sitting in front of an 80-ft high, 100-ft wide IMAX screen with ghost-white crabs scurrying about amongst blood-red tubeworms as they sway in shimmering hot water coming from 10m (33ft)-high chimneys. Seeing larger than life images of these communities - and knowing that he helped bring them to audiences nationwide - will give this veteran of vent biology a wonderful sense of accomplishment. Back to top.
With years of IMAX cinematography experience, Bill was hired by Stephen Low Productions to capture larger-than-life views of the unique biological communities at the 9° North hydrothermal vent sites. Using a special rig set-up, Bill will operate the 80-lb. IMAX camera, filming these deep-sea oases through Alvin's front porthole. Bill developed an interest in photography/cinematography at a very young age. Born in Canada, he spent his "off time" during high school working as a freelance photographer. He began his education at Seneca College in Toronto as an Environmental Science major, but made certain to include photography and film classes in his academic schedule; it wasn't long before he realized that this was his real passion. He graduated from Seneca College with a diploma in Audio Visual Techniques and went on to obtain his bachelor's degree in Motion Pictures from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, also in Toronto. After graduating from Ryerson, Bill was hired by one of his instructors as a freelance cinematographer to work on several feature films and documentaries. He continued to do freelance work, mainly on feature films, but soon developed an interest in documentaries. It was his work on documentaries that took him to remote locations, such as the Arctic, where he participated in a "bizarre" canoe trip down the Bonnet Plume and Piel Rivers in Canada's Yukon Territory. This 350-mile, 4-week trip followed the adventures of a member of the New York State Assembly and his friends. This adventure involved 6 canoes and 2 Zodiacs that carried 1300 lbs. of film equipment. Bill remembers "forever repairing the cells of the Zodiacs" as they were torn by the jagged shale of the rivers. Another documentary took him to South Georgia Island in the sub-Antarctic where he camped for months with 70,000 pairs of king penguins and 30,000 elephant seals. Early in his career Bill also filmed television commercials, his favorite being a Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry commercial shot in the Arctic. He also worked periodically on feature films; in 1982 he was hired to film "That's My Baby" in Ontario. In 1984 Bill went to IMAX Corporation to get trained in the IMAX camera technology. He noticed that the company lacked a connection between conventional cameras and their newer equipment - a connection he could make. Bill was first hired by IMAX as a consultant, and was soon working for them full-time. At IMAX, Bill did a considerable amount of research and development, designing and building special camera rigs. He spent his overtime doing IMAX camera work for various production companies; his last 4 years at IMAX were spent doing special applications for various productions, including underwater housing for the emerging 3-D photography. It was during this time that Bill met and befriended stereographer Noel Archambault, a pioneer of 3-D IMAX movie technology. Bill and Noel worked together on the testing of underwater housing for 3-D camera systems. After 12 years with IMAX, Bill went back to doing freelance work, mainly for production companies using IMAX equipment. He first worked with Stephen Low in 1984 on the IMAX film Beavers and then again in 1991 on Titanica, where he spent more than 29 hours in the Russian MIR submersibles filming the famous RMS Titanic shipwreck. To date, Bill's favorite project with Stephen Low was 1996's IMAX film Super Speedway, a story about the Andrettis, the legendary racecar family. Bill did a lot of the background research for this film; for example, he located the original Kuzma roadster that father Mario drove when he broke into Indy car racing in the mid-1960s. The most challenging part of the film was building the camera mounts that would allow the IMAX equipment to travel and film at speeds exceeding 230 miles per hour. Bill's most recent work includes: Extreme, an IMAX film featuring "extreme" sports such as ice-climbing, big-wave surfing, and first-descent snowboarding, and Galapagos: The Enchanted Voyage, a 3-D IMAX film recently released in the U.S. Both films were completed in 1998. With such an incredible resumé under his belt, the IMAX film that will result from Bill's Alvin dives to these incredible vent ecosystems is sure to be a HUGE success. Back to top.
Working under the tutelage of Dr. Rich Lutz at Rutgers University, Matt is pursuing his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution. His dissertation research focuses on the evolution of clam species found at both hydrothermal vent and hydrocarbon seep* sites using their shell structure as a guide. This is his third expedition aboard the R/V Atlantis with the Alvin submersible. "It's a great crew and always a great experience," he says. Matt's goal on this cruise is to duplicate and edit videotapes taken during Alvin dives and to assist the science crew with their photographic and video needs. When he returns to Rutgers, he'll be developing an educational web site featuring many of the images he collects during the cruise. Matt was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His "very supportive family" includes his father, who is active in the labor union; his mother, a schoolteacher; and his younger sister, an information systems coordinator. Matt has always loved the ocean. He remembers reading as much as he could about the underwater world and collecting seashells along New Jersey beaches as a child. He was a sports swimmer in school and earned his SCUBA-diving certification from the YMCA. "I've always known what I wanted to do," he says, meaning to pursue a career in the ocean sciences. He began his education at Millersville University in central Pennsylvania where he earned his Bachelor's of Science degree with an emphasis in marine biology. While at Millersville, he spent two summers doing field study work at Wallops Island Marine Science Consortium at Wallops Island, Virginia, and two winter quarters taking classes in the Florida Keys. He also sailed on a three-month cruise aboard the NOAA ship Malcolm Baldridge under the direction of Dr. Cindy Venn, touring places such as Miami, the Caribbean, Antigua, and Martinique, and traveling through the Panama Canal to study barnacles. It was on the Panama Canal cruise that he first crossed the equator and earned the infamous "shellback" title. Upon a recommendation from Dr. Venn, he started work on his Master's degree under the direction of Dr. Robert Prezant at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. There he studied the growth lines of limpet shells in inner tidal zones of the northeastern United States. He completed his Master's in 1997. Matt is now in his third year as a doctorial candidate at Rutgers. What does he plan to do after he finishes his degree? "I want to keep all doors open, but I do feel that teaching at a university would be most rewarding," he says. *Hydrocarbon seeps are areas where oil and gas are naturally seeping from deposits within the seafloor. Unique biological communities are also associated with seeps; although the community composition is a bit different than that of vents, it is the same process of chemosynthesis that supports the life found at seep sites. Back to top.
My name is Diana Wellman and I'm a returning student at Monterey Peninsula College (MPC) studying Marine Technology with a strong desire to pursue Mechanical Engineering. I'm also proud to say that I'm the mom of the best soccer player I know, my nine-year-old son, Tyler. I grew up around the ocean and have always loved what it has to offer. Finding new avenues to work and live around it played a major part in my involvement with the MATE Center program. My father, a retired Naval Commander, has worked with Naval Research Laboratories and Rockwell Oceans Systems Test Team and my brother is a Navy SEAL. Their influence as well as my love of the ocean has had a great impact on my pursuing a career in Marine Technology. I first found MATE when I decided to further my education after a company lay off. I had invested a lot of time in the aircraft industry and couldn't see any further opportunities in that field in the Monterey area. Moving was not an option at the time. I registered at MPC the summer of 1998 and couldn't even answer that infamous question, "What is your major?" I had no idea. I was on my way to class one day and looked up to find a sign that read "Marine Advanced Technology Education Center". "That's it, I found my major!" I walked in and applied for a job as a student worker in the Federal Work Study program and was hired on the spot. After the semester was over I was fortunate enough to be hired as a member of the MATE Center team part-time while I pursue my Associate of Science degree in Marine Science and Technology. Through MATE I have been an intern with Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, Marine Operations Division, under the supervision of Richard Muller and Stewart Lamberdin. I used my skills with computers and inventory management to develop a database of Shared Use Equipment and was able to join the crew aboard the Pt. Sur and John Martin research vessels as assistant to the Marine Technicians. Now I'm enjoying the opportunity to intern with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's R/V Atlantis and the Deep Submergence Vehicle Alvin. I will be assisting the Alvin's mechanical technician and pilot-in-training, Mark Drewery, with daily submersible operations. It's the chance of a lifetime and I look forward to acquiring the hands-on experience and knowledge of a technical team in action in support of science. Back to top.
BLee has been a member of the Alvin team for just under seven years. As with every Alvin pilot, he was first hired as a technician and soon became a pilot-in-training (PIT). After a year as a PIT, BLee qualified as pilot; since then he has made about 200 dives to the ocean floor. BLee was born in Big Spring, Texas, but with his father in the Marine Corps, lived in a variety of places, including Morocco. His family finally settled in North Carolina, where he went to high school. Being settled in one place obviously didn't suit BLee; during his high school summers he would "run away from home" to his Uncle Jack Goodwin's home on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Uncle Jack, now retired, was Assistant Director of Smithsonian Libraries and Technical Bibliographer of the Library of Congress. BLee remembers these summers away from home as the time when he got "an education on how to enjoy the world"; he "had the run" of the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress and met a lot of great people as his Uncle's "butler" during dinner parties. After high school, BLee enrolled in Wake Forest University as a theater major. He worked on lighting and sound design - the "technical stuff" of theater productions. This career was short-lived, however; he dropped out of Wake Forest after one and a half years and joined the Navy. BLee spent a total of ten years in the Navy, working primarily as an electrician on nuclear submarines as an electrician. For two of those years, he repaired the nuclear subs as a mechanical engineer. After leaving the Navy, BLee went to work for Newport News Shipbuilding, refueling nuclear reactors aboard aircraft carriers such as the USS Enterprise, which, with its 8 nuclear reactors, is the most complicated ship in the world. Three and a half years later BLee saw an advertisement for a position with the Alvin team; he applied, and the rest is history. What does BLee like most about his job? "The sense of accomplishment I feel when I can figure out what a scientist wants from a dive and get it for them," he says. Being part of such a variety of science missions is also appealing. However, like every job, there is a downside; being away from his 12-year-old daughter Jennie is difficult. "I make sure to take my leave when she has her school vacations," BLee says. "I want to spend as much time with her as possible." His interest in education and outreach - bringing an understanding of the technologies he uses in his job to students and teachers - is certainly an asset to the MATE Center on this expedition. BLee is working with MATE intern Diana to develop a work plan that involves hands-on experience with the Alvin, from general maintenance to launch and recovery operations. Back to top.
As MATE Center Program & Outreach Coordinator, this expedition provides a great opportunity for me to showcase unique deep-sea environments and the technologies used to study them for students, educators, and the public nationwide. Being able to share with you this research and the vast array of hi-tech equipment used to access, image, and collect data on these vent communities via the Internet in real-time is incredibly exciting. We at the MATE Center look forward to working with Rich Lutz and other scientists to add long-term educational components to their research projects. For me personally, taking part in this expedition is allowing me to step back into the research I began as an undergraduate at Penn State University and continued as a graduate student at Louisiana State University (LSU). I was first introduced to hydrothermal vents in a Field Biology class I took at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford (the town in Pennsylvania where I grew up) campus during my sophomore year in high school. During my senior year at Penn State, I was very fortunate to work with hydrothermal vent and hydrocarbon seep* biologist Chuck Fisher. It was Chuck who encouraged me to go on to graduate school and put me in contact with benthic ecologist Bob Carney at LSU. For my Master's thesis, I conducted research on feeding, population size distributions, and larval development in a gastropod from hydrocarbon seep sites in the Gulf of Mexico. After completing graduate school I came "inshore" to work on seagrass ecosystems as a research technician at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. Fortunately I was able to get my deep-sea "fix" as a volunteer during research cruises aboard Oregon State University's R/V Wecoma under the direction of Joe Siebenaller, a great friend and physiologist at LSU. And this expedition is also allowing me to spend time at sea - something I truly love. That, along with SCUBA- and sky-diving, hiking and camping in the Big Sur area, and spending time with my two nieces, Margaret and Sarah, makes for a very fulfilling life. *Hydrocarbon seeps are areas where oil and gas are naturally seeping from deposits within the seafloor. Unique biological communities are also associated with seeps; although the community composition is a bit different than that of vents, it is the same process of chemosynthesis that supports the life found at seep sites. Back to top.
For 9 Degrees North , Grey Zone Productions, Inc. custom built the expedition log tool. This tool enables the MATE Center to post daily content on their site without hiring their own programmers or having to pay maintenance fees to a web design firm. Jill Zande, a MATE Center employee aboard the R/V Atlantis, emails photos and the daily expedition log entries back to California where her entries are then cut and pasted into the form fields in her expedition log tool. Each new entry then appears in a standard format on the MATE web site. Customer Control tools such as the expedition log tool function throughout the web site-allowing the MATE Center to change time sensitive areas such as their job listings or lists of events through simple data entry. To find out more about Grey Zone Productions, Inc. and our Customer Control
features, please visit us at www.greyzone.com
Come by and see what Grey Zone Productions, Inc. can do for you! Back
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Univeristy
of South Florida, Department of Marine Science
Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)
Grey
Zone Productions