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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.
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.
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.
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. | |
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Copyright © 2008 MATE |
Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)