I have been interested in maritime history ever since I was a teenager. Intrigued with the possibility of exploring the Great Lakes and oceans, I became a certified scuba diver while in high school, and a scuba instructor during college. I got interested in underwater archaeology in the early 1970s when I listened to George Bass and Robert Marx speak at a symposium on underwater archaeology. After working as a dive store manager and scuba instructor in Minnesota and California for a year, I returned to Minnesota to work in organization management and governmental affairs. I then joined the U.S. Navy as an intelligence officer in 1978. During the next 20 years, I had the chance to visit and scuba dive in many overseas locations, including Hawaii, Australia and the Philippines, while serving on the aircraft carriers Ranger, Kitty Hawk, and Abraham Lincoln. I maintained my scuba instructor qualifications and expanded my interests in underwater photography and nautical archaeology.
After retiring from naval service in 2000, I moved my family from Seattle to North Carolina and entered ECU’s Maritime Studies Program. My primary area of historical interest was Civil War naval operations in North Carolina’s coastal waters. I spent a summer interning with the NC Maritime Museum in Beaufort, and served as the Maritime Studies’ Stem to Stern editor for the 2001 and 2002 editions. After graduating from the Maritime Studies Program in the fall of 2002, I began my studies in the CRM Ph.D. program. In the summer of 2003 I interned for the Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education (CORE) in Washington, D.C., where I assisted with external affairs and Congressional relations programs. I was selected as a NOAA Knauss Sea Grant Fellow for 2005, and served for a year on the personal staff of Congressman Wayne Gilchrest, a Republican representing Maryland’s Eastern Shore and Chesapeake Bay area. My dissertation research will examine the history of shipwreck management by the states under the Abandoned Shipwreck Act and development of a model for Federal submerged cultural resource management in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
Congratulations to UCH Legislation Survey Participants # 259 and # 130, the winners of the $100 gift card drawings!
UCH Legislation Opinion Survey Summary
