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CWF Salish Sea Expedition Uncategorized

Expedition Support

David Burch PhD aboard JRH
David Burch PhD aboard JRH

On behalf of OAR Northwest, I would like to extend a sincere thank you to some extraordinary Base Camp crew!  These folks have provided countless hours, skills, dedication, spirit and late-evening international boarder crossings to support the expedition, team and base camp activities.  As part of OAR Northwest’s daily expedition action, they communicate with crew members, troubleshoot instruments & on-the-water situations, work closely with many organizational partners & sponsors and provide the public with extraordinary information.  This expedition would not be possible with them and the hundreds of people engaged in OAR Northwest!  Thank you all!

Dr. Fritz Stahr on Wind Turbine
Fritz Stahr on Wind Turbine

Fritz Stahr, PhD, OAR Northwest Science Liaison and Base Camp Instruments Guru

Fritz Stahr is currently General Manager of the Seaglider Fabrication Center (SFC: seaglider.washington.edu) at the School of Oceanography, University of Washington.  Prior to starting the SFC, he taught oceanography at UW and Pierce College, and did post-doctoral research on hydrothermal vent field heat-flux. He co-founded the Ocean Inquiry Project in 2000, a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching marine science through on-the-water experience while conducting research in Puget Sound to the benefit of both communities.  He received a Ph.D. in Oceanography from UW in 1998, studying ocean physics and instrumentation at the Applied Physics Lab. Prior to graduate school in Seattle, he was an opto-mechanical engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area for a decade after graduating from Stanford University in Mechanical Engineering in 1981.  (from Sound Waters Conversation, 2012)

David Burch, PhD, Unofficial Base Camp Navigator Extraordinaire

David Burch is the author of the courses and director of the school. He has more than 70,000 miles of ocean experience ranging from the Arctic ice edge to Tahiti and Australia in the Pacific and from New York to Panama in the Atlantic. He has sailed across the Pacific to Hawaii ten times, three times winning the Victoria to Maui yacht race, and in 1984 setting the elapsed time record for that passage for vessels under 38 feet long (the record lasted sixteen years, but was beat in the 2000 race). In powerboats, he delivered a 65-foot fishing vessel from New York to Seattle, via Panama and has made numerous coastal deliveries between WA and CA, AK, and Mexico. He navigated the only American entry (72-foot Cassiopeia) in the storm-ridden ’93 Sydney to Hobart yacht race and has since navigated that vessel on the ’96 Vic Maui and Swiftsure Lightship Classic when she won first overall in the latter. He holds a USCG masters license, 100 GT.  In 2006 he devoted his summer to his friends and students of the OAR Northwest rowing team as they won the Great North Atlantic Rowing Race and earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the first row ever across the North Atlantic (New York City to Falmouth) that actually arrived at their intended destination. (from Starpath Corporation)

Angie Pendergrass with UW AMS Student Chapter
Angie Pendergrass with UW AMS Student Chapter

AMS Student Chapter at the University of Washington, Base Camp Weather Forecasters…just Amazing!

These students at the University of Washington study weather and climate and provided forecasts for OAR Northwest’s circumnavigation of Vancouver Island.  As a student chapter of the American Meteorological Society, they aim to serve atmospheric science undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty of the University of Washington as well as the atmospheric science community in Western Washington. This chapter promotes social and educational activities and creates a forum for discussion among members. In addition, this chapter serves both a service and educational role by assisting in career days and science fairs for local high school students, sponsoring public lectures, mentoring younger students, and generating general interest in the field of Atmospheric Science. This chapter also provides students with useful contacts for graduate school and future jobs. As a whole, this chapter serves the general atmospheric science community and enables the exchange of ideas between many differing levels of expertise.