Expedition Members

Don Walsh
Don Walsh served in the Navy from 1948 to 1975. Duty was mostly in submarines during his 14 years at sea which included the Korean and Vietnam wars. Walsh commanded a submarine in the Pacific Fleet 1968-70. Shore duty assignments were in ocean science and technology. At retirement he held the rank of Captain.

In 1975 he became dean of marine programs, and professor of ocean engineering, at the University of Southern California. At USC he founded and directed their Institute for Marine and Coastal Studies. In 1983 he left the University to establish his consulting business, International Maritime Incorporated, as a full-time enterprise.

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.

He has had over 200 papers and articles published, plus editing five books on ocean-related subjects. Over the past 40 years, his lecturing activities have taken him to 60 nations where he has given more than 1,500 lectures, TV and radio appearances.

As an adventurer-explorer, he has worked in the deep oceans, polar regions and space. From 1959 to 1962 he was the first commander of the Navy's Bathyscaphe Trieste and 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, a depth of seven miles.

Dr. Walsh first went to the Arctic in 1955 and Antarctic in 1971 as a member of Operation Deep Freeze '71. He has worked at both the North and South Poles, having made 10 expeditions to the Arctic and 16 to the Antarctic. His contributions to polar exploration were recognized in 1973 when a mountain ridge in the Antarctic was named for him.

At Texas A&M (1965-68) he worked with NASA Houston 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 has participated in most of Deep Ocean Expedition programmes since the company was founded. This includes dives to the Titanic, the Mid-Atlantic ridge and ancient shipwrecks off Marseilles

Robert L. Hohlfelder, Ph.D.
Archaeologist Robert L. Hohlfelder, Ph.D. has written and lectured widely on the history of the ancient Mediterranean. He is the author of 6 books and over 70 articles, with research interest in ancient maritime history and marine archaeology, ancient numismatics and late Roman and early Byzantine History.

Bob has participated in more than 25 archaeological expeditions around the Mediterranean Basin. He has presented over 25 national lecture tours for the Archaeological Institute of America. Bob is a gifted lecturer who has a reputation for "bringing the ruins to life" for those lucky enough to travel with him.

He currently teaches at the University of Colorado. Joining Bob will be his wife, Kathryn Howes Barth, who has served on numerous archaeological expeditions around the Mediterranean since 1984. She is an architectural historian and expert in historic preservation projects. We invite you to share with Bob and Kathryn this unique and enjoyable tour, exploring ancient shipwrecks of the Mediterranean plus several outstanding "terrestrial" archaeological sites and historic cities.

Commander Paul-Henri Nargeolet
The Deep Rover submersible operations will be supervised by diver and submersible pilot Commander Paul-Henri Nargeolet, head of Aqua+. A retired commander in the French Navy, he has been a submersible pilot for many years.

He has made over 30 dives in five expeditions to the RMS Titanic in the French submersible Nautile. Before joining Aqua+ he was manager of the Nautile program for the French national ocean agency IFREMER in Toulon. While in the Navy P.H. worked with their bathyscaph program at the Toulon naval base. He will be one of the pilots for our ancient ships program.

Henri Delauze
Remora 2000 will be operated by a team headed by the famous French underwater explorer Henri Delauze. In the early 1960's he founded Comex which became the largest commercial diving company in the world.

A diver and submersible pilot, Delauze has spent many years of his life diving in the waters off the French Mediterranean coast and knows of many great shipwrecks in this area. He has been associated with manned submersibles since the early 1960's and is the 'third deepest' man in the world. This resulted from his 31,660 foot dive in the French Navy's Bathyscaph Archimede in the Kurile Trench in 1962.

Please note
The staff members listed above may or may not be participating in this expedition. This is a guide only. Also note additional expert Deep Ocean Expedition staff not listed here will also be participants on this expedition.