Dive and Discover : Expedition 6 : Interviews

Interviews: NOAA’s Craig McLean

in lab

Before his first dive in Alvin, McLean gets a lesson from Kang Ding on how to use Kang’s special temperature and chemical sensor, which is attached to Alvin’s manipulator arm.

Question:
What are the roots of your unusual career path?

Craig:
I grew up in Rutherford, N.J., on the Passaic River, when it was in the top 10 list of most polluted rivers in the country. Fortunately, it’s gotten better, but it was a real tease—in the back yard was water, but it wasn’t clean enough to swim in. It left me with an interest in how to stop pollution. My dad, who was in the Navy, used to bring us to New York City to see Navy ships, and celebrated ships like the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth. So I developed a fascination with ships.

Question:
Now you are Director of NOAA’s new Ocean Exploration Program. Tell us about it.

Craig:
Our country has had a long-term national strategy to explore space, but we have not had a similar approach to explore the oceans. The Ocean Exploration Program was started just last year in response to a panel of national experts who recommended that we refocus our attention on the oceans. We use the oceans, but we don’t fully understand them. When we talk to ocean scientists, they say, “Gosh, I got into science to explore and discover, but without sufficient funds to do that, it’s frustrating, and it slows our progress.” Our goal is to change the way America thinks about the oceans and to give ocean exploration a long-needed push. We’re willing to take a few risks—to try experimental technologies and take on more difficult expeditions—to accelerate advancement of our knowledge of the oceans.

Question:
Despite all your varied travels, you had never been down in Alvin before this cruise. What was that like to dive to a hydrothermal vent site?

Craig:
What an amazingly complex oasis in the middle of a desert! The diversity and abundance of creatures was surprising to me. But the interactions between animals were all in slow motion. When I graduated college with a degree in zoology in 1979, what I had learned was already out of date—because the hydrothermal vents had just been discovered. Diving in Alvin reinforced my appreciation that we have to increase our funding for ocean exploration, and we have to let the public know what ocean science is teaching us.