Guest Explorer: Gaelin Rosenwaks

Gaelin Rosenwaks is the Founder and President of Global Ocean Exploration. Always fascinated by the marine world, Gaelin began diving at 14 and has since continued exploring ocean ecosystems.

Beginning her career at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution studying Southern Ocean zooplankton, Gaelin earned her Master’s Degree at Duke University while working with Tag-A-Giant to track bluefin tuna. From the Antarctic to the Arctic to the Pacific and Atlantic, Gaelin has conducted fieldwork in most of the world's oceans. For Gaelin, there is nothing better than being in the open ocean surrounded by endless blue water and passing wildlife.

To share her passion for ocean exploration, marine conservation and photography, Gaelin founded Global Ocean Exploration (GOE) in 2008. She now participates and conducts expeditions in every ocean to alert the public to the challenges facing the oceans and what scientists are doing to understand these changes.

Gaelin is a US Coast Guard Licensed Captain, and a Fellow of both the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers Club where she served as Secretary of the Board of Directors. She has also appeared as a scientific consultant and angler on the National Geographic Channel Series, Fish Warrior.

Follow Gaelin's expeditions on Twitter @GaelinGOExplore or visit her website!


Getting to Know Gaelin Rosenwaks

1. Why do you explore? How are you continually inspired to explore?
   
   I explore because I have a constant curiosity about the planet and our oceans. I am not satisfied with looking at pictures in a book. I always have more questions, I want to take that step beyond the beaten path to find out more no matter where I am in life. My expeditions have taken me to remote areas, some of which have been traveled to before, but it is what is beyond the known that drives me to continue to explore and share what I find.


2. Is there one expedition in the past or future that you consider to be the culmination of your career?
   
   While I have been on many amazing expeditions and have many in mind for the future, I don't think that I can even think about the culmination of my career at this point. In fact, I believe that the nature of exploration makes this question impossible to answer as there is always something more out there, a new adventure, a fantastic discovery.
   
   Until the end of my career and upon reflection, perhaps I could answer this, but I can never see a culmination. If I do, I suppose I would stop exploring. I can say that my first expedition to the Antarctic early in my career set the bar high for all of my future exploration.


3. Most people think explorers are daredevils and risk-takers- how do you perceive risk?
   
   I think that this is one of the greatest misperceptions about explorers, but I realize that while I do not see myself as a risk-taker, others perceive me as one. While I go to far-off, remote places and enter into situations where I do not know the outcome, I am always as prepared as possible for all that I may encounter so as to eliminate as much risk as possible. Careful preparation and an understanding of one's limits minimizes a great deal of risk.


4. What are the greatest personal or professional challenges you face as an explorer?
   
   The greatest personal challenge is being away from home for long periods of time and often in places with limited connectivity. Once in the field, it is fine, but when my dogs are sitting on my duffel bags not wanting me to leave, it makes leaving difficult!


5. Do you have one piece of advice for anyone of any age who dreams of exploring the oceans?
   
   There is nothing better in life than to follow your dreams and passion. With hard work and persistence, you can achieve your dreams and whenever the road gets tough, just go to the beach and take a deep breath of salt air into your lungs; it will remind you instantly why you are on your path.

5 Exploration Lessons From Entrepreneurs

I have many friends who are entrepreneurs, and I have many friends who are explorers. Even though their paths rarely cross, I believe they are kindred spirits. As such, they have much to learn from each other. Here are 5 lessons that explorers can learn from their entrepreneurial brothers and sisters:

1. IDEAS ARE A DIME A DOZEN

All entrepreneurs suffer from a common disease, Idea-itis, which essentially results in the proliferation of countless business ideas ... each of them with the potential to turn into "the next Facebook" or to "change the world." Unfortunately, they eventually find that there are very few original ideas, and regardless ideas are not nearly as important as execution. As the saying goes, "talk is cheap." In fact, a popular refrain among early-stage investors is that "flawless execution always trumps a superior plan."

Likewise, all explorers have multiple ideas for expeditions ... each of them with the potential for huge scientific discoveries or other successes. Unfortunately, a relatively small percentage of these ideas are turned into successful expeditions. Explorers should instead concentrate their efforts on creating plans for their expeditions and executing them.

2. FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS

As a follow-on to the previous lesson, entrepreneurs are always told to "focus, focus, focus," especially in the early stages of their ventures. Even once they pick a single business idea and start executing on their plan, it is too tempting to start growing and expanding before the young company is ready. With limited resources, a new venture cannot afford any distractions.

Once an explorer chooses to pursue a particular expedition and begins executing on that plan, they should maintain focus throughout the process. It is far too easy to lose sight of the mission objectives, so explorers should avoid getting distracted by other additional objectives ... what consultants call "scope creep." The most successful expeditions push the limits of the team and its resources, but always focused toward a common objective.

3. FAILURE CAN (AND SHOULD) BE AN OPTION

Part of what makes Silicon Valley, well, Silicon Valley, is that technology entrepreneurs there live by the code of "fail early, fail often." The general precept is that you don't want to spend too much time, money, and resources pursuing a business model that was flawed from the beginning. You would much prefer to find out early if your idea is doomed, so you can switch to a better idea. The underlying premise is that nothing is a true failure as long as you learn from it and apply those lessons to future ventures.

This particular entrepreneurial lesson does not carry over 100% to the world of exploration, because in this line of work failure can often lead to personal injury or even death. However, despite this caveat, the general idea still holds. Every successful expedition in human history built upon the work of earlier explorers ... some successful, others not so much. No failed mission is a true failure as long as we can learn from it and apply those lessons to future expeditions. In fact, often this type of mentality is precisely what can save lives when expeditions hit insurmountable obstacles and expedition leaders are willing to turn back short of their mission objective rather than take on unnecessary risks.

4. NEVER BE THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE ROOM

Early-stage investors like to say "we invest in teams, not ideas." Likewise, almost every successful entrepreneur credits their venture's success to the strength of their team. Unless an entrepreneur is Steve Jobs, they should never be the smartest person in the room, because they can always benefit from the expertise and experience of other members of their team. In startups, this means building a team comprised of the best people an entrepreneur knows who can help with finance, sales, operations, engineering, etc. Guy Kawasaki has said that at Apple they lived by the saying, "A players hire A+ players, but B players hire C players, and C players hire D players."

While they may have the idea for an expedition and the drive to push it to success, explorers should remember that they cannot do everything by themselves. Not only is exploration a "team sport," but also explorers need to have enough self-confidence to surround themselves with experts who are much more experienced and knowledgeable than they are.

5. GREED ... IS GOOD

In the 1987 film Wall Street, Michael Douglas' character, Gordon Gekko, famously declared that "greed is good." While many entrepreneurs have adopted that as their mantra, Gekko never really uttered those exact words. More insightful entrepreneurs are familiar with the full quotation, which also provides good lessons for explorers:

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms--greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge--has marked the upward surge of mankind, and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.

We all seem to accept that true explorers must have a passion for their work. While cooperation and collaboration among explorers is arguably preferable to ruthless competition, the most successful explorers throughout history have been extremely "greedy"... at least by the general concepts in Gekko's speech. They strive for knowledge and achievement with all of their might, and they absolutely will not let anything stand in their way. Granted, we might call this more "perseverance" or "ambition" than "greed," but the personal drive is the same: in order to accomplish great feats, explorers should desire huge success for themselves, for their teams, and for their expeditions.

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Contributed by Guillermo A. Söhnlein Founder & CEO Blue Marble Exploration Atlanta, GA, USA

Adventures of an Aquanaut:Exploration to Inspire STEM Learning

It has been exactly 10 years since I fulfilled a childhood dream of visiting Antarctica.

As an Antarctic Studies student at the University of Canterbury, I was given the opportunity to spend two weeks at New Zealand’s Scott Base on Ross Island. This internationally competitive postgraduate course provided first-hand experience of living and working in the extreme polar environment.

It was a life-changing event that ignited my passion to inspire the public, particularly young people, to live more sustainably and harmoniously. Rather than pursue a Research Higher Degree, I returned home to Australia with the idea of using unusual exploration initiatives to inspire STEM learning.

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BioSUB

Funding for my first initiative, the BioSUB Project, was provided through a $50,000 sponsorship prize I won in the Australian Geographic 'Live your dream' Wildest Adventure Competition. My idea was to spend two weeks living in an underwater capsule at the bottom of a lake in a one-of-a-kind science adventure. Making headlines around the world, the BioSUB was a great success and a real labor of love for which I received the coveted Australian Geographic Adventurer of the Year award.


The BioSUB was designed as a partly regenerative system and evolved into a virtual underwater classroom. Some of the oxygen I needed to survive underwater was generated by a photosynthetic bioreactor designed and built by students from a high school Advanced Biology class. I also built a pedal powered generator that produced enough electricity to power my laptop. I used cameras, the Internet and a telecom system to communicate with people from all over the world from the depths of the lake. Thousands of people worldwide followed my progress over the Internet.

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Life Amphibious

My projects are a way of raising awareness of critical environmental issues around the globe in a fun, provocative and scientific way. My next project, Life Amphibious, was an adventurous human-powered submarine expedition through the Greek islands. In partnership with the Mediterranean Association to Save the Sea Turtles, I promoted their “Small Garbage” campaign in island schools. The Ecole de Technologie Superieure in Montreal, Canada, supported me by sending an assistant professor, four young engineers and their pioneering Omer 6 submarine to Greece for the expedition.


The submarine featured a biology-inspired design, resembling a penguin, as the means of propulsion. The aim of the Life Amphibious project was threefold: to get young people excited about science and engineering; to inspire environmental awareness; to provide university students with an educational experience that translated their theoretical knowledge into reality.

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LEGOLAND ATLANTIS

In 2010, I completed a project with LEGOLAND Deutschland® as Project Manager and “Edutainer”. My role was to launch the LEGOLAND Year of Records by living in an underwater house in the LEGOLAND ATLANTIS by SEA LIFE aquarium. I entered on 30 March and surfaced again two weeks later having achieved a new Guinness World Record for the most electricity generated by pedaling underwater (2,502 watt hours).


It was a globally unique experiment with over 100,000 children and parents visiting me on location in LEGOLAND Deutschland® and via the Web site. The project featured on National Geographic Channel’s Naked Science ‘City Under the Sea’ documentary and with over 100 million viewers globally, the project was awarded a silver medal at the Econ Awards in Germany in the category “PR-Activity”.

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Tik and Bubbles Underwater Headquarters

Most recently, I started developing a new educational initiative called Tik and Bubbles with the intention of designing community-based science projects that are creative, collaborative, challenging and fun. Tik, an underwater superhero, will encourage young people to pursue STEM studies and careers, promote and protect Australia’s marine biodiversity and lead an active and healthy lifestyle.


I have just completed a successful peerfunding campaign with StartSomeGood to create the ultimate underwater superhero headquarters to be located off the coast of Australia. I raised over $33,000 and set a new Australian record using their peerfunding platform. Let the challenge begin!

I invite you to follow my new project as it unfolds and encourage you to get in touch with any ideas or questions you may have. If you’d like to get involved in some way please let me know, as I am sure we can find a way.

Follow Lloyd's exploration adventure initiatives on Twitter @Lloyd_Godson or visit his website!

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Contributed by Lloyd Godson Marine Edutainer and Aquanaut New South Wales, Australia