SEAS Cruise 2007 : People
Marshall Swartz - Research Associate III
- What is your job title, and what do you do?
- I am a Research Associate III in Physical Oceanography at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). In my department we study what makes the ocean currents move. Normally I work in my research laboratory at Woods Hole, where I design and build new scientific instruments to do these studies and work with other scientists on their research programs. For about three months each year I go on research cruises, serving as scientist, engineer and sometimes as chief scientist.
- How long have you been working on the R/V Atlantis?
- I have worked at WHOI for sixteen years and made over fifty cruises; seven of these aboard the Atlantis.
- What is your education/training?
- I have a degree in electrical engineering from Duke University and a masters degree in business from University of Michigan. I worked for ten years with General Electric in nuclear propulsion engineering, aerospace manufacturing and international industrial sales. I have owned my own small engineering service business. During high school I sold cemetery property door-to-door to make money... not your average after-school and summer job, but it paid well and helped me to develop confidence, people skills and persistence.
- What inspired you to choose your career & who were your role models?
- It is hard to call my work experience a career, as I have done very
different things. Early on, I discovered great opportunities by
getting to know interesting people and finding out what problems they
have that I can solve. This has meant that most of my jobs did not
exist before I proposed doing them. This allows me to define the job
and how I am judged to succeed. I most enjoy when I have problems to
solve and can work along with other motivated people to get the results
quickly.
My role models were my father, who was a corporate attorney and business director with many outside interests; Robert Oppenheimer, a nuclear scientist and Manhattan Project leader, considered the father of the atomic bomb; and Richard Feynman, a Nobel-prize winning physicist, teacher and writer who conceived of quantum computing and first described the field of nanotechnology.
- It is hard to call my work experience a career, as I have done very
different things. Early on, I discovered great opportunities by
getting to know interesting people and finding out what problems they
have that I can solve. This has meant that most of my jobs did not
exist before I proposed doing them. This allows me to define the job
and how I am judged to succeed. I most enjoy when I have problems to
solve and can work along with other motivated people to get the results
quickly.
- Where is your home town?
- I was born and raised in western Pennsylvania. I have a home near my lab in Woods Hole, a home in Winston Salem, NC and still own the home in which I was raised near Pittsburgh, PA, where I spend most of my free time.
- Please describe your family:
- My fiancee, two boys and and two bouncy dogs keep things lively. Susie
and I are engaged to be married; she works in insurance in North
Carolina. My son Michael is 22 and is an editorial designer with the
Boston Globe, and my other son, John is a freshman chemistry major at University of
Pittsburgh. Bear, the Black Lab comes to work with me every day and
makes life much better (except for the squirrels), and Annie, the Golden
Retriever roosts with Susie, barking at anything moving outside
- Our days are very busy and tightly focused on the programs for which we are responsible. There are few outside distractions, such as movies, phone calls and trips to the store. And we get to know many things about our shipmates from spending weeks and weeks within 150 feet of one another- there is no isolating at sea.
- I enjoy traveling to rural areas in Appalachia and the Adirondacks, exploring the small towns and history. We have a small Airstream trailer and can go self-contained for 5 days or more on these trips- a good way to get away after a cruise.
