Phone: 817-310-3088
Email: rmn43@cornell.edu
Captain Russell Nilson (age 58) is a
Cornell University alumnus with a degree in structural
engineering, holds an all oceans 3000 ton U.S. Coast Guard Captain's License, has spent over three decades as the master
and/or owner of
research vessels that have plied the Atlantic and Pacific oceans from
as far north as the Arctic Ocean and all the way to the
South Pacific, and he has served for two years aboard
icebreakers
in the Antarctic as the Marine Operations Manager and Manager of
Marine Research for the Antarctic Program of the U.S. National
Science Foundation (USNSF).
He is a member of American MENSA, and is a longstanding member
of the California Masonic Lodge #680.
Captain Nilson privately owned the ex-USCGC
Laurel WLB-291, a light icebreaker and buoy tender
outfitted for private charters to conduct extreme diving
expeditions on seamounts. He has served as expeditionary
vessel operator in a search for wreckage of Ameila Earhart's
airplane on Nikumaroro (Gardner) Atoll in the Phoenix Chain of
the Republic of Kiribati, which was funded by The International
Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (www.TIGHAR.org).
And, he has served as construction project manager for the R/V
Western Flyer, a small water-plane area twin hull (SWATH) class
oceanographic research vessel for the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute (www.mbari.org).
Captain Nilson, together with his
ex-wife Cynthia D'Vincent, established in 1976 the Intersea
Foundation (www.intersea.org) which is an IRS 501(c)(3) approved
nonprofit organization dedicated to marine research and
environmental education. Intersea has owned and operated
several oceanographic research vessels (both sail and power).
Captain Nilson has authored and co-authored numerous
documentary films (e.g. Wild Kingdom, Ocean Quest), and has many
peer-reviewed scientific papers to his credit.
Captain Nilson is intimately
familiar with the atolls of the equatorial Central Pacific,
having assisted the late Dr. Martin J. Vitousek, a professor at
the University of Hawaii, by using his own private yacht to
transport Dr. Vitousek and his meteorological equipment to many
remote and uninhabited atolls in order to establish and maintain
automated meteorological data collection stations in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
So we are very proud to have
Captain Nilson as our Director and Treasurer, and look forward to many "watches"
at sea with him when the R/V Tungaru Expedition finally gets underway. Welcome aboard
Russ!
