More reflection on Gregg Stanton.
I met Gregg in spring 1999 in cave country, Florida. I was undergoing cave diver training. Gregg was being evaluated as cave instructor, alongside two other candidates. These were two separate events, but both my instructor, and Gregg’s instructor-trainer put us together.
If you ever have the pleasure of being trained in cave diving, it is a very humbling experience, never mind having five instructors criticize every move you make or don’t make. While all other instructors focused entirely on the technical aspects, Gregg was the only one to provide encouragement, and look at me as a person. We started chatting, and, after diver graduation, he invited me for a weekend stay at his place, where we spent hours talking about dive-related matters, technology, and future endeavors. Apparently this was quite normal for him, and his wife Ann was ever-so-kind to welcome the new guest as if I had been a longtime friend. It was not until a year or so later that I realized that he was a professor for scientific diving, having established the first academic diving program before I was born. Gregg was humble that way, just a kind person. What followed was, by all accounts, an incredible journey. I was fortunate enough to be able to take months off from my studies at home, and helped Gregg build a new program at the FSU campus in Panama City, the Advanced Science Diving Program (ASDP). He introduced me to many people who had been instrumental in writing diving history. I managed to spend a year at the ASDP with Gregg, while also performing my master’s equivalent thesis in collaboration with the Navy Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU), a diver’s dream, again made possible and initiated by Gregg! He was a facilitator, and yet never sought the limelight himself. For a while, he was lovingly referred to as Papa Smurf brought about most certainly by his beard, but also his caring attitude towards his students.
His sheer determination and focus was inspiring, and I had the incredible opportunity, alongside other professors, to build a new program, Underwater Crime Scene Investigation (UCSI), a world’s first. Not only was he instrumental in starting up the program, he facilitated the team’s evolution in astonishing ways. As a small example for his bone-headed determination, the team discussed the need for a decompression chamber on site and the next week, we had one standing behind our office. Who does that?
Gregg taught me to look at the bigger picture, and look for options, not obstacles. It’s an attitude that has actually saved my life on more than one occasion. Diving is not without its risks, a fact Gregg was painfully aware of. We shared many a hot-tub session dreaming about new things to try out. Some of the projects we did together I still find incredible as they redefined what is possible. It is in the nature of such endeavors that conflict is inevitable. Gregg and I butted heads on many occasions, but again, his kindness and patience aided turning such a crisis into progress, as our different viewpoint allowed us to expand our horizons most of the time. Gregg himself often used the expression we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, in acknowledgement of other people’s achievements. In his case, I count myself incredibly lucky to not only have stood on his shoulders, figuratively speaking, but to have had the opportunity to walk alongside, and under the protective wing of, a true giant.
It is not surprising that many of his former proteges have moved on to become industry leaders. With a smile, and tears in my eyes I say goodbye to a friend and brother-in-spirit who has touched many lives.
I intend to carry on part of his legacy, at least in a rather small way.
By Joerg Hess
