Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) 

A unique opportunity to go out on the WDFW law enforcement boat was a great insight into how science and public safety collide. Seeing how organised and structured their dive operation was, was inspiring. We saw a pod of orcas from the boat containing two fully grown males whose fins stood proudly tall above the water line for many moments before sinking below the untouched surface. It was such a magical experience. After they finished their dive to collect sea cucumbers, I got to help them with taking length measurements which involved splitting them open and pulling their insides out. This was an odd experience since at depth they seem so tough but when you open them on land and release the water pressure they are really just fleshy moulds. We then weighed their gonads which became a part of a larger dataset that will inform them of whether to change the dates of the fishery. 

Credit: Lily Moore 

Caption: The WDFW police boat I went out on to observe their sea cucumber collection 

Samish Indian Nation Dive Team 

Another project I had a more hands-on role for was a collaborative effort to pick up artificial reef module systems (ARMS) which had been laid down a year prior. They are essentially mini apartment buildings for organisms which was an amusing site. The task of recovering these ARMS was a 2 day event. The first day I went out with the Samish Indian Nation dive team in order to do recon and get a good idea of where exactly they were laying after being in the field for a year. This was my first ocean dive in Washington. I had anticipated the cold, but nothing prepared me for my first breath after my head was submerged. I’ll never forget the sound of the ice cold water seeping into my wetsuit hood… which quickly became one of my favourite sounds ever after I fell in love with the kelp thickets, sea lions, and cold water reefs that Washington has to offer. What a great introduction to PNW diving! The second dive day was to consist of actually rigging and lifting the ARMS out of the water. This, however, did not go exactly to plan. There were strong currents and my fellow divers were newly certified from the dive program at SPMC and as such didn’t have the experience to handle these conditions yet. We gave it our best shot but in the end had to call the dives and return to shore. This was the first of many times this summer that I learned that science doesn’t always go to plan. (a WDFW team returned a few days later and were able to retrieve them). 

Proficiency Dives 

SPMC is lucky enough to be in close proximity to Walla Walla University’s Rosario Beach Marine Lab where Dr. Allan Verde and Dr. Jim Nestler conduct their scientific diving program. I teamed up with them and a couple of their students to go on proficiency dives most weekends. This experience gave me the opportunity to dive at Keystone which is a unique shore diving site next to a ferry terminal, known for its abundant marine life including giant plumose anemones, diverse nudibranch species, and even plentiful octopus gardens. This is by far my favourite dive site of all time. I dove there often with Tabi from the State Park Service and Joe from NOAA who are such knowledgeable and skilled divers. I learned a lot from these proficiency dives such as how to read tide and current tables and to determine if conditions are safe to dive at a site. I learned to slow down while diving and peek into every crevice because you never know when 2 little eyes might be poking out at you belonging to the elusive giant pacific octopus (GPO). I had read all about them before diving there and was desperately excited at the prospect of finally seeing one, since I had been dreaming about them ever since I was a little girl… but to actually see one in person was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I was truly and totally enthralled by it. I sat in front of one den for half of a dive and only swam away because I reached my turn around pressure. I could have watched it for hours; the way its tentacles unraveled and its siphon periodically swayed open and closed, they’re incredibly rhythmic and mystical creatures. After each dive I felt I surfaced with more questions about them and it would keep me returning each week even when I had to wake up at 4am to make the slack tide. 

Credit: Lily Moore 

Caption: left – Keystone dive site, middle – Tabi & Joe before our Keystone dive, right – the first Giant Pacific Octopus I saw (I named her Daphne)

Sessile Jellyfish Research with Nate 

The DSO at SPMC took me and the other OWUSS intern (Caden Delano) to Possession Point State Park on South Whidbey Island where we were looking for Aurelia sp. Jellyfish polyps in their sessile phase as a part of Nate’s personal research. This dive site was unique in 2 ways: firstly, it was a beach where you are stood in 7ft of water and then suddenly it drops off to almost 300ft of water almost immediately; secondly, it was an estuarine environment meaning that it was not rocky (as most of Washington’s coastline is) but sandy. Unfortunately this dive was another lesson in how science doesn’t always go to plan because we were unable to locate the polyps. However, I had a truly magical experience at the start of the dive as well as 50ft of visibility (unheard of in Washington) which made the trip worthwhile. As we completed our buddy checks on the surface, I heard the unmistakable sound of a large mammal’s blowhole… I paused midway through checking my BCD deflator and dumps to see the tail of a humpback whale descend gracefully not far from where we were. We completed buddy checks and remained on the surface for an additional couple of minutes to watch as the whale surfaced another few times. Our slack tide timings were specific however, and it was time to descend. As the familiar woosh of cold water seeping into my wetsuit hood hit my ears, it was drowned by another, unfamiliar sound. We all looked at each other confused for a second before our eyes lit up in turn as we realised it was the sound of the humpback emanating throughout the water column. As it continued to sing I breathed in the moment and noted how its tone was simultaneously high pitched and deep; a sound I could never re-create with my human vocal chords. 

Credit: Lily Moore 

Caption: Me and Caden after hearing our first humpback whale underwater. 

Abalone restoration 

SPMC hosts a number of Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) students each summer in addition to the 2 OWUSS interns, a couple of whom were a part of the scientific dive class and subsequently conducted an underwater research project which I was able to be a part of. We collaborated with Puget Sound Restoration Fund (PSRF) who gave us almost 800 pinto abalone to experiment on and outplant, as well as funding to complete our research. 

Pinto abalone (Haliotis kamtschatkana) populations remain critically low despite ongoing restoration efforts. To improve outplanting success, we tested the effectiveness of clear and opaque tubes on abalone dispersal rates and evaluated the predatory behavior of Amphissa columbiana toward healthy and injured abalone. In field trials, clear tubes resulted in significantly faster dispersal rates than opaque tubes, suggesting that increased light exposure may encourage abalone to leave the tubes more quickly and integrate into the natural habitat, potentially improving survival. Laboratory choice experiments showed that A. columbiana did not actively prey on healthy abalone, but significantly preferred injured individuals. This highlights the importance of minimizing injury during handling and transport. These findings suggest that the use of clear tubes and gentle handling protocols may enhance the effectiveness of current abalone restoration strategies. Further research is recommended to explore the benefits of nighttime outplanting, alternative tube anchoring methods, and predator exclusion during outplanting to support long-term recovery of this threatened species. 

The field trials mentioned were conducted as a 24 hour dive protocol. We had a team of 12 divers who took it in shifts to count and observe the movements of the pinto abalone out of the tubes every hour on the hour for 24 hours. This dive expedition brought many challenges with it including how to keep people safely warm, fed, and dry between shifts as well as how to account for varying ocean conditions over a 24 hour period. As such, it was a great experience to plan such a dive because it gave me an excellent insight into everything which must be accounted for when you are leading a dive, like I’ve never experienced before. 

Credit: Lily Moore 

Caption: pinto abalone waiting in a tank at SPMC to be outplanted. Abalone were separated by family to ensure members of each family were mixed into each tube to increase diversity on the seafloor

Credit: Lily Moore 

Caption: pinto abalone lined up on a towel to be tagged with glue and a brightly coloured miniature bee tag with a number on it for future retention surveys. 

Credit: Lily Moore 

Caption: the dive site setup. Left – numbered opaque tube placed on the reef; middle – abalone leaving the tube after a few hours in the field; right – one corner of the dive site which we plotted with measuring tapes and line with a corresponding number of knots based on which corner of the plot it was in (the same setup that PSRF uses). 

Credit: Lily Moore 

Caption: Me and the core dive team for the 24 hour dive on our surface intervals keeping morale high.

Credit: Lily Moore 

Caption: We had a number of other visitors to the outplant tubes including sea urchins and Amphissa snails which are pinto abalone’s number one predator; a part of our project was to document and examine the relationship between the two snail species. 

Rockfish surveys 

A researcher at SPMC was conducting rockfish surveys on what their depth and size is throughout the San Juan Islands as a part of a very large dataset on them. I had the opportunity to dive with her on a multilevel dive to collect length and depth data in the local area nearby Rosario Beach. This was a great way to connect with other scientific divers at SPMC and emphasised the vastness of what can be researched in the ocean since it was so different to everything else I had done so far. 

GPO collection dive 

A local aquarium required SPMC divers to collect a GPO for their exhibit which had recently lost its resident GPO. This dive required a lot of planning and was another example of how science cannot always work in our favour – sometimes the ocean has other ideas and we, as humans, must respect that. Myself and a small group of divers had planned this dive thoroughly, gathered all of the necessary materials including multiple nets, fresh water in bottles to wash the GPO out, a knife to open up a clam underwater as an offering to the GPO, as well as the exact location of the GPO in a tire reef (as shown in the image), conditions were as calm as we could have ever hoped for, tanks were filled and we were ready. But GPOs are masters of disguise. No one can capture a GPO once it has decided it’s time to escape, they are true artists of contortion and deception. We had no chance against it in the maze of tires and had to allow the ocean to keep its mysterious creature. I left that day with a great deal more respect for the creatures which I had come to love and appreciate throughout my time in Washington. The aquarium was able to acquire a juvenile GPO from Walla Walla university which had captured one accidentally in a bottle through their research on ruby octopus earlier in the summer.

Credit: Lily Moore 

Caption: left – perfect calm conditions the day of the collection dive, right – the maze of the tire reef which housed the elusive GPO we were unable to capture 

Friday Harbor Labs Lime Kiln Lighthouse 

A visit to Friday Harbor Labs brought the opportunity of diving the hydrophone site at Lime Kiln Lighthouse about. We followed the thick cables down from the rather dicey shore entry to where the hydrophones lay and pick up everything from orca vocalisations to ship disturbances to myself and Caden singing a rather bubbly rendition of “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid whilst on our dive. Our mission for this dive was to take a video recording of both hydrophones and cables as monitoring; since no one had been down to check on them in a while. Through talking to the hydrophone lab manager, I learned that they are working to reduce vessel speeds in many areas in order to reduce decibel levels which when too high, can interfere with vital whale communication. 

Credit: Lily Moore 

Caption: left – me geared up before the dive at Lime Kiln Lighthouse, right – the hydrophone lab which we had the honour of visiting.

Helping with the Shannon Point Marine Center scientific diving class taught me three main things: always discuss the dive plan in-depth before descending, never underestimate a student’s ability to lose their dive equipment, and that science is the best when you’re wearing neoprene. Whilst I have worked as a recreational divemaster, assisting with a science dive class was a totally different experience because it demands so much more of the students. I was paired with the newer divers to work on helping them feel comfortable doing their basic skills in the pool. It was a good experience to have to employ different methods of empathy, sincerity, and firm instruction in order to reach each person on their level and get them to do their skills with a smile on their face. Each day came with its own challenges but the supportive atmosphere of the class remained the same each day. My favourite thing to observe was when there was a student who was confused about how to do the BCD remove and replace skill underwater and another student who had just mastered it remained on that skill with him and kept giving tips and tricks until he could not only do it but felt confident doing it. 

Credit: Derek Smith 

Caption: the dive class team after a particularly challenging pool session with big smiles on our faces 

The first open-water dive was at a lake, and as a simple introduction to science diving we did a trash cleanup. We found some very exciting objects such as a wallet with a $100 bill in it which just so happened to belong to a friend of one of the students in the class… you never know what may wash up. This day I learned the power of team work when it comes to the success of a dive. Some students were quite nervous about the dive and the ones who worked together to discuss their concerns ended up having a great time and ones who didn’t vocalise their concerns didn’t have as positive of an experience. After this, I began to go around each student individually at some point before the dive to make sure they didn’t have any concerns/questions. Not only did this help them feel more comfortable and make the dive objective easier to achieve but it also allowed for me to have a more personal interaction with them. As such, assisting with the class helped me develop my dive leadership skills. 

Credit: Lifeguard at Lake Whatcome 

Caption: the dive class after their first successful open water dive featuring our trash haul 

A big part of my role in the dive class was to assist the DSOs with their prep and cleanup pre and post dives. I had no idea that there was so much behind the scenes work which had to be done to make a dive class run smoothly. We had to plan the dive locations based on the current and tide tables, as well as planning all of the equipment and tasks for the divers to complete, all of which needed to be done efficiently and safely. Through working in the dive locker I learned a lot about equipment handling. I assisted with tank visual inspections and performed simple gear maintenance tasks which taught me how to fix many common gear related issues and developed my general troubleshooting skills. After the class the DSOs and I spent many hours running tanks to and from the local dive shop to be filled which provided an insight into the true life of a DSO and allowed me some time to ask questions of them. In this time I learned how hard it is to manage a dive class and the stresses which come with such responsibility, in addition to the joy and enthralling stories which being in the ocean every day provides. 

Credit: Caden Delano

Caption: left – me assisting DSO Nathan Schwarck with preparation in the dive locker, right – me assisting a student with post-dive boat breakdown 

Whilst helping with the dive class was an overall joyful experience, it did come with some unique challenges. There was a day where we were doing a deep dive followed by a night dive and when we arrived at the deep dive location there was significant swell which meant we couldn’t put the bow door down of our front loading vessel and it made everyone feel seasick. Luckily, my sea legs were on that day and by some stroke of magic I was the only one who didn’t get seasick. As such, I found myself untangling weight belts, lifting gear setups onto people’s backs, coaching people through deep breaths, and putting on 12 sets of fins to prevent people from having to bend over while at their worst. That was challenging enough not to mention that 5 students had never done a back roll entry before, so in this swell I counted down “3… 2… 1” and with a slight push here and there, they all did it. The visibility on that dive was so bad that I was incredibly grateful for my dive light since once we hit 80ft it was essentially a night dive. Following that, the actual night dive was hilarious. It was what can only be described as “The Shrimpening”, the photo says more than I can with words but it was like swimming through pure shrimp. There were also a number of dives where I felt the true power of the ocean in the form of strong currents. Coming from Florida, I had never really experienced anything as intense as these tidal changeovers. As such, being a leader in this class helped me to gain a lot of experience in varying dive conditions and to learn the extent of my limits as a diver. 

Credit: left – Lily Moore, right – Nathan Schwarck 

Caption: left – it’s raining shrimp!, right – the dive class post night dive feeling accomplished 

Overall, helping with the dive class helped me become a more confident diver in harsher conditions and allowed me to develop my skills as a dive leader. But most importantly, to learn how to lift other divers up and make some lifelong friends.

After considerable thought and discussion, the Society is suspending Scholarship awards in all three regions – North America, Europe, and Australasia – for 2026.  In the interim, we encourage you to consider one of our amazing internships. The Internship program will continue as usual with the application period opening on December 1, 2025.

OWUSS is taking this time to review the mission and goals of the Society and determine the best path forward.  As we do so, we will seek enhanced engagement with our alumni, hosts, sponsors, and other interested parties.

For more information about the Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society, to make a much-appreciated donation, or to inquire about becoming a sponsor, please visit our website at www.owuscholarship.org, or email us at info@owuscholarship.org.

OWUSS Virtual Event Series June 3-5, 2021

The Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society has some good news to share! We are emerging from our year-long COVID hiatus and will celebrate our Scholars and Interns with a virtual event series June 3-5, 2021. It is more important than ever that we celebrate success while we recognize the challenging times we are all facing.

Scholar and Intern Symposiums – June 3 & 4

Similar to the morning symposiums we traditionally held at The Explorers Club, the first two days of the event will feature the final presentations of our returning 2019 Rolex Scholars and Society Interns. This is a chance to hear a bit more in-depth about what they did during their scholarship and internship experiences.
 

Awards Ceremony – June 5

The awards ceremony will celebrate the returning class of Scholars and Interns as well as announce the new 2021 Rolex Scholars and Society Interns. This year the ceremony will feature the world premieres of the year-end films for the 2019 Rolex Scholars, the announcement of the DAN Rolex Diver of the Year, the introduction of the 2021 Society Interns, and the awards presentation of the new 2021 Rolex Scholars.
 

Plan Ahead

To maximize the number of viewers from around the world, the initial viewing for each event will air at the following days and times:

Scholar Symposium – Thursday, June 3
Intern Symposium – Friday, June 4
Awards Ceremony – Saturday, June 5
 

• 4pm EDT – New York
• 3pm CDT – Chicago
• 1pm PDT – Los Angeles
• 9pm BST – London
• 10pm CEST – Berlin
• 6am AEST – Sydney (June 4, 5, and 6)

Visit the Event Page for More Details

Visit owuscholarship.org/2021Event for links to the events plus more details.

Also, keep watching your email as well as the Society website (www.owuscholarship.org), and social media sites — Facebook and Instagram.

Return to the Field

With a new cadre of Scholars and Interns, the Society is working with hosts and sponsors to safely introduce our new Scholars and Interns to the field. The decision to reinstate scholarship and internship activities for this year was not taken lightly. The Society recognizes the ongoing seriousness and continually changing nature of the pandemic. With input from all three scholarship regions and the internship program, the Board has agreed to move forward cautiously with, as always, the safety, health and well-being of the Scholars and Interns of utmost concern. 
Given the differing travel and stay-at-home restrictions, vaccination schedules, and COVID protocols for North America, Europe, and Australasia, there is expected to be considerable variability and flexibility to the schedules and experiences for the Scholars and Interns. Our coordination teams will do everything they can to ensure the recipients maximize the available opportunities.

The Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society® (OWUSS) and Divers Alert Network® (DAN®) are pleased to announce two new internships for 2021. Applications are now being accepted for the Dr. Glen H. Egstrom DAN Diver’s Health and Safety Internship and the DAN Diver’s Safety Internship.

The Dr. Glen H. Egstrom DAN Diver’s Health and Safety Internship is named in honor of one of the Society’s founding directors. Dr. Egstrom was an avid diver and brilliant scientist who dedicated a significant portion of his career to diving safety by improving diver and instructor training, diving equipment, fitness to dive, diver conditioning, and underwater performance. This internship, with a special focus on the health and safety of divers, will be flexibly tailored to the recipient’s interests based upon the available experiences and research being conducted at DAN. The selected intern will have the opportunity to participate in continuing education courses, gain a deeper understanding of diving physiology and current diving research worldwide, learn to prepare, plan, and conduct scientific experiments, and learn techniques of physiological data acquisition and analysis. The intern will be interacting with divers during field research events, collecting physiological data, and communicating DAN Research endeavors to the diving community at large.

The DAN Diver’s Safety Internship will expose the recipient to DAN’s risk mitigation and dive safety resources and initiatives. The selected intern will have the opportunity to participate in continuing education courses, learn about pressure vessels such as hyperbaric chambers and scuba cylinders through training materials, seminars, and field trips, and participate in DAN’s safety and training programs by assisting in field assessments of hyperbaric chambers and other related facilities. This internship will be personalized to meet the specific interests and personal goals of the individual selected for the internship within the scope of DAN’s projects as noted above.

The deadline for applications is January 15, 2021.

For more information, visit OWUScholarship.org/Internships.

About the Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society: The Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society^® is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization founded in 1974 and dedicated to the promotion of educational activities associated with the underwater world with the intention of fostering and developing the future stewards of our planet. Its educational outreach has historically been directed at college-aged individuals planning careers in such fields as oceanography, marine biology, maritime archaeology, film making, or medicine. 

About Divers Alert Network: The world’s most recognized and respected dive safety organization, Divers Alert Network (DAN) has remained committed to the health and well-being of divers for 40 years. The organization’s research, medical services and global-response programs create an extensive network that supports divers with vital services such as injury prevention, educational programs and lifesaving evacuations. Every year, hundreds of thousands of divers around the world look to DAN as their dive safety organization.

Memorial gifts towards the Dr. Glen H. Egstrom Diving Safety Internship can be made here.
You can designate the Egstrom Internship as you are completing your donation.
Please use “Add special instructions to the seller” to do this.

Glen H. Egstrom, Ph.D.

Founding Director, Past Chairman of the Board, and Director Emeritus

October 16, 1928 – October 7, 2019

“A Life Well Lived”

October 16, 1928 dawned as just another day in America.  Just a week earlier, the New York Yankees had swept the St. Louis Cardinals 4-0 to win the World Series.  American troops had been home from the trenches and battlefields of World War I for about ten years. Calvin Coolidge was the President of the United States, and though Americans had no clue what was about to befall them, the start of the Great Depression was just one year away.

However, this date was going to be very memorable for any number of folks who lived in Jamestown, North Dakota, a little town perched at the confluence of the James and Pipestem Rivers–population 8,000.  Jamestown was founded in 1872 to support a major Northern Pacific Railway repair yard near its James River rail crossing.  Known as the “Pride of the Prairie,” Jamestown is home to the National Buffalo Museum.

This date started unremarkably for electrician Milford Egstrom and his wife, Emily, who managed the Jamestown Bus Terminal and provided 24/7 taxi dispatching for the town; but by the end of the day, their lives would be changed forever with the arrival of their first child, Glen Howard Ole Axel Egstrom.  The extra middle names, Ole and Axel, were airplane pilots and best friends of Milford but were quickly jettisoned by Glen in young adulthood!  The entire family was delighted with Glen’s arrival, and his eight-year-old aunt, Norma Deloris Egstrom, was especially pleased.  Within 15 years, Glen and his family would have cause to be very proud of his “Aunt Norma” who grew up to become the famous singer and actress, the inimitable Miss Peggy Lee!

Glen grew up hunting and fishing the lands and waterways surrounding Jamestown, especially the James River and its associated James Reservoir, a 12 mile stretch of three interlocking lakes that had been formed by the Jamestown Dam.  Glen became a standout high school athlete in football, basketball, and baseball, garnering all-state honors.  Glen, an accomplished swimmer, also became a very popular local lifeguard.    

After high school, Glen headed for the University of North Dakota (UND) intending to play collegiate football.  During his freshman year, he severely damaged a knee.  The university brought a renowned orthopedic surgeon from the Minneapolis Lakers into North Dakota to repair Glen’s knee, but he never played football again and turned his attention to becoming a serious basketball athlete.  In the Spring of his sophomore year, Glen was taking a physical education class and was paired in a game of badminton with Donna Wehmhoefer. They soon started dating and were married shortly after their college graduation in 1950.

The newly married Egstroms headed to Tracy, California, where they both had obtained teaching positions in the local middle school.  They started their new jobs at the end of the Summer in 1950 just a couple of months after the start of the Korean Conflict. It took only until the Spring of 1951 for the Jamestown draft board to catch up with Glen and draft him into the U. S. Army.

Glen graduated as a Private from boot camp, during which he received Trainee of the Week honors from Major General Robert B. McClure.  He was sent immediately to the first Antiaircraft Artillery Officer Candidate School (OCS) and graduated with an officer’s commission and orders to Korea to serve as a platoon leader with the 3^rd Infantry Division supervising field artillery. A few months after arriving in Korea, Glen was detailed to the U. S. Air Force 6147th Tactical Air Control Squadron and flew 28 combat missions as a Forward Air Controller in a T-6 aircraft providing close air support, aerial observation, and artillery spotting.  

While Glen was in Korea, Donna moved to Los Angeles and took a position as a Los Angeles County social worker.  1LT Glen Egstrom was released from Korea, placed on inactive duty and joined Donna on October 16, 1953 in Los Angeles.  Ultimately, he was honorably discharged from the Army Reserve with the rank of Major on July 26, 1965.   Glen decompressed from the stresses of war by heading to the Los Angeles beaches every day to surf and play beach volleyball.  In January, 1954, he enrolled in a Master’s program at the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA) and was quickly hired as a teaching assistant (TA).  Within a short period of time, Glen became a player/coach on the UCLA Men’s Volleyball Team eligible, because he had not played volleyball at UND.  In 1956, armed with $25 of university funding and uniforms he borrowed from the UCLA Bruins Men’s Basketball team, Glen lead his team to Seattle where they won the national collegiate volleyball championship. 

Glen completed his Master’s degree at UCLA in 1957 and while he continued to be employed as a TA at UCLA, completed his Ph.D. at the University of Southern California (USC) in 1961 and was subsequently hired as an assistant professor of kinesiology at UCLA.    

During this time, Glen continued to love any activity related to the water and kept up the ocean swimming and surfing in Southern California while teaching at UCLA.   His foray into scuba diving was particularly interesting.  Aunt Peggy Lee was married for a brief period to actor Dewey Martin, who obtained some of the first regulators and scuba equipment that Jacques-Yves Cousteau sent into America via René Bussoz of Rene’s Sporting Goods in Westwood, California. These self-contained underwater breathing units he called “Aqua-Lungs.”  Dewey’s contract with the movie studio prohibited him from any dangerous activities, including scuba diving, and “Uncle Dewey” gave his double-hose regulator and twin cylinders to Glen in 1957.  While all this was happening, Glen and Donna were busy growing their family with the addition of daughter Gail (1954), son Eric known as “Buck” (1957), and daughter Karen (1961).  All three were quickly introduced to their parents’ love of the water and two became certified divers.  Gail qualified as a scuba instructor, Karen shared Glen’s love of sailing, and Buck became incredibly skilled at surfing and foil surfing.

Glen had become the faculty sponsor for the UCLA Skin and Scuba Club and asked the Los Angeles County Scuba program, considered to be the first scuba training program in the United States, to conduct a basic certification course at UCLA.  Once certified as a diver, Glen undertook the arduous Los Angeles County Underwater Instructor Certification Course in 1964 to become a certified instructor and graduated with the Outstanding Candidate Award.  He served as its President 1967-1970.  In 1964, Glen was appointed the UCLA Diving Officer, a position he held until 1992.   Glen was notorious throughout the diving community for his nine-month scuba instructor training course (ITC) at UCLA.  One observer of his ITC was quoted as saying, “Egstrom ain’t training scuba instructors; he’s training university diving officers!”  His scientific and recreational diver training program at UCLA was highly acclaimed, graduating hundreds of divers and instructors who themselves continue to make considerable contributions as part of Glen’s legacy.

In 1966, Glen became a member, instructor and instructor trainer with the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) and maintained his membership for life.  Glen served as NAUI’s president from 1970-1975 and held a variety of leadership/advisory positions from 1970-1995.

During this period, Glen served as a reserve deputy sheriff with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, their Diving Safety Officer, and an active member of the Sheriff’s Reserve Marine Company 218. Glen retired in 2004 with the rank of Captain.

Over the years, Glen provided exemplary leadership to many other organizations, especially during their formative years.  Organizations such as the American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS), American College of Sports Medicine, Council for National Cooperation in Aquatics, Divers Alert Network (DAN) , Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs, Marine Technology Society,  National Spa and Pool Institute (NSPI) and the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS) all benefitted from Glen’s leadership and counsel.  The organization to which he was most committed was the Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society® which he helped found.  To this special group, he provided enduring leadership and instilled within it his lifelong commitment to “investing in people.”  His natural leadership gifts allowed Glen to create, build, and serve communities that continue to help people safely experience the underwater world.  

Glen was the ultimate “people collector,” and anyone invited to his Mar Vista dining table was thrilled to be part of so many loving, thoughtful, and provocative discussions that often lasted late into the evening.  Many were additionally thrilled to have been invited to dive with Glen earlier in the day–only to discover that dinner was dependent upon what they harvested from the sea!

The reader is encouraged to read the reference material below to appreciate Glen’s voluminous awards and publications, but he was especially proud of his collaboration with his good friend, Arthur J. Bachrach, PhD, in their publication of the definitive work, Stress and Performance in Diving.  One of his greatest joys was conducting humorous and famously creative seafood cooking workshops with Dr. Bachrach.

Glen retired from UCLA in 1994 and was awarded the status of Professor Emeritus – Kinesiology in the Department of Physiological Sciences.

It is difficult to fully explain anyone’s life and contributions, especially a life so wonderfully complex and multidimensional as Glen’s.  Though deeply committed to family and friends, Glen had a singular mission in life– to introduce, share, and teach people to safely explore the underwater world he so loved and to train others how to instruct and safely conduct those same in-water activities. This personal mission helped focus his considerable talents with a clarity and passion few others ever achieve.

At Glen’s core was a huge and generous heart called to service; first in Korea as an Army officer and later, to serve so many important communities including his family, friends, academic colleagues, fellow diving instructors, his students, and indeed all those he believed had potential to make a real difference in the world. He had a primal instinct to keep those around him safe, especially those he identified as needing special help to become confident in the water.  He spent a lifetime working to understand and solve problems associated with diving fitness, performance, and safety.  He tested, analyzed, developed, innovated, and reported on nearly every aspect of how diving/aquatic equipment and aquatic facilities and locations could be made safer.  He worked tirelessly to make aquatic instruction of all varieties and the creation and review of safety standards a more scientific, professional, disciplined, and rigorous undertaking. 

Throughout his life, Glen loved being a member of a team and simply being underwater.  As he traveled the world teaching, learning, and exploring, he retained his fascination with nature and the wonders of our place in that world which he had nurtured in those boyhood explorations of the James River. To his students and colleagues, he often voiced his awe of the human capacity to create and to evolve.  He lived his life with courage and passion, and all of humankind’s explorations of the aquatic world are forever safer because of Glen’s contributions and body of work. 

Those who experienced Glen’s exemplary leadership, many of whom built their careers under his tutelage and mentorship, share a powerful image of this man in his element.  He is standing in the breaking surf, in full scuba gear, a speargun in one hand, and a “diver down” float in the other—looking over his shoulder with that familiar, compelling expression that said, “You comin’?  Follow me!” 

In honor of Dr. Egstrom, the board of directors of the Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society® voted unanimously on June 5, 2020 to establish the “Dr. Glen H. Egstrom Diving Safety Internship.”

The Egstrom family is grateful for the outpouring of tributes to Glen and expressions of sympathy to the family.  They also appreciate memorial gifts to the Dr. Glen H. Egstrom Diving Safety Internship administered by the Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society®.

REFERENCES

International Legends of Diving – Glen Egstrom Bio

Journal of Diving History – Glen Egstrom Tribute by Dan Orr

Xray Magazine – Glen Egstrom Tribute

Los Angeles Times – Glen Egstrom Obituary

 

Due to the unprecedented circumstances of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society will defer the 2020 Rolex Scholarships and the 2020 Internships until Summer 2021. Additionally, the Society’s annual Symposium and Rolex Awards Ceremony, scheduled for June 6, 2020, in New York City, will be moving to an online, virtual event.

The decision to postpone was not easy, especially having just recently selected three new Rolex Scholars and five new Interns. However, the Board of Directors of the Society recognizes the seriousness and continually evolving nature of the pandemic; therefore, the Board decided it would be irresponsible and potentially unsafe to send Scholars and Interns out into the world at this time. All have agreed to defer appointment until 2021, and a formal announcement of the 2020 Scholars and Interns will be released soon.

Each year, the Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society hosts an annual weekend to honor and celebrate the Society’s returning Scholars and Interns, as well as to appoint new Scholars and Interns for the upcoming year. This year, the annual weekend was moved to June to coincide with World Oceans Week.

Given the current travel and stay-at-home restrictions, as well as social distancing guidelines, the Society must cancel this year’s in-person events. In its place, we will hold an online, virtual event, or possibly multiple events. Exact details are still in development, but we still hope to have presentations from the returning Scholars and Interns as well as the world premieres of the films from the 2019 Rolex Scholars.

It is always a great pleasure to bring the Society ‘family’ together each year in New York to renew friendships, celebrate our Interns and Rolex Scholars, and acknowledge the efforts of our volunteers. We, as a Board, are disappointed that we cannot meet in-person this year. However, though we may not be able to gather together, we can assemble apart and present an opportunity to allow people to join in from around the world.

It is more important than ever that we celebrate success while we recognize the challenging times we are all facing.

I look forward to celebrating with you all soon.

Steve Barnett
President
1990 Rolex Scholar