The Essential Image Source Foundation is proud to announce that Dan Powell has joined the foundation’s team as Director of Marine Support.

Dan is a Senior Ocean Engineer working for Santa Barbara Applied Research in Ventura, CA. He has over 20 years of experience working with marine equipment, including manned submersibles and remote operated vehicles. Dan first worked for Deep Ocean Engineering, moving on to the Navy’s Deep Submergence Vehicle & Dive Section, and his previous job was at Oceaneering.

Currently he is working on SBAR’s Ocean Engineering support service contracts for the Navy, providing project management of research and development, engineering, procurement, installation, testing, technical documentation and training on marine equipment ranging from submersible/ROV launch and recovery systems, San Nicolas Island power generation, buoy and mooring projects, to designing HD camera pressure housings for Titanic film documentaries.

Dan has served as the Marine Technology Society Chairman of Los Angeles Section and is presently a member of the Channel Islands Sanctuary Advisory Council, supporting the Education Team working group. He has been very involved with local education programs on the Channel Islands, teaching an Oceanography mini-course and arranging for guest classroom speakers from the Natl Park Service and Natl Marine Sanctuary.

Born in the Midwest, Dan became fascinated with oceanography from watching underwater shows like the Cousteau series. He was also inspired by the book Kon-Tiki and in 2003 built a replica Chumash tomol with local school students, saying “I want to get them excited about oceanography careers, not only marine biology but other technical jobs like ocean engineering”.

Dan is providing content for our new web site and organizing marine equipment support for EISF events. He also happens to be an avid SCUBA diver, experienced with underwater film equipment and specialty diver tools development.