Board of Directors
Dirk Rosen - Founder & President
Dirk has over 25 years of deepwater engineering experience. He was president and director of Deep Ocean Engineering before selling the company in 2000. At DOE, he was project manager and test pilot for all three Deep Rover 1,000 meter-rated manned submersibles, and a designer/operator of the Phantom and Bandit ROV systems. At Hawkes Ocean Technologies he served as project manager for the 11,000 meter rated Challenger, a manned submersible designed to go to the deepest point in the ocean, the Marianas Trench. He recently retired from the board of Save the Bay, where he served for nine years.
F. Gregg Bemis, Jr. - Chairman
F. Gregg Bemis served for 25 years in top management of three Fortune 500 companies. He was actively engaged in Venture Capital operations, including founding his own ocean related venture fund starting in 1968. He has been a principle in the founding and management of over 40 companies. For the last 30 years he has been a Director, Chairman and principle owner of The Ocean Corporation, the world’s leading educational facility for commercial divers. He has carried on extensive research and investigations on two of the world’s greatest maritime disasters: the Lusitania, sunk in 1915 and the Estonia, sunk in 1994. He is currently actively involved in five small companies and participates extensively in regional economic developmenti in New Mexico. He has a Masters Degree from the Harvard Business School.
David Jeffrey - Treasurer
David was one of MARE’s founding board members. He was born and educated in Scotland, receiving a Masters degree from Edinburgh University. After some years in London, he returned to Edinburgh University to work in Artificial Intelligence, followed by nine years as a research fellow in the Edinburgh Wave Power Project. He moved to the United States in 1983 to work (along side Dirk Rosen) for Deep Ocean Engineering (DOE), spending over 20 years with the company, and ultimately becoming Vice President of Research and Development. At DOE, he developed the control systems used by the Phantom family of ROVs, the Phoenix family (which still holds the record for umbilical length at 10,000 meters) and Deep Rovers I and II. At Hawkes Ocean Technologies, he was principal electronics engineer for the Challenger, a manned submersible designed to go to the deepest point in the ocean, the Marianas Trench.
Marc Lopata - Secretary
Marc joined the MARE Board of Directors in 2004. He is a licensed, Professional Engineer with over 20 years experience in engineering and applied sciences. Marc is Senior Vice President of Engineering with Azimuth Energy Systems, a renewable energy developer. Prior to Azimuth, Marc held senior managerial positions with Fortune 500 public corporations, ENR-100 consultants, and internationally recognized nonprofits. He was Principal Engineer at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, and also was Project Manager for an ENR-100 ranked environmental and geotechnical consulting firm. He lives in St. Louis, MO, with his wife and two sons.
Jeff Ludlow
Jeffrey Ludlow, a California Professional Geologist, has been providing environmental consulting services to private and public sector clients for almost 25 years. His focus is investigating and remediating contaminated soil, soil gas and groundwater. Since 1997, Jeff has worked at Treadwell & Rollo, Inc., a San Francisco-based environmental and geotechnical engineering firm where he is an owner and Principal Geologist with business development, technical and management responsibilities. He developed the firm’s toxic vapor intrusion mitigation system design services, which have allowed urban in-fill redevelopment projects to safely proceed on blighted industrial properties. Recently, he led an environmental engineering design project for Symantec Corporation’s new research and development facility in Chengdu China. Jeff has extensive experience working with the Ports of San Francisco and Oakland on shoreline environmental restoration projects and has been involved with the Bay Planning Coalition for the past several years.
Ed Ueber
Ed is considered an expert on abalone, sardine, groundfish, crab, fishery economics, fishery management, marine protected areas and navigation. He began his ocean career as a USN submarines navigator and later worked in the merchant marine. He served as Manager of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary and the northern sector of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary from 1990 – 2004, managing an area of 2,900 square nautical miles. He received three Congressional citations for exceptional service from the 105, 107 and 108 Congress's respectively. Mr. Ueber was one of eight senior scientists on the Master Planning Team of the California Marine Life Protection Act. He taught at the University of Connecticut and University of Rhode Island receiving his Masters at the latter in Resource Economics and Fisheries.
Lotus A. Vermeer, Ph.D.
For 30 years, Lotus has been dedicated to environmental protection, endangered species recovery, and environmental education. She spent over a decade in the eastern Caribbean working at a marine research institute, consulting on a range of environmental programs, and conducting research on terrestrial and marine issues. Lotus is currently the Director of The Nature Conservancy’s Santa Cruz Island Preserve and has lead the Island’s restoration efforts since 2003. A marine biologist and primatologist by training, Dr. Vermeer has spent much of her life living and working on islands off the west coast of Canada, the eastern Caribbean, the Philippines, and California’s Channel Islands. Lotus holds a Master’s degree in Marine Resource and Environmental Management, a Master’s degree in Primatology, and a Ph.D. in Marine Ecology.
Karen Weber
Karen offers expertise in business finance, as well as significant management, marketing and systems analysis experience. Working at firms such as Price Waterhouse, First Interstate Bank, and Merrill Lynch, she has performed analyses of financial statements, proposed asset sales, and cash flow operations. She has also conducted feasibility studies and enterprise valuations; analyzed bankruptcy creditor and debtor claims; assisted in reorganization strategy development; and completed financial, strategic and operational business turnarounds. Karen has served on a number of nonprofit boards, including Save the Bay and the Junior League of San Francisco. She holds an M.B.A. Finance from Rice University and is currently studying for a Master of Nonprofit Administration degree at the University of San Francisco.