2000 Field
Crew
Denbigh Project Field Crew, July 2000. Standing,
l. to r.: Mark Feulner, Sean Williams,
Jeff Bowdoin, Laura Masters and Ashley Porter. Front row, l. to r.: Colin Kliewer,
Chris DeCillo, Barto Arnold, Kimberly Monk and Eric Van Velzen. Not shown: Tom Oertling,
Andy Hall, Gene Shimko, Patrick Batchelder, Sara Keyes, John Eastlund, Bob Siml
and Jim Cornette.
Selected Crew Profiles
(in alphabetical order)
Barto Arnold
Principal Investigator and Project Director
Austin, Texas
Barto Arnold is a native of San Antonio and studied anthropology and archaeology at the
University of Texas at Austin. Arnold’s introduction to nautical archaeology came
when, as a graduate student, he was hired to work at the conservation laboratory handling
artifacts taken by salvors from the 1554 Spanish wrecks on Padre Island. Arnold served for
more than 20 years as the State Marine Archaeologist for the Texas Historical Commission,
and in 1997 moved to the Institute of Nautical Archaeology as Director of Texas
Operations.
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Patrick Batchelder
Volunteer Diver
Boulder, Colorado
Batchelder volunteered on the Denbigh Project for the first few weeks of this
summer’s field season. Batchelder, 53, is the past president of the Boulder Museum of
History and currently writes for scientific, technical and popular magazines. He is also
owner of John David, Inc., a staffing and consulting company. Batchelder is considering
pursuing a graduate degree in anthropology at the University of Colorado, and hopes to
retire to French Polynesia to pursue his dream of doing nautical archaeology on WWII
wrecks in the Pacific.
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Jeff Bowdoin
Volunteer Diver
Glen Burnie, Maryland
Bowdoin holds CPR, PADI and First Aid certifications. |
Jim Cornette
Volunteer Diver
Ames, Iowa
Cornette is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Iowa State University. Jim worked as a
volunteer on the Denbigh Project in 1999, and has returned this year to continue
with the project. Jim observes that the project "is proving to have a particularly
interesting history and participation in its physical excavation and simultaneously
observing its historical development and the interaction between those two processes is a
wonderful opportunity." Cornette holds certifications as a PADI Dive Master and
Rescue Diver. Cornette's diving experience includes dives in the Bahamas, Bonaire, St.
Kitts, British Virgin Islands and numerous Iowa lakes.
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Christopher DeChillo
Volunteer Diver
Austin, Texas
DeChillo is an undergraduate student at Texas A&M College Station, majoring in
Anthropology with a Spanish minor. DeChillo is a senior in the Corps of Cadets (Company
K-2), and a member of the Cadet Honor Board. He’s been a SCUBA diver since he was 12,
and holds a PADI divemaster certification. DeChillo enjoys traveling, both domestically
and internationally, and especially likes drag racing Mustangs.
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John Eastlund
Volunteer Diver
Brooklyn, New York
Eastlund works for the international Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) at Texas A&M which
operates a scientific drill ship for the National Science Foundation and 20 other
countries. Easlund sailed as a seagoing system manager for 15 years, traveling around all
the worlds oceans and visiting every maritime museum and historical ship he could find
– more than 130 to date. In 1994 he worked on his first archaeology excavation as a
volunteer on the Monte Cristo Pipe Wreck. Although still employed full time at ODP,
Eastlund is taking classes in Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University.
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Andrew W. Hall
Co-Principal Investigator and Project Historian
Galveston, Texas
Hall serves as chief historian for the Denbigh Project, and manages the project
website. Hall, a Galveston native, is the former curator or exhibits at the Texas Maritime
Museum in Rockport, and is currently a member of the board of the Southwest Underwater
Archaeological Society (SUAS).
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Sara Keyes
Assistant Archaeologist
Farmers Branch, Texas
Keyes is a masters candidate in nautical archaeology at Texas A&M University in
College Station. She began her work in nautical archaeology as a volunteer with the Texas
Historical Commission, and in 1995 was part of the original team that discovered the 1686
wreck of La Belle, the last remaining vessel of La Salle’s ill-fated
expedition to Texas. Keyes recently spent two months in Morocco studying and
cataloguing old nautical maps and engravings for locating shipwrecks off the Moroccan
coast.
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Colin Kliewer
Volunteer Diver
Duncanville, Texas
Kliewer is a Senior in Marine Biology at Texas A&M University at Galveston (TAMUG).
Kliewer has plans to pursue a masters degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences after
completing his undergraduate work. Kliewer has been diving for a year with thorough
training in a number of specialty diving areas including AAUS scientific diving, cavern
diving, wreck diving, nitrox diving, low visibility, and oxygen administration.
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Laura Masters
Volunteer
Almont, Michigan
Masters is a senior in the Maritime Studies (MAST) Program at Texas A&M University at
Galveston, with an anticipated graduation in December 2000. She joined the Denbigh
Project in 1999 as a research volunteer, and since has gotten a full introduction to the
logistical complexities of a field archaeology project. Although she enjoys Galveston, her
favorite residence was in Lander, Wyoming, where Sinks Canyon and the Wind River Country
is "an obsession for me." She has performed with the chorus of "La
Cenerntolla" with the Michigan Opera Theater, and as part of the Symphonic Chorale in
Romeo, Michigan. Masters jokes that, "being a Yankee, I sometimes feel
outnumbered" on the Denbigh Project.
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Kimberly E. Monk
Assistant Dive Officer
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Kimberly Monk serves as Assistant Dive Officer on the Denbigh Project. After
completion of the field season, Monk will enter the Program in Maritime Studies at East
Carolina University. As the Central Region Director of Save Ontario Shipwrecks, Monk has
been active in the protection of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes region. In addition, she
has completed archaeological fieldwork in the Dominican Republic and Florida. Monk’s
current research interest is in the construction of "canaller" vessels and the
implications of the Welland Canal on ship design. Monk is a PADI-certified Rescue and CPR
Instructor.
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Tom Oertling
Co-Principal Investigator and Project Assistant Director
Galveston, Texas
Oertling, a native of New Orleans, is a graduate of the Nautical Archaeology Program at
Texas A&M University. Oertling has worked on several historic shipwrecks prior to Denbigh,
including the American Revolutionary War ships at Yorktown and the Molasses Reef Wreck in
the Turks and Caicos. Oertling is the author of Ship’s Bilge Pumps: A History of
Their Development, 1500-1900 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1996),
and has served as an advisor to several archaeological projects in that area. Oertling
serves as a Co-principal Investigator on the Denbigh Project, and was one of the
original team members to locate and identify the wreck in 1997.
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Ashley Porter
Volunteer Diver
Torrance, California
Ashley Porter is a senior in Anthropology at Texas A&M University in College Station,
and hopes to enter the Nautical Archaeology Program there after graduation. Porter decided
to pursue archaeology at about age six, after seeing television documentaries about INA
projects in the Mediterranean. Recently Porter worked worked with the University of Hawaii
at Manoa's Marine Options Program to locate and map of a landing site off the windward
coast of Oahu at Wainanola Beach.
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Gene Shimko
Engineering Volunteer
Houston, Texas
Gene Shimko joined the Denbigh Project in 1999 as a volunteer researching steam
powerplants. Shimko’s work as an engineer has provided him with considerable
experience working with reciprocating engines, and his guidance has contributed
significantly to the analysis and interpretation of Denbigh’s engine and
machinery arrangements.
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Bob Siml
Volunteer Diver
Houston, Texas
Siml is a chemical engineer with a long-standing interest in maritime history and nautical
archaeology. Siml has been a member of the volunteer crew of the 1877 Iron Barque Elissa
for several years. Siml has been a certified diver since 1976, and has held PADI
certification since 1982. Much of Siml's diving experience has been at Reef Lake in
Houston, Canyon Lake, near Austin.
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Eric A. Van Velzen
("Van")
Dive Officer
Bothell, Washington
"I got interested in Nautical Archaeology in 1996 after leaving the Marine Corps. I
volunteered to work at the harbor excavation at Caesarea Maritime, Israel. This became a
three-year participation as a divemaster and medic with the University of Maryland and the
University of Haifa. I joined the Denbigh Project in 1999 as dive officer. I’m
a junior at TAMUG in the Maritime Studies (MAST) Program." Van Velzen has been diving
for eleven years, and prior to this field season had completed over 750 dives to depths as
great as 185 feet (56m).
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Sean Williams
Volunteer Diver
Margate, Florida
Williams is a graduate student in Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University in
College Station. He holds a BA in Anthropology from the University of West Florida and
holds a PADI Advanced Open Water dive certification.
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Crew photos by Marylin Hughes, Texas A&M University
at Galveston. |
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