Robert Ballard Interview (page: 3 / 8) Discoverer of the Titanic	Print Interview

To the general public, you are probably best known as the scientist who finds the wrecks of famous ships. How do you see yourself?

Robert Ballard: I think of myself as an explorer. I think throughout man's history, there have been explorers. A lot of people think there is no longer a place for them, but there is, particularly in the ocean. So that's what I am.

Was this always your interest? What kind of books did you like to read when you were a kid?

Robert Ballard: Adventure books. Generally a mix between fiction and non-fiction.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I loved The Travels of Marco Polo. It amazed me how he would walk -- maybe 30 miles a day is what a human being can walk back then -- and he would go from one world to another world. And the one world he could go to was like Eden, an incredibly wonderful place, and down the road was Hell. And how there was such diversity on our planet. Now you find McDonald's everywhere. But there was a diversity of the human species that mimicked other life. The true beauty of this planet is its diversity, not its sameness. So Marco Polo just opened up my eyes to the diversity of the human experience. Jules Verne opened me up to the fantasies of the time machine. I loved 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Captain Nemo! Here was a person who built his own submarine, using advanced technology, nuclear energy before anyone even knew that it existed. He was a technologist, but he was an adventurer. He explored beneath the sea. He had a giant window, and he saw the sea through that window, and that's exactly what I'm doing.

I always had this dream of being inside his ship, the Nautilus. I even went to Disneyland and rode it. I lived near Disneyland, and that had a lot of impact on me, I'm sure.

Some people believe that from birth their lives are pre-destined. When you were growing up, what did you think you wanted to be?

Robert Ballard: What I am. A high-tech, modern-day Captain Nemo. Absolutely no doubt about it. I always wanted to do what I'm doing, as long as I can remember. All kids dream a marvelous images of what they want to do. But then society tells them they can't do it. I didn't listen. I wanted to live my dream. So I broke it up into little bite-sized pieces.

Where did you grow up?

Robert Ballard: San Diego. Our family was the first family to grow up in the Claremont development. There were 40 houses. I used to go and hunt tarantulas with BB guns. San Diego was an incredible place to be introduced to the sea, back in the late '40s, early '50s.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I used to love to go down to tidal pools. What an adventure a tidal pool is! The tide comes in, covers the rocks, and then it goes away, and it traps life from the sea, and they can't get away. It's like a nature-made aquarium. You look around and there's fish, crabs and all sorts of things. Then they get washed away and in twelve hours there will be a new aquarium. I loved tidal pools. I also loved the tide, when it would come in, and you'd find adventure washed up on your shore. Like a Robinson Crusoe walking along, and seeing a float that had come from Japan, that had crossed the Pacific Ocean, a third of our planet, and just washed up at your feet. It was so exciting, I couldn't wait to go and walk the tide line and see what treasures were waiting for me.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

Explorers are, to some extent, risk takers. As a child, did you enjoy taking risks and having adventures, like Captain Nemo?

Robert Ballard: Oh, yes. I think all kids live on the edge, until they are beaten back from it. I think all kids are born explorers. All kids are born scientists. All kids ask "Why?" The first dialogue you'll ever have with your children begins, "But why?" And then you'll explain. And they'll say, "But why?" That "why?" can take you all the way back to the origin of the universe. I think people are born curious, and they have it pounded out of them. I was in an environment that encouraged it, not discouraged it.

Did your teachers recognize that you had a special talent? Did any of them take a real interest in you?

Robert Ballard: To most of my teachers I was just a pain in the neck, because was hyperactive. I was all over the place. That can be disruptive. Most people would rather say, "Slow that guy down or get him out of here." Fortunately, there is always one out of a hundred teachers who loves that characteristic. Those are the people that always encouraged me. At every critical point in my life, when I was ready to quit, I can point to someone, who said, "Keep it up." You are always going to be criticized if you're a doer. You have to make sure you know who to listen to. You need to pick out certain people you have great respect for, and listen to them. I've always had those mentors throughout my life -- whether it was in the Navy, business, academia, even in sports -- that I listened to.

Lets start with academia. What did you really expect and what did you get?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Robert Ballard: I learned how to think. I learned how to problem-solve. I learned how to bust things up and develop a logic tree. Classic example was, someone asked me, "How many barbers are there in the United States?" Now, how would you dissect that question? You can calculate it, if you just run a number. You take the population of the United States, 250 million, you cut it in half, because half are women. Then you say, how many of those would have a haircut? Well, one year-olds don't. How many haircuts do you have in a year? How many haircuts can a barber give in a day? Before you know it, the number spits out: the right answer, or doggone close. So, I learned how to order my thoughts, and most important, learned how to develop a plan. I discovered the power of a plan. If you can plan it out, and it seems logical to you, you can do it. And that was the secret to success.

[ Key to Success ] Preparation

You are also the director of the Center for Marine Exploration at Woods Hole Oceanographic Center. What kinds of degrees do you have?

Robert Ballard: I have several different degrees. I went to the University of California, Santa Barbara, right on the ocean. Beautiful place, I took two degrees there. Majored in chemistry and geology and I minored in math and physics. So I got a very good basis in the physical sciences. When I was at Santa Barbara, I went into the Army ROTC program, so I had an Army commission. My graduate degrees are in geology and geophysics. When I finished my undergraduate degree in 1965, I went off to graduate school at the University of Hawaii Institute of Geophysics. I trained porpoises and whales to make a living. I loved that. Then I transferred to the University of Southern California, and while at the University of Southern California, I was called into the military, during Vietnam. I requested to be transferred to a branch of service that would utilize my skills in oceanography. They accepted it and Army intelligence transferred me into the United States Navy.

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