Stockton Rush (1962–2023) was an American engineer, pilot, and businessman. He was the co-founder and CEO of Oceangate Inc. He made headlines in the 2023 Titan submersible incident, a tourist expedition in which a Titan submersible carrying five passengers, including Titan co-pilot Stockton Rush, disappeared in the North Atlantic. Ocean when visiting the wreck of the Titanic on 18 June 2023. In June 2023, he was declared dead at the age of 61.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Richard Stockton Rush III was born on Saturday, March 31, 1962 (age 61 years; as in 2023) in San Francisco, California. His zodiac sign is Aries. When he was a child he wanted to be an astronaut. At the age of 18, he received his commercial pilot’s license in 1980. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, United States in the 1980s. He wanted to become a military pilot; However, due to his visual acuity he could not do so. Later, he moved from San Francisco to Seattle to join the American aerospace manufacturing corporation McDonnell Douglas as a flight test engineer to work on the F-15 Eagle jet. At the age of 19, he earned a DC-8 Type/Captain rating at the United Airlines Jet Training Institute. In 1984, he completed graduate studies in aerospace engineering at Princeton University in New Jersey. In 1989, he completed a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley.
Stockton Rush in his youth
Physical Appearance
Height (Approx): 5′ 11″
Hair Color: Gray
Eye colour: Hazel
Family
He comes from a wealthy family in San Francisco. His maternal grandfather, Ralph K. Davis, was an American businessman and a political appointee. His maternal grandmother, Louise M. Davis, was a philanthropist, and the Louise M. Davis Symphony Hall in San Francisco was named in her honor. The Stockton Rushes are descendants of two prominent figures of the United States’ founding period, Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton. Benjamin and Richard played important roles in the American Revolution and are known as signers of the Declaration of Independence.
parents and siblings
His father, Richard Stockton Rush Jr., was president of the Peregrine Oil and Gas Company in Burlingame, California, and the Natomas Company in San Francisco. His mother’s name is Ellen Rush. Stockton Rush III has four elder siblings; Two sisters named Deborah and Katherine. On 31 December 1999, his father died after a short illness.
wife and children
In 1986, Stockton married Wendy Weil, director of communications at Oceangate and a licensed pilot.
Stockton Rush with Wendy Weil
According to archival records, Wendy is a descendant of two first class passengers who tragically lost their lives when the ocean liner Titanic sank in 1912. She is the great-granddaughter of Isidor Strauss, an American businessman and politician, and Ida Strauss. , a housewife. Isidore and Ida were the two wealthiest passengers aboard the Titanic.
Isidore Strauss and Ida Strauss (right) whose roles were portrayed in the Hollywood film ‘Titanic’ (left)
Stockton Rush is married with two children; A girl and a boy.
stockton rush kids
livelihood
engineer
In 2006, Rush built a submarine after purchasing parts from a private company and using blueprints provided by a retired US Navy submarine commander. He wanted to explore the waters of Puget Sound, the gateway to the Pacific Ocean, without receiving training for scuba diving. The submersible he built was 12 feet long and could dive to a depth of 30 feet.
Businessman
He was a director of Blueview Technologies in Washington. In 2009, after experiencing the demand for underwater marine tourism, he co-founded OceanGate Inc. with his business partner Guillermo Sohnlein in Washington.
Stockton Rush with Guillermo Sohnlein
According to Stockton, Oceangate was intended to use commercial tourism as a means of financing the advancement of deep-diving submersibles. These submersibles will enable various commercial enterprises such as resource mining and disaster mitigation. In 2018, he led an expedition with a team of scientists and researchers to the San Juan Islands to take a closer look at sea urchins and investigate whether sand lances are changing the fish’s habitat. As of 2021, the cost of an underwater chartered expedition was approximately $250,000 per person. In 2022, Rush, along with four other individuals; Renata Rojas, a banker, Oisin Fanning, a businessman, Jaden Pan, a television professional, and Steve Ross, an oceanographer, descend to explore the wreck of the Titanic; However, they encountered technical difficulties, particularly related to the pilot’s controller, which complicated the search for the wreckage.
An Oceangate ship that takes tourists from St. John’s, Newfoundland to the Titanic site
Death
He died on 22 June 2023 when the Titan submarine exploded in the North Atlantic Ocean. On June 18, 2023, the Titan, a submarine, went missing in the North Atlantic Ocean about 400 nautical miles (740 km) off the coast of Newfoundland. Inside the submersible was a group of tourists, including Hamish Harding, a businessman and explorer, Paul-Henri Nargiolet, a deep-sea explorer, Prince Dawood, a businessman, Prince Dawood’s son Suleiman Dawood, and Oceangate founder Stockton Rush. They were on an expedition to view the wreck of the RMS Titanic. The US military helped search for the submersible after the Titan went missing. On June 22, 2023, it was announced that the Titan had experienced an explosion, possibly while descending, resulting in the instant death of five persons onboard.
An image of Oceangate’s submersible, Titan
Facts/General Knowledge
- Stockton Rush was an adrenaline junkie and loved taking risks. In an interview he talked about his love for taking risks and said,
I mean if you want to be safe, don’t get out of bed, don’t get in your car, don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it’s really a question of risk-reward. I think I can do it safely by breaking the rules.
- In 2012, he founded the OceanGate Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting technological advancements in the fields of marine science, history, and archaeology. The objective of the Foundation is to support and facilitate research and exploration in these areas.
- In a 2017 interview, he said that he wanted to become the first person to go to Mars.
- In an interview, while talking about underwater marine tourism using deep-diving submersibles, he shared that traveling in the Titan submersible gave him the thrill he wanted. He said,
It’s truly a life-changing experience, and there aren’t many things like it. Instead of spending $65,000 to climb Mount Everest, probably dying, and living in a miserable base camp for a month, you can change your life in a week. I wanted to be like Captain Kirk. I didn’t want to be a rear passenger. And I realized that the ocean is the universe. This is where life is.”
Stockton Rush with Titan Submersible
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn