Charles S. Yentsch

Charles S. Yentsch (1927–2012) Visionary Ocean Scientist and Beloved Maverick.

Education

Yentsch earned a BSc from the University of Louisville (1950), a Masters from Florida State University (1953), and attended the University of Washington Seattle. In 1985 Long Island University awarded Charlie an honorary Ph.D. degree, recognizing his achievements as one of the pioneers of modern oceanography.

Personal background

Yentsch was born in Louisville, Kentucky, where his father and uncles owned the Yentsch Brothers Trucking Company. As a young child, his family moved to Hermosa Beach, California. As a teenager, he worked as a lifeguard, and set up a business to free-dive for and market abalone. He served in the U.S. Navy during WWII as a fire-fighting instructor in San Diego (1944-1946). Employment included the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA (1956-1967); Nova University Oceanographic Center in Fort Lauderdale, FL (1967-1970); and the University of Massachusetts Marine Station, Gloucester (1970-1974).

In July 1974, Charlie and wife Clarice founded the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in West Boothbay Harbor, ME. Within a few years, this institution had become a world-class laboratory attracting innovative scientists from around the world, and today it is a leading employer in the State of Maine. Charlie served as Executive Director of the Bigelow Laboratory from 1974 until 1988 when he resigned from that position to devote full-time to his research. He remained as an active researcher until his death in September 2012.

Acclaim and tributes

Following his death, the Yentsch family set up the Charles S. Yentsch Scholarship to assist young oceanographers in his memory "as a tribute to his role in mentoring many generations of students over his long career."^[1]

It was said of Yentsch that he "made key observations that led to the development of ocean color remote sensing from space….[He] not only made seminal contributions to the evolution of modern biological oceanography, but arguably established the field of bio-optical ecology, which underpins advanced remote sensing methods and the biogeochemical circulation models that they support."^[2]

Awards

In 1999, the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) presented him with the A.C. Redfield Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2008 he was named a Fellow of The Oceanography Society "for promoting oceanography through innovation, fundamental discoveries in bio-optics and phytoplankton production, and the visionary founding of enduring oceanographic programs." The Oceanography Society Fellows Program recognizes individuals who "have attained eminence in oceanography through their outstanding contributions to the field of oceanography or its applications during a substantial period of years." In 2010 Charlie Yentsch became the recipient of the Nils Gunnar Jerlov Award "for his enduring, pioneering work on phytoplankton, their optical properties, and productivity, which ultimately gave rise to the field of ocean color remote sensing."

References