Principal Marine Scientist
CurrentMr. Challenger is a Marine Scientist and President of Polaris Applied Sciences, Inc. (Polaris) in Kirkland, Washington, U.S.A. He has B.S. in Marine Biology, M.S. in Marine Ecology and over 30 years of experience in marine environmental resource management, oil and chemical spill assessment, shipwreck grounding assessment, and marine habitat restoration. Mr. Challenger has provided scientific support for over 150 major oil and chemical spills and vessel groundings on coral reefs worldwide. Mr. Challenger's focus is assisting with ecologically sensitive shipwreck removal, pollution response, coral reef restoration and disaster response planning and is a frequent speaker at major conferences on Oil Pollution, Vessel Salvage and Wreck Removal. Some of his recent projects include technical advisor on the shoreline response and Natural Resource Damage Assessment, Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, US Gulf of Mexico, Environmental Assessment of the M/V KEA TRADER salvage, New Caledonia, vessel grounding damage assessment of an LNG carrier in Micronesia, and coral reef restoration following several shipping accidents in Grand Cayman BWI. Mr. Challenger is also an oil spill response specialist and Planning Chief in BNSF Incident Command Structure and has served as Incident Commander on oil spills including the M/V MARATHASSA oil spill in Vancouver BC, Canada in 2015. Prior to helping form Polaris, Greg taught marine resource management and coral reef ecology at the Center for Marine Resource Conservation in the Turks and Caicos, BWI, the Newfound Harbor Marine Institute in the Florida Keys, and aboard the SSV Westward in the Eastern Caribbean for the Semester at Sea program accredited by Boston University. http://www.polarisappliedsciences.com/bio-gchallenger.htmlhttps://www.facebook.com/PolarisSpillExperts/
