Profiles of Success: Greg Stemm Uses Technology to Find Buried Treasure

Profiles of Success

By Suzanne Ridgway | Login to save as favorite | Send to friend | Print this article

Once in a while, after years of research and millions of dollars invested, Greg Stemm has a really large payday. The business of his company, Odyssey Marine Exploration (OME), is to locate shipwrecks and retrieve the valuables still inside. The goods are then sold to collectors and the public.

While the odds are long and the challenges many, OME cashed in big a few years ago — very big. In 2003, the company recovered over 50,000 gold and silver coins from the SS Republic, a paddle wheel steamship that sank in a hurricane off the coast of Georgia in 1865. Estimated value: $150 million.

Of course, it’s not easy finding or retrieving these treasure troves, hidden at depths of 1,700 to 2,500 feet beneath the ocean’s surface at 1,100 pounds per square inches of pressure and the current sometimes running at five to six knots. Shipwrecks and their cargo that would have been out of reach a few years ago can now be accessed through technology. Odyssey Marine Exploration uses ocean-floor scanning, robotics and fiber optics in its work to bring these treasures to light.

When they’ve located a promising site, OME’s experts work from a 250-foot platform on the ocean’s surface and send down a Remotely Operated Vehicle (RVO), which is basically an eight-ton underwater robot, to take live video of the wreck. Traveling over fiber optics, pictures come up to the platform that verify the presence of goods worth salvaging.

Before anything is retrieved, OME does a predisturbance survey that maps and photographs the artifacts in place to preserve the historical record. Then the coins or other items are picked up by the robot one at a time to make sure they are not scratched, retrieving up to 750 a day.

With the rise of this evolving industry, which Stemm calls Nautical Commercial Archeology, has come a whole host of questions and conflicts between archaeologists, who have traditionally believed that disturbing such a site is unethical, and businesspeople looking to make some money. In a paper posted on his website called “The Key to Davy Jones’ Locker,” Greg advocates mutual cooperation and understanding between both sides. He recognizes that the knowledge gleaned from shipwrecks belongs to the public, and so must be recorded and preserved to the greatest extent possible. But he points out that profits are due to those who have taken considerable financial risk to find and recover the shipwreck’s contents.

It is a long and arduous process, as well as a very expensive one. Challenges to ownership rights that are sometimes presented by local governments or insurance companies further increase the risk for investors and can delay excavation for years.

Greg, who was raised in Michigan and developed an interest in shipwreck archaeology as a youngster, is described by Wired magazine as “more geeky businessman than swashbuckling explorer.” The chairman and CEO of OME, he also founded the Professional Shipwreck Explorers Association (ProSEA) and has been the United States delegate to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) expert meeting that negotiated the Draft Convention for the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage.

Profile of Success Greg Stemm