OUR HISTORY - ACCOMPLISHMENTS

We reached all of these milestones on an extremely lean budget of approximately one million dollars a year and with a staff never larger than two to three full-time employees during its first seven years of operations. Today, SeaKeepers employes six full-time employees.

2006

• The Society is partnering with the world-renowned Scripps Institution of Oceanography to evaluate the effectiveness of its SeaKeeper 1000™ monitoring system for potential coastal monitoring sites.
• SeaKeepers inaugurates its own calibration laboratory. 
• Board of Directors unanimously approved other organizations and institutions to use SeaKeeper 1000 pro bono, in effort to further its goal of reducing the cost and increasing the effectiveness of ocean monitoring.
• Society introduces novel Yacht Partner membership level.
• NOAA purchases systems for its National Marine Sanctuaries Program
• SeaKeepers in-house Calibration Lab operational
• Yacht Partnership Program established.

2005

• Scripps physicist Tim Barnett gives paper at AAAS “proving” model of anthropogenic causes for global warming utilizing a database including SeaKeepers data.
• SeaKeepers data is solicited by organizations around the globe including GOOS, GOSUD in Canada, IFREMER in France and VOS.
• Demonstration system on Mediterranean ferry from Marseilles to Algiers successfully circumvents problem of national sensitivity to coastal monitoring.
• As demonstrated on more than 40 platforms, the equipment works reliably with minimal maintenance for periods of one year and greater although calibration task not yet addressed.
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2004

• Monitoring module renamed the SeaKeeper 1000™ for improved “branding” and communication.
• SeaKeepers ocean data becomes available to scientists worldwide via website.
• SeaKeepers joins the Consortium for Ocean Research and Education (CORE), a U.S. network of all oceanographic institutions: advisory role with Congress and Executive branch.
• SeaKeepers present data to Congress during Capitol Hill Oceans Week.
• National Data Buoy Center accepts our ocean monitoring system for use on 3-meter buoys, 6-meter buoys and C-MAN stations.

2003

• The International SeaKeepers Society qualifies for permanent 501(c)(3) status.
• SeaKeepers monitoring module awarded patent #6,536,272 from the U.S. Patent Office
• Monitoring system deployed on non-yacht platforms, including freighters, a lighthouse and the U.S. Coast Guard Icebreaker Polar Star
• All SK1000 raw data is transmitted on the BTS network for marine weather forecasting within 10 minutes of retrieval

 2002

• Sampling software evolves to encode data as hexadecimal binary for faster, less expensive, more stable transmission.
• Antifouling mechanism for module successfully tested.
• SeaKeepers system receives the Intel Technical Award.

2001

• IOC and WMO endorse SeaKeepers programs and issue joint IOC/WMO certificates.

2000

• “Module” prototype deployed.
• Eight yacht builders agree to make their new launches “SeaKeepers friendly” by pre-engineering through-hull fittings, plumbing and wiring for SeaKeepers monitoring module.
• Regular air and sea data transmissions begin from SeaKeepers units aboard yachts via e-mail over satellite.
• SeaKeepers installs module on its first cruise ship.

1999

• Development of hardware and software designs of the seawater and atmospheric testing module completed by University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Rod Zika, PI and Geoffrey Morrison, primary consultant.