{"id":18212,"date":"2022-06-29T02:05:11","date_gmt":"2022-06-29T02:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=18212"},"modified":"2022-07-01T22:26:02","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T22:26:02","slug":"a-titanic-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/29\/a-titanic-teacher\/","title":{"rendered":"A Titanic Teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consultant, attorney for Bezos, Cameron <\/i><\/span>turns personal adventures into scalable learning opportunities<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Eric Valentine<\/em><\/p>\n

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The submersible submarine, Titan (foreground)<\/i>, and the\u00a0Horizon Arctic <\/i>head out to explore the wreckage of the RMS Titanic. Photo credit: Dave Concannon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For a deep sea explorer with a hand in space travel, Dave Concannon\u2019s circle here is small. Spend two hours interviewing him though and you begin to understand it\u2019s not due to introversion. Rather, it\u2019s because the attorney and advisor for the likes of Jeff Bezos and James Cameron has a lot of small circles, all across the globe and filled with influencers who have impacted the world\u2019s history from under its oceans to above its skies.<\/p>\n

The exclusivity is not born out of arrogance\u2014although Concannon\u2019s confidence is crystal clear. Nor is it a matter of entitlement\u2014although the Philadelphia native and child of a single-p<\/span>arent seems to know when he doesn\u2019t have to take no for an answer. The exclusivity\u2014perhaps more aptly described as deliberateness\u2014stems at least in part from a seminal moment in his youth when the teenager, who was in awe of all people and things that had been in outer space, attended a school assembly for an Apollo astronaut who Concannon preferred not to name. (Let\u2019s just say it was not the first man to walk on the moon, it was the \u2026). <\/span><\/p>\n

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12,600 feet under the North Atlantic Ocean lies what\u2019s left of the massive cruise liner that sank on its maiden voyage in 1912. Photo credit: Dave Concannon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the remarkably accomplished astronaut\u2019s keynote address, which\u2014to put in fair context\u2014followed the then-recent defunding of the Apollo missions, the moonwalker told the student body that mankind\u2019s Golden Age of exploration was dead and that they could pack up their dreams of becoming the first person to set foot on Mars or anything else as astronomically important or cool.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat didn\u2019t sit well with me,\u201d Concannon recalled.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the time Concannon was on the high seas and in deep seas peering through the porthole of the RMS Titanic while working for James Cameron, the producer-director-writer of the movie Titanic<\/em>, Concannon had a more PG-rated level of thought running through his head.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI thought to myself, \u2018(Expletive) you, Astronaut (Blank). (Expletive) you,\u2019\u201d Concannon recounted the experience half grinning. <\/span><\/p>\n

Doubling Down<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Concannon has much to smile about when it comes to his career. For roughly five years, beginning in 2010, the north Valley resident led Amazon founder Jeff Bezos\u2019 recovery of the F-1 engines from the Apollo 11 Saturn V rockets that launched humans headed for the Moon. That mission was successful and carried out safely. It\u2019s part of an exploration resum\u00e9 that includes a cluster of major accomplishments\u2014like recovering treasure from the world\u2019s deepest shipwreck. And it has run in conjunction with Concannon\u2019s law practice that hasn\u2019t seen him lose a trial in more than a quarter century.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like to do things that are expected. That\u2019s why I haven\u2019t lost a trial in 27 years. Most people do exactly what they always do,\u201d Concannon said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Concannon has a habit of mitigating any bravado with self-deprecating anecdotes like the one inspired by his son who welcomed his dad home from the Apollo venture by saying, \u201cCongratulations Dad, you finally did something that matters.” <\/span><\/p>\n

“When I recovered enough to ask him to explain, he said ‘You are finally associated with a triumph instead of a tragedy,’\u201d Concannon said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Concannon\u2019s first major accomplishment in all things explorative\u2014or at least dazzlingly daring\u2014was his successful climb to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world at more than 19,000 feet in 1989. It may also play a role in how Concannon always seems to reel back any hint of arrogance and in lockstep place it firmly in the realm of humility. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI got whacked,\u201d he said of the Kilimanjaro climb. \u201cI ran up that mountain, and it nearly killed me. It dramatically altered my way of life.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

The brash handling of that adventure killed his climbing career and for years had left him reeling and recovering from memory issues, vision problems, and even a stammer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I just doubled down,\u201d Concannon said, deliberately of course. And he soon found himself one of the youngest members ever of The Explorers Club and one of the only members who also practiced law. <\/span><\/p>\n

He also practiced listening to good advice, such as some that came from Buzz Aldrin (yes, that Buzz Aldrin, who made three moonwalks, and for the record was neither the first nor last man on the moon). The astronaut told Concannon he should really get into space law.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOK, Buzz Aldrin, I\u2019m listening,\u201d said Concannon. \u201cAnd then he told me there really wasn\u2019t any space law and there needed to be.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With his skill set and experience, requests to serve on boards and to serve as general counsel for major organizations and individual players in the world of exploration have followed Concannon across his career. The Valley resident spearheaded the search that helped Amazon\u2019s Jeff Bezos recover the F-1 engines from the Apollo 11 Saturn V rockets\u2014the ones that launched humans headed for the Moon\u2014and also helped the world\u2019s richest man (second richest sometimes) in the early development of the commercial space industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, that commercial space industry. As you witness world governments and mega-billionaires shoot toward Mars and the Moon, you can safely assume Concannon had a hand in that part of human history, or at least knew exactly what each player was going to do. <\/span><\/p>\n

A Figurehead<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

As deliberate and clear as Concannon\u2019s character can be, truly understanding what motivates a personality like him can be more like a deep-sea dive or K2 climb than a walk on the beach or in the park. Concannon says he doesn\u2019t talk about it a lot, but knows his father\u2019s absence for the first decade of his life and his childhood spent in poverty are two factors contributing to all that makes him tick. But more critical to his development than that was the time he had spent growing up under the tutelage of his Ocean City, New Jersey-based grandfather George Murphy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe left school in eighth-grade to start a successful plumbing business. He loved planes, but was afraid to fly. He\u2019d take me to the airport and tell me the names of planes,\u201d Concannon said. \u201cHe lived from almost the time of the Wright Brothers, and definitely from when Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, to the landing on the moon. And he thought that was fantastic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Grandpa Murphy was the first to trigger Concannon\u2019s exploratory imagination during that time. He would point to the tiller post from a shipwreck that happened a century ago off the coast of Ocean City and talk to his grandson about it. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCan you imagine the interesting stories that ship could probably tell?\u201d he\u2019d ask his grandson. <\/span><\/p>\n

The experience set a template for Concannon\u2019s imagination: One man\u2019s shipwreck is another man\u2019s figurehead, leading them into uncharted things that should probably be seen.<\/span><\/p>\n

On July 7, Concannon will be starting his fifth expedition to explore the wreck of the RMS Titanic. More importantly, he\u2019ll be hosting a worldwide event live for Varsity Tutors on what it takes to be part of a major expedition to the Titanic. The program is free, geared to students and families, and anyone can access it with the link: tinyurl.com\/titanic-murphy<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s very similar to a presentation Concannon has already done once for The Discovery Center of Idaho, which made it to 12,000 computer screens. Concannon would love to see it expand and be used in school districts to teach across disciplines since the Titanic story is one of history, sociology, geography, exploration and multiple scientific disciplines. At the very least, it\u2019s a better lesson to learn than the death of exploration soundbite a justifiably upset astronaut tried to get across to a group of kids decades ago. And while it might not create the next Vasco da Gama, it will set the stage for understanding how we are all sunken ships, at some point in time at least. And so we get to choose from the wreckage all which we want to recover and record and let the world into our circle to see. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Consultant, attorney for Bezos, Cameron turns personal adventures into scalable learning opportunities By Eric Valentine For a deep sea explorer with a hand in space travel, Dave Concannon\u2019s circle here is small. Spend two hours interviewing him though and you begin to understand it\u2019s not due to introversion. Rather, it\u2019s because the attorney and advisor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,5,81,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"category-environment-2","9":"category-history","10":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18212"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18271,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18212\/revisions\/18271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}