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Dire and Ice: Living in Antarctica |
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Written by Maura Brady McMullen
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Thursday, 18 October 2007 |
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 The thought of packing for a week-long vacation sends some people into list-making panic, but not Rob Edwards. He has made a career out of packing for more than 1,000 people for six month sojourns to the Antarctic.
Edwards will share the ins-and-outs of planning for any and all events at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 23 at the Fort Collins Public Library as part of the Antarctic Lecture Series presented by the library and Colorado State University’s Department of Biology and the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory.
“I’m not going to talk much about the science but more about the overall sense of living and working there (in Antarctica),” Edwards said.
Edwards, a planning support manager for Raytheon Polar Services based in Denver, has been traveling far south of the Equator for the last 14 years.
Edwards made his first trek to Antarctica in 1993 as a research associate with Montana State University. Then he got a gig working as a support contractor with Antarctic Support Association, now known as Raytheon Polar Services.
“I work with the scientists—the principal investigators—and define all the support they will need,” Edwards said. “We start in April and envision what they want to do—there are lots of details: what kind of lab equipment, how many people, what are they going to do, etc.”
The Antarctic summer—October through February—is the busiest time for Edwards. Most research projects occur during those “warm” months and it’s Edwards’ job to ensure all the needs of the scientists are met.
“We end up hiring more than 1,000 people as support staff. We build the entire infrastructure for the whole town: mechanics, carpentry shops, bakers and food shops,” Edwards said. “It’s a fairly complicated and logistical plan.”
Edwards said the building and dismantling of an entire town is huge undertaking.
“It’s like a mining town,” Edward said of McMurdo, one of the main research bases, which is an island. “McMurdo is the main hub of operations for the U.S. Antarctic program.”
This lecture series was created by Diana Wall and Shane Kanatous, both professors at CSU. In January 2007, Wall and Kanatous had both just returned from research projects in Antarctica and they were eager to share their knowledge.
“There’s a lot of interest in the Antarctic series because so many people have been, or are scientists who are working with global climate change and the kids are interested in the geology of the past,” said Wall. “We decided to start the series because while teaching a class (at CSU), it surprised us at how many people came.”
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TO GO
• Antarctica lecture series: “Supporting Science on the Seventh Continent: Someone has to Shovel the Snow”
• 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23
• Ben Delatour Room, Fort Collins Library, 201 Peterson St.
• The lecture is free and open to any and all who are interested in learning about the seventh continent.
• For more information on the International Polar Year celebration and lecture series, check out the Web site: www.nrel.colostate.edu/projects/soil/
• The next lecture, “Volcanoes in Antarctica” by Wesley LeMasurier of CU-Denver, will be at 7 p.m., Nov. 27. | Only registered users can write comments.
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