- Stockton Rush once said he preferred to hire a young team instead of veteran sub pilots.
- Rush noted in 2020 that OceanGate’s rivals typically hire “ex-military submariners” and technicians.
- But the CEO said he wanted team members with diverse backgrounds, like a varsity athlete or a surfer.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush said in an old interview that he preferred not to hire veteran submarine pilots or technicians, wanting to instead keep his team “younger” and “inspirational.”
The CEO, who died in June on board his submersible, the Titan, was speaking to executives from Teledyne Marine, a marine equipment manufacturer. While the interview was undated, a recording of the video meeting was published by Teledyne in August 2020, according to metadata seen by Insider.
The recording has been deleted, but Insider reviewed an archived version of it.
In the video, Matt Burdyny, a Teledyne executive, told Rush that he accompanied OceanGate on a submersible dive in Puget Sound, and commented that many OceanGate employees were fresh graduates but seemed professional.
“You know, the tenure of a lot of these folks was obviously not significant, a lot of young folks coming out of school, but everybody knew their role and they executed it flawlessly,” Burdyny said.
Rush agreed.
“Ah yes, when I started the business, one of the things you’ll find is there are other sub operators out there, but they typically have gentlemen who are ex-military submariners, and you’ll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old white guys,” he said. “I wanted our team to be younger, be inspirational.”
“I’m not going to inspire a 16-year-old to go pursue marine technology,” the CEO said. “But a 25-year-old, you know, who’s a sub pilot or a platform operator or one of our techs can be inspirational.”
Rush said OceanGate aspired to hire “intelligent, motivated, younger individuals” also because the company was “doing things that are completely new.”
The entrepreneur added that he wanted a team with diverse backgrounds, because he believed it would make expeditions to the Titanic more enjoyable for his customers.Â
“You’re gonna go to the Titanic, you’re going to be spending eight days on a boat, you don’t want every person to have the same experience of having been on a US nuclear sub, or worked for Atlantis Submarines and all have the same background,” Rush said.
He said one of his team members was a varsity hammer throw athlete, and that another person on his squad “surfs in Iceland in the winter.” Anyone who worked for OceanGate, he said, needed to be a “kind, fun, but highly confident individual.”
“Really get people who have a diverse background, and then train them and train and train and train so that it does come off as a polished and safe operation,” Rush said.
Rush also said OceanGate’s safety standards, operations, and checklists aligned more with the aerospace industry, rather than ocean-related industries.Â
“We can train people to do that. We can train someone to pilot the sub using a game controller, so anyone can drive the sub,” he said. Rush graduated from Princeton University with a degree in aerospace engineering, and was a certified commercial pilot.
The Titan was equipped with a 2D sonar system provided by Teledyne, according to OceanGate’s website.
Rush’s handling of OceanGate’s safety standards has come under scrutiny as documentation surfaced of him repeatedly ignoring warnings from other experts.
On June 23, authorities found debris of the Titan on the ocean floor. It’s highly likely the vessel’s hull was breached, instantly killing the five people inside who were traveling to the wreck of the Titanic some 13,000 feet underwater.
If Rush and Teledyne recorded the interview in 2020, it was likely filmed during the years when OceanGate was preparing the Titan for commercial tours to the Titanic. It launched annual expeditions in 2021.
A team photo posted on OceanGate’s Instagram account in December 2019 appears to show 27 people — including Rush and his wife, Wendy Rush — of various ages dressed in company attire.
The Instagram account would frequently promote young pilots on its team, at least one of whom it described as “one of the youngest female pilots in the industry.”
OceanGate also hired engineers who were in their teens, and paid some of the $15 per hour at one point, an unnamed company executive told The New Yorker. According to a Washington State University graduate, the company also hired student interns to design electrical systems for the Titan.
Teledyne and OceanGate did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.
