Stockton Rush, 61, founded OceanGate Inc., in 2009, the company that owned the Titan submersible.
Thesub caved in from a “catastrophic implosion”, the Coast Guard said, killing Rush and four others on board.
The Titan was subjected to little regulatory oversight, OceanGate made the passengers sign safety waivers and they were cautioned numerous times about the possibility of death as reported by Bloomberg.
Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, was deeply fascinated with the ocean. Although, Rush graduated from Princeton with a degree in aerospace engineering and an MBA from UC Berkeley, he felt like a traveller during his first space mission when he wanted nothing more than to be an explorer, according to his company biography.
Rush expressed his fascination with the ocean saying that each time he went for an expedition, another dive, he found ‘something new’. He took delight in witnessing the fascination of researchers studying marine life and uncovering new insights.
OceanGate’s YouTube channel reveals that Rush considered it ‘critical’ for people to experience the ocean in a unique way. He believed that such encounters could instil a personal awareness and emotional connection to the sea.
Rush’s primary objective for OceanGate was to stir up enthusiasm for ocean exploration. In an interview with the BBC, he confessed that the ocean’s vast unknown could be “scary”, yet describing its wonders was an “impossible” task.
Rush’s journey began with a partially finished, home-built submersible. In 2009, his company acquired and customized a submersible, leading to the creation of their first prototype, Cyclops One, which bore similarities to the later Titan.
Rush found that people were most excited about a dive to the Titanic, especially adventure tourists, that it became a ‘must-do’ dive. Rush once quipped that the three most recognized English words worldwide were ‘Coca-Cola’, ‘God’, and ‘Titanic’.
Rush was known to operate outside the conventional boundaries of submersible manufacturers. According to those who knew him, he believed that innovation was directly proportional to the amount of “stuff” one had broken. He was unafraid to take risks and push the envelope.