Growing up among Michigan’s Great Lakes, Kurt spent a lot of time in and around watercraft. After graduating from Kalamazoo College with a B.A. in Economics and later receiving his MBA from San Jose State University, the business guy with technical aptitude had a long career in Silicon Valley with stints at Apple, SGI, Avaya, VMware, and Wind River, and he owned and operated a home A/V system integration business.
Kurt’s first exposure to marine robotics was as a coach/mentor for his kids’ MATE Underwater Robotics team. The garage club that started with his fifth-grade son and his friends competed every year until they graduated from high school. Kurt also started three middle-school girls’ ROV teams with his daughter, who later joined her brother’s team and contributed to two second place finishes at the MATE International ROV Championships.
Joining Blue Robotics in February 2023, Kurt was the company’s first business development hire. He loves his role focused 100% on STEM education, enjoys mentoring educators and students and exposing them to the technology, and helping students build important skills through the experience of working in a team and applying technology in the real world.
Kurt is one of the mentors of a high school robotics club with students from a dozen schools across Santa Cruz County, a partnership between the non-profit X-Academy and Santa Cruz County Office of Education. When he’s not working from his Monterey home office or traveling to ROV competitions and dives, Kurt enjoys building DIY projects and integrating them with his BlueROV2 or BlueBoat.