Page 18: of Marine Technology Magazine (January 2016)

Navy

Captain Gregg W. Baumann

U.S. Navy, Director of Ocean Engineering,

Supervisor of Salvage and Diving

Captain Gregg W. Baumann, U.S. Navy,

Director of Ocean Engineering, Super- visor of Salvage and Diving. shares with

MTR insights on the long and proud history regarding dif? cult missions ac- complished, including most recently the location and ? lming of the lost TOTE containership El Faro.

By Greg Trauthwein

What, speci? cally, is the scope of the respon- sibility of the Supervisor of Salvage & Diving;

Director of Ocean Engineering?

The responsibilities of the Supervisor of Salvage &

Diving; Director of Ocean Engineering (SUPSALV) include being the Center of Excellence for diving for the Department of Defense (DoD), the system safety certi? cation authority for

DoD diving and manned hyperbaric equipment, the technical authority for military diving equipment, the technical author- ity for underwater ship’s husbandry repairs & inspections, and salvage; By authority of the “Salvage Facilities Act” (10 ida, our deep ocean search and recovery equipment program,

U.S.C. 7361-7364) SUPSALV provides salvage facilities for our Emergency Ship Salvage Material (ESSM) warehouse system, diving engineering services, and our world-wide, un- public and private vessels and provides Admiralty legal sup- derwater hull cleaning services for ? eet vessels. Our facilities port to settle claims for salvage services rendered by the Navy.

Within the context of this authority, SUPSALV provides for include a headquarters of? ce, eight ESSM warehouses and support centers around the world, a Deep Ocean Search and the equipping and maintenance of a national salvage capabil-

Recovery warehouse and engineering facility in Maryland, ity for use in peacetime, war, or national emergency.

and diving services support of? ces in Virginia, California,

Hawaii, Japan, and Bahrain. Our inventory of search equip-

To put your of? ce into scale and scope. Can you ment, diving support material, oil spill recovery equipment, please give an overview of the personnel and and spares total more than 30,000 items, more than 500,000 physical assets under your guidance.

sq. ft. of facilities, and a world class diving and equipment SUPSALV has more than 565 military, civil servants, research facility. SUPSALV maintains national mission as- and full time contracted employees supporting our Washing- sets of search and recovery systems with capabilities ranging ton, District of Columbia headquarters of? ce, our Naval Ex- from shallow water to 20,000 ft. that include the Towed Pinger perimental Dive Unit research laboratory in Panama City, Flor-

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