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www.seadiscovery.com what customers were trying to do. ?I did a lot of field oceanography during my degree work ? lots of time on ships.? This helped him translate input from the field back to the company and further improve Sea-Bird?s instruments. The central theme has always been ?how do we improve the data?? Larson said. ?We?ve had an unwaver- ing focus on the quality data that scientists need. The business has to follow that focus. Often the meaningful improvements are the result of a long, slow unrelenting pursuit of what?s not working well and how to fix it.? Larson said there are four parts in Sea-Bird?s quest to continually improve the quality of data available to the scientific community: make the instruments as perfect as possible, work with scientists to improve the methods by which the instruments are used, work around the practi- cal restrictions aboard research vessels and develop defen- sible corrections for any errors in the data. It?s not only about having the best instruments possi- ble, it?s about enabling scientists to use them in practical ways to get the highest quality data. ?We began to involve ourselves heavily in the use of these instruments. We worked with scientists to do things better.? Larson also acknowledged that there are very practical limitations for using these types of instruments aboard ships. ?Our personal contacts and relationships with sci- entists allowed us to observe deployments, develop methods to get around these restrictions and provide advice on future deployment techniques. That?s only possible when you have that relationship and that credi- bility.? That kind of credibility leads to some exciting inquiries from the scientific community. ?Scientists doing cutting- edge work come to us with interesting questions,? Larson said, citing one group whose Sea-Bird instru- ments were measuring super-cooling, sub-freezing tem- peratures in the ocean, yet the water was not frozen. ?Could the measurements be for real?? they wanted to know, ?and, what does this imply about the physics of freezing water?? ?These kinds of questions make it a really fun place to work,? Larson said. ?We can bring both our own scien- tific knowledge and our knowledge of instruments to bear. It?s very rewarding to be able to work on funda- mental questions in nature.? Managers are the New Market Managers in many related fields are benefitting from the advancement of oceanography and its scientific tools,MTR#2 (66-81):MTR Layouts 2/22/2012 10:11 AM Page 69