Founder and CEO of OceanGate Inc., Stockton Rush is dedicated to opening the oceans to direct human observation and exploration through the development of state-of-the-art 5-person submersibles. For most of his life, Stockton planned to become an astronaut. He obtained his BSE in Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University with this goal in mind and went on to join the McDonnell Douglas Corporation as a Flight Test Engineer on the F-15 program. He then went to U.C Berkeley Hass Business School and worked in venture capital and private equity investing still with the hope of one day going to space. Along the way, he realized that being among the first humans to descend to the ocean depths on our own planet and opening those oceans to exploration is an equally compelling and important challenge. He pivoted to ocean exploration by first building his own 2-person submarine in 2006, and then founding OceanGate in 2009, to expand access to the deep ocean by marrying adventurers like himself with researchers and scientists. This hybrid business model is designed to create a self-sustaining business that also makes meaningful contributions to deep-sea science and technology.

Stockton conducts all significant test dives of OceanGate’s submersibles as well as the first dives on all new dive sites. Throughout 2019, he piloted a series of test dives of Titan, culminating in a solo dive to 4000 meters. In 2021, he will pilot OceanGate’s Titan submersible on its inaugural Titanic Survey Expedition, taking citizen explorers 3,800 meters below the surface of the North Atlantic to the wreck site of the RMS Titanic. Throughout this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity the citizen explorers, known as Mission Specialists, will play an active role in digitally documenting and preserving the historic site.

Stockton has served on the Boards of several small businesses and The Museum of Flight in Seattle. He maintains and flies a Glasair III high-performance airplane that he built from a kit in 1989.