Eric Stackpole

Designer, Engineer, Entrepreneur, Inventor, Technologist

Eric Stackpole has spent his career developing the tools used to explore remote and harsh environments. With a background in spacecraft mechanism design at NASA’s Ames Research Center and experience as an engineer and pilot for a remotely operated robotic submarine used to explore the under-ice environments in Antarctica, Stackpole has focused his efforts on making tools to explore the unknown more accessible. He founded OpenROV in 2012, making low-cost robotic submarines to democratize the exploration of underwater worlds. In 2019, OpenROV merged to become Sofar Ocean Technologies, creating a worldwide network of marine sensors to monitor the world’s oceans in real time. Stackpole starred in the National Geographic TV show, OceanXplorers.

Exploration technology, all the gadgets that give access to air, space and sea, the process of innovation, and cultivating a sense of wonder.

We are living in an age where technology has given us unprecedented ability to explore. Curiosity will dictate our future more than ability.

Infectious enthusiasm, Mechatronics, Prototyping, Spacecraft design, Underwater system design

Exploration tools have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. In 2012, David Lang and I co-founded OpenROV, a company that built low-cost underwater remotely operated vehicles to democratize ocean exploration. That project caught the attention of the producers of OceanXplorers, a television series about ocean discovery produced by James Cameron, BBC Studios, and OceanX. I was invited to join the show as a technology innovator, which gave me the chance to experience extraordinary things—from diving in a three-person deep sea submersible to witnessing rare whale interactions from a helicopter. Even with the world’s best technology, I’ve found that quick, creative problem-solving, and scrappy innovatoin is what truly makes exploration succeed. My story is that of a maker driven by curiosity and a passion for making new discoveries possible through ingenuity and design.

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