Fran Rowe Recognised with Ocean Science and Engineering Award
Fran Rowe, technical advisor of Rowe Technologies, recently received the Lockheed Martin Award for Ocean Science and Engineering at the Oceans 2014 MTS/IEEE conference in St. John’s Newfoundland, Canada. The Lockheed Martin-sponsored award is presented to an individual who has demonstrated the highest degree of technical accomplishment in the field of marine science, engineering or technology.
In 1982, Fran Rowe partnered with Kent Deines and founded RD Instruments. The result of this work introduced the industries first Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) capable of measuring current profiles to extended ranges. This was followed shortly after by the development of the first commercial Doppler Velocity Log (DVL), used for precision underwater navigation. These devices are now everyday tools for numerous scientific and engineering application areas including hydrology, oceanography, environmental, oil and gas, directional waves measurements and underwater navigation applications. The end result is a multi-million dollar industry consisting of several different companies (SonTek, Nortek, Link Quest as well as his current venture Rowe Technologies) all originating from Fran’s initial partnership.
In addition, to the developments mentioned above, Fran and his team pioneered several core technologies including the industry-famous Broadband ADCP, which to this day still represents the industry standard for current profiling accuracy and precision. Fran led additional advances in underwater acoustic transducer technology and patented the 2D phased-array transducer. This innovative instrument advanced the use of very large, low-frequency ADCPs for long-range current profiling applications and helped support scientific research for monitoring deep ocean currents in remote locations. The technological innovations led by Fran are well documented in numerous technical papers and trade publications, US and international patents and conference proceedings. Fran has made invaluable technical contributions to the oceanographic industry and all areas where ADCPs and DVLs are indispensible tools for everyday use.
