Captain Joel S. Fogel
Captain Joel S. Fogel, 60, was born and raised along the New Jersey shore near Atlantic City, NJ. He developed an interest in the sea as a young man working aboard his grandfather's commercial fishing vessel, the Blue Fish, from the age of 10 through his teens.
While studying at the Atlantic City High School, he worked as a lifeguard for the beach patrol and developed skills in water rescue, CPR, and surf boat handling. During this time, he learned to hunt and fish along the meadows and uplands and began to develop his current appreciation for the environment.
In 1963, he attended the University of Hawaii on Oahu, where he studied Marine Zoology and worked as an assistant curator for the Oceanic Institute/Sea Life Park. There, he met and worked with Albert Falkow, the famed master diver for Mr. Jacques Cousteau, on the undersea project: CONSHELF and Man In the Sea, in preparation for the first Lunar Landing.
During this period, he also traveled extensively throughout the South Pacific, first as Vice President of Marketing for the FOGEL Commercial Refrigerator Company, a 100 year old family manufacturing firm with factories throughout the world. He established licensing agreements and distributors in Japan with Mitsubishi, India with Frick, China with Bohai and Hussmann in Europe.
Following this, he single-handed a 30-foot Danish Folkboat, the Manuiwa Kai, from Hawaii throughout the South Pacific and detailed his journeys in, SOUTH SEA ODYSSEY.
In 1969, he motorcycled from Alaska to South America for one year and 10,000 miles, writing and taking pictures for several magazines including Cycle Guide and Motorcycle World. During this trip, he met his present wife, Coty, of nearly 35 years. He currently has one son, four daughters and four grandchildren.
Since the 1970's, Captain Fogel who is a 100-ton US Coast Guard licensed captain, officer in the Merchant Marine, a licensed pilot and a certified basic flight instructor, has led nearly two dozen major expeditions around the world, working with Smithsonian Institute, National Geographic, and the Explorers Club.
He has carried the Explorers Club flag in 1973 on the Omo River Expedition in Etheopia to film tribal groups (A VOYAGE TO THE STONE AGE), in 1986 on the Maroni River along the Amazon for an archeological survey and in 1987 on the Yangtze River Geological Expedition in China (RIDING THE DRAGON'S BACK-Macmillan).
Captain Fogel has been a member of the Explorers Club since 1972, when Mr. Lowell Thomas nominated him following his 1970 paddle by kayak from New York to Miami along the Intracoastal Waterways to film and document water pollution. For several years, he traveled throughout the US college circuit lecturing on OUR POLLUTED WATERWAYS, wrote FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS: The Destruction of the Eastern Seaboard, and testified before the US Congress to lobby for legislation for the 1972 Clean Water Act.
In 1970, he founded the non-profit volunteer water monitoring organization, WATERWATCH International. As it's President and Executive Director, he continued to push for educational programs for students and worked with other national environmental organizations to promote the River Project, Adopt-a-Stream and the Surf-Riders Foundation.
As President of the Atlantic County Citizens Council for the Environment (ACCCE), he joined in a class action lawsuit with the New Jersey Shell-Fisherman's Association against the City of Atlantic City for polluting the back bay waters in 1972. His organization won the suit and helped to establish the EPA award winning regional sewerage facility, the Atlantic County Utilities Authority which has significantly cleaned the waters of our coastline in the region.
Captain Fogel continued to lead environmental expeditions to monitor the water quality on the Volga River in Russia, down the Mississippi River from St. Paul to New Orleans, and along the West Coast from Seattle to San Diego by kayak. He proceeded these trips in 1990 with another paddle from New York to Miami to update his database of water quality information and to promote the BEACH BILL which called for uniform water quality standards throughout the United States.
He has received three Presidential commendations for his environmental work. In 1986, following the rescue of a young woman from a car which ran off a bridge into 40-feet of ice water in the back bays of New Jersey, he was nominated for the Carnegie Hero Award.
Currently, Captain Fogel sits on the boards of several environmental and non-profit organizations such as the NJ Tourism Council as Chairman of the Eco Tourism Committee, Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, the Philadelphia Explorers Chapter as Chairman of the Environmental Affairs Committee, SEA-WAYS as Scientific Advisor and as former Chairman of the Avian Rehabilitation Center. He presently sits on several advisory committees for watershed and ground water management.
His current concern is the recycling of wastewater and the preservation of ground water.
His pastimes include the piano (he was trained and schooled as a concert pianist and played professionally), acting and modeling (he has been a member of the Screen Actors Guild for 15 years and has appeared in over a dozen major motion pictures as well as national TV commercials and brochures for many of the world's largest corporations such as ATT and IBM), and water sports (windsurfing, sailing, SCUBA diving-master diver, and kayaking).
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