LIEUTENANT COMMANDER P. TOD SCHATTGEN, NOAA
ASSUMES COMMAND OF NOAA SHIP RUDE

Lt. Cmdr. Tod Schattgen, took command of the NOAA Ship Rude on March 28, relieving commanding officer LCDR Andrew L. Beaver, NOAA.

Rude (pronounced Rudy) is a 90-ft. vessel that conducts hydrographic surveys along the eastern United States in support of NOAA’s nautical charting program. The ship uses side-scan sonar, multibeam sonar and divers to conduct investigations of submerged wrecks and obstructions to navigation. The ship is known for locating the wreckage of TWA Flight 800 and John F. Kennedy Jr.’s downed aircraft. Rude is home ported is Norfolk, Va.

Schattgen began his career as a NOAA Corps officer aboard the NOAA Ship Mt Mitchell in 1985. This sea tour included hydrographic survey operations on both the East Coast and in southeast Alaska; his second sea tour was in 1991, as executive officer aboard Rude. Land assignments included serving as ocean engineer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Wash., where he worked on projects involving hydrothermal vents in undersea volcanoes and the buoy arrays in the tropical Pacific that are the harbingers of global climate change. He was also the small-boat engineer at NOAA’s Marine Operations Center in Norfolk, Va.

In 1998 Schattgen resigned his NOAA Corps commission and joined NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey as the civilian navigation manager for the Inland Waterways, where he initiated several electronic navigational chart projects. In 2002 he returned to the NOAA Corps and served three months aboard Townsend Cromwell prior to reporting to Rude as executive officer.

Schattgen is a native of Lake St. Louis, Mo., where his father, Paul W. Schattgen, still resides. His wife, Kimmi, and children, Willie, Charlie and Abbie, currently live in Jefferson City, Mo.; his wife’s parents, Dave and Nancy West, reside in New Bloomfield, Mo. Schattgen holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering management/mechanical (1984) and a master’s in engineering administration (1996) from the University of Missouri-Rolla.

The NOAA fleet of research and survey ships and aircraft is operated, managed, and maintained by NOAA Marine and Aviation Operations. NMAO includes commissioned officers of the NOAA Corps and civilians. The NOAA Corps is the smallest of the nation’s seven uniformed services, and, as part of NOAA, is under the U.S. Department of Commerce. The Corps is composed of officers – all scientists or engineers – who provide NOAA with an important blend of operational, management and technical skills that support the agency’s environmental programs at sea, in the air and ashore.

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