Project Blue Judges
Katie Aube
Katie Aube is a multiple-subjects educator with an endorsement in literacy. She studied elementary education at Boise State University where she received her Bachelor of the Arts degree. She received her master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction, along with a preliminary multiple subject teaching credential from the University of San Diego. Katie continues to reside in San Diego, CA where she teaches, and spends most of her free time near or in the ocean. She is a firm believer that we must turn to the ocean for answers to our planet’s future.
Jack Baric
Jack Baric is an Emmy Award winning filmmaker who has produced a wide range of documentary films and short form videos. In addition to filmmaking, Baric spent numerous years working in magazine publishing and marketing.
Born and raised in the seaside town of San Pedro, California, Baric has deep family roots in the Los Angeles Harbor, which inspired two of his documentary films. His inaugural film, Port Town weaves together seven inspiring stories from San Pedro and Bloody Thursday takes viewers back to the waterfront docks of the Great Depression. It is Bloody Thursday, a documentary chronicling an epic labor struggle that won West Coast longshoremen their union, which garnered Baric his Emmy.
A graduate of the University of Southern California, Baric also made A City Divided, a documentary about the history of the USC vs. UCLA football rivalry. Baric used the film to launch Rivals United for a Kure, an annual philanthropic campaign, which has netted over $2 million for the cancer research hospitals at both universities. Baric also helmed the documentary, Searching for a Storm, about the 1990’s war in Croatia and Bosnia. The film premiered at the Zagreb Dox Film Festival where it received widespread coverage in European media. This project later earned Baric the opportunity to helm a four-part primetime documentary series about the war for HRT.
In addition to feature length projects, Baric produces short form videos and marketing strategies for clients with his company, Gopher Crow Entertainment. Prior to filmmaking, Baric spent fifteen years in magazine publishing and was the founding publisher of San Pedro Magazine. In addition, Baric spent nearly ten years on the board of the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce where he served as the director of both the economic and marketing committees.
Cynthia Hirschhorn
Cynthia Hirschhorn is an environmental designer with expertise in architecture, interiors, landscaping, programming and website production. Cynthia developed and implemented a successful fundraising and community building platform for parents at Harvard-Westlake School, created unycyn.com, a curated resource site for civic revitalization. She also created flowproject.la, a platform connecting civic arts and education partnerships, programs and projects supporting water resiliency. In addition, she founded Unycyn Civic Arts, supporting civic beautification through public art and urban gardens. She enjoys hosting salons on public health and art, civic environments and the LA River, leading garden tours and urban explorations, and organizing events celebrating community. Cynthia attended Yale College, has a BA in Cultural History and a Masters in Architecture from UCLA.
She is on the boards of River LA (championing a sustainable public space for the LA river), ProCon.org (promotes informed citizenry by presenting controversial issues in a nonpartisan format), and Actions Civics LA (aims to close civic engagement gap by promoting student engagement).
Jeremy Kagan, M.F.A.
Jeremy Kagan is an internationally recognized director/writer/producer with eleven feature film credits including the box-office hit Heroes, the political thriller The Big Fix, The Chosen (two time Grand Prize winner), and The Journey of Natty Gann (first U.S. film to win a Gold Prize at the Moscow Film Festival). His most recent dramatic feature SHOT is about gun violence in America www.shotmovie.org. Among his fifteen television movies are Katherine: the Making of an American Revolutionary, HBO‘s Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 ( ACE Award for Best Dramatic Special), Roswell: The UFO Cover-Up (a Golden Globe nominee), Color of Justice about racism, Bobbie’s Girl about a lesbian couple and Crown Heights which won the Humanitas Award for "affirming the dignity of every person." He also won an Emmy for Dramatic Series Directing and has directed over thirty various dramatic episodes including West Wing. Professor Kagan produced and directed the 10 part series Freedom Files and directed the pilot for the hit series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Via his Change Making Media Lab, www.cmml-usc.org, he has made dramatic, documentary and animated films for The Doe Fund which works with the homeless, for TreePeople and Bioneers; and CMML has won awards for videos on women‘s health, ADHD and sustainability. Professor Kagan served as the Artistic Director of Robert Redford’s Sundance Lab and has been on the National Board of the Directors Guild where he is Chairperson of its Special Projects which serves the 17,000 members with educational, cultural and technological information. His books Directors Close Up, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 are published by Scarecrow Press and he has written an interactive eTextbook called Keys to Directing - www.kesytodirecting.com. He is a Graduate Fellow of the American Film Institute, and has an MFA from NYU and a BA from Harvard University. He has taught master seminars on filmmaking across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, The Television Academy, The Writers Guild, and The Directors Guild.
Henry Krusoe
Henry Krusoe received a BFA in Studio Art and Philosophy from Vassar College in 2018 before joining Angels Gate Cultural Center as a resident artist in 2019. He lives and works out of San Pedro as he grows his art practice and invests in the local art community.
henrykrusoe.com
Michael Kelly
Michael H. Kelly currently serves as the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Coalition for the Economy & Jobs, a non-profit organization comprised of leaders in the business, labor, academia and non-profit sectors dedicated to ensuring a path for economic growth and the creation and retention of quality jobs in the greater Los Angeles region.
Prior to working with the Los Angeles Coalition, Mr. Kelly has worked in a number of high-level positions, both in the private sector and with California State government.
He currently serves on the board of directors of the Center for Sustainable Energy, chair of the FUSE Corps L.A. Advisory Committee, the chair of the Philanthropic Foundation for California State University, Dominguez Hills, and a member of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator’s Diversity in Entrepreneurship Committee, the Pacific Council on International Relations, a partner at Saving The West, advisory board member for WorkingNation, as well as an adviser to Transmosis. He was also the recipient of the EnCorps Teachers Program 2010 “Torchbearer of the Year” Award.
Michael received an Economics Degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Southern California. He was a Dean’s Merit Scholar at USC.
Michael is married to Mia Kelly and is the proud father of three daughters.
Camilla Townsend
Camilla Townsend is Emeritus, Founding Board Member at AltaSea, retired educator and foundation executive director. She has served the city of Los Angeles and the Harbor community in many other capacities as a professional educator and as a city and community volunteer leader. Ms. Townsend is a past Board Member of the San Pedro Historic Waterfront Business Improvement District (PBID) and the Board of Trustees to Marymount California University. She is the Founder and President Emeritus of the Port of Los Angeles Charter High School. She has also served as President of the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce from 2006 to 2011. Ms. Townsend has been appointed to numerous city and county commissions including the Harbor Area Planning Commission, the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners, the City of Los Angeles Commission for Children, Youth and their Families, and the Presidents’ Joint Commission on LAUSD Governance. She is a native Angelino and 35-year resident of San Pedro.
Joel Sill
I began my career as a music publisher and record producer. My initial involvement with film was as soundtrack producer for “Easy Rider”. In 1980 I became Vice President in charge of music for Paramount Pictures, I oversaw music for the films “Reds, 48 Hours, An Officer and a Gentleman” featuring “Up Where We Belong”, and “Flashdance” highlighting “Flashdance-What a Feeling”, both songs won Academy awards. In 1983 I moved to Warner Bros Inc., as Vice President of music for all filmed entertainment. At Warner’s, I worked on such films as “Blade Runner, The Killing Fields, Purple Rain, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, The Goonies, The Color Purple ” and introduced Madonna to film in “Vision Quest” with the # 1 recording of “Crazy for You”. I then partnered with director Taylor Hackford in the New Visions Music Group, where I supervised music for “Mannequin” which included the # 1 hit “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”, next was “La Bamba” which produced the # 1 single and # 1 and 5x multiplatinum soundtrack album by Los Lobos. I then partnered with Chuck Kaye previously Chairman of Warner Chappell Music, to form Windswept Pacific, a Joint Venture with Fuji Sankei Communications. We acquired numerous music catalogues, including Tommy James and The Shondells, Rod Stewart, Willie Nelson, The Four Seasons, Count Basie, The Isley Bros, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Little Anthony and the Imperials, The Shirells, K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Tito Puente, John Cougar Mellencamp and grew Windswept to the 4th largest independent music publisher. During that time I continued my film music production work with “Free Willy, The Fabulous Baker Boys, My Cousin Vinny, The Firm, Twister, Wag the Dog, Forrest Gump 8x multiplatinum, Terminator 3, Contact, Castaway, Bobby and Munich”. Currently I have a joint venture with BMG/Chrysalis publishing where my music ventures continue with Quincy Jones, Larry the Cable Guy-The Blue Collar Comedy Group, Bold Films (“Bobby, Whiplash”) and Summit Entertainment (The Twilight Film series). I have been a consultant for Sony PlayStation, Extreme Music and The Exclusive Media Film Group. With my wife Kim, we produced the Animal Awareness documentary “Saved in America”. Since 1972 I have been a scuba diver, underwater photographer and supporter for the preservation of Oceans. I studied Marine Biology at UCLA. As a published U/W photographer I was represented by Cousteau’s Living Sea Corp. I have assisted National Geographic’s The Pristine Seas team on projects with music for their vital productions. I continue to video, share images and advocate for the World’s Oceans which desperately need our care.
Project Blue Contributors
Dr. Robert Ballard
This person isAmong the most accomplished and well known of the world’s deep-sea explorers, Dr. Robert Ballard is best known for his historic discoveries of hydrothermal vents, the sunken R.M.S. Titanic, the German battleship Bismarck, and numerous other contemporary and ancient shipwrecks around the world. During his long career he has conducted more than 150 deep-sea expeditions using the latest in exploration technology.
Dr. Ballard has been a pioneer in the development of advanced deep submergence and telepresence technology. Although his Ph.D. is in Marine Geology and Geophysics, his scientific interests run the gamut from the volcanic, tectonic, and hydrothermal processes of the mid-ocean ridge to deep-sea archaeology and maritime history. Dr. Ballard also spends a great deal of his time involved in various educational outreach programs. In 2008, Dr. Ballard secured the E/V Nautilus, which has become his flag-ship for exploration, operated by the Ocean Exploration Trust and funded in part by NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration. Nautilus is connected by way of a high bandwidth satellite link to the University of Rhode Island’s Inner Space Center and from there to the world.
He has received prestigious awards from the Explorers Club and the National Geographic Society—the Explorers Medal and the Hubbard Medal, respectively—as well as the Lindbergh Award. In 2003 President George W. Bush presented him with the National Endowment for the Humanities Medal in the Oval Office of the White House. He is currently a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence.
EDUCATION:
University of California, Santa Barbara, B.S. Physical Science, Majors: Chemistry/Geology; Minors: Physics/Math;
University of Hawaii, Graduate School in Oceanography;
University of Southern California, Graduate School in Marine Geology; University of Rhode Island, Graduate School in Oceanography. Ph.D. Marine Geology and Geophysics Ph.D. in Marine Geology and Geophysics the CEO
Rustom Jehangir
This person is the CRusty Jehangir founded Blue Robotics in 2014, starting with a Kickstarter campaign raising more than $100,000 to manufacture an underwater robot thruster. The company now manufactures over 200 underwater robotic parts as well as the Blue Robotic designed underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle called the BlueROV2. The BlueROV2 sells at a price point well below competitors, making it accessible to all users, not just giant oil and gas companies.
Rusty has a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering both from USC.
