CRAIG RICH

Craig Rich is a veteran Great Lakes master scuba diver who began diving as a teen after taking lessons through the local YMCA in 1971. He is a certified Master Diver through Scuba Schools International with specialties in Wreck Diving, Search & Recovery, Stress & Rescue, Dry Suit Diving and Enriched Air Nitrox diving. He began researching shipwrecks in the late 1980s and actively diving them in 1988 with local diver Doug Welsch. Since then, he has completed 500 dives, mostly on Great Lakes shipwrecks.
Rich joined the Southwest Michigan Underwater Preserve Committee in 1996 helping see that organization through to official state designation as Michigan’s tenth underwater preserve in 1999. With fellow SWMUP members Valerie van Heest and Jack van Heest, and new members Ross Richardson and Geoffrey Reynolds, he co-founded Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates in 2001. In addition to his shipwreck research for the organization, he designed the MSRA web site and serves as webmaster. A regular speaker for local and regional groups and historical societies, he is also a frequent guest on local radio talk shows on the topics of diving and shipwrecks.  He has provided professional narration and voice work for MSRA’s documentary films as well as radio and TV commercials.        
Rich and his father started radio station WZND in Zeeland, Michigan, in 1971 and ran the radio station as a family business until the end of 1986. At WZND he was the morning deejay, news director and program director. From 1982 until 2009, Rich served as an elected city council member in Holland, Michigan, and for the last two decades, he has been an advertising consultant for the Grand Rapids Business Journal. Craig holds a business management degree from Davenport College and is married to Vickie. They have two daughters, Allison and Catherine.

Contact the author at: oldpirate@comcast.net