George Peterson says no two days are the same in his job as director of dive programs at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California. One day he might participate in underwater research, the next speak at the state capitol, and the next teach children to scuba dive.

Peterson probably wasn’t thinking too much about job duties like those while studying political science as a University of Iowa undergraduate in the 1990s. However, he says he knew he likely wouldn’t use his degree in a traditional way. And even then he enjoyed outdoor adventures: he rode his bike from Boulder, Colorado, to Iowa City to attend his last class before getting his degree. The class? Bike touring.

And though Peterson didn’t grow up scuba diving, he did spend many summers on the water in Sioux City, Iowa.

“My family were pleasure boaters,” Peterson says. “That fostered my love of the water.”

He also grew up cheering for the Hawkeyes, although he started his college education at the University of South Dakota.

George Peterson

Hometown: Sioux City, Iowa

Degree: Political science, 1996

Job: Director of dive programs, Monterey Bay Aquarium

“I was going to study biology, but I just didn’t really find my way there,” Peterson says. “I always had an interest in the arts and humanities, so I fulfilled my dream and transferred to the University of Iowa.”

He enrolled at the UI as a biology major, but after meeting the late Joel Barkan while taking a political science class as an elective, Barkan suggested Peterson change his major.  

“I was interested in the nexus of social sciences, sustainability, and the hard physical sciences,” Peterson says. “I started to study political science with an angle toward development and sustainability. It was fun to carve out that education at the University of Iowa, and Dr. Barkan helped me do that.”

Peterson moved to Colorado after college. A friend had just become a scuba instructor and needed practice teaching, so Peterson volunteered to be a student. His first dive was in the Aurora Reservoir near Denver.

“I think I saw two crayfish and a couple logs and rocks, but I was hooked,” Peterson says.

He spent a few years working in the ski industry in Colorado during the winter and traveling to Central America in the summer, during which time he became a professional scuba diver. In 1997, he was offered the opportunity to manage a backpacker resort on Útila, an island off the coast of Honduras that is well known for scuba diving.

In 1999, Peterson opened his own hotel, restaurant, and dive shop with fellow UI graduate Thomas Poole (MA, journalism, 1992).

“I went for a month or two, and stayed for five years,” Peterson says.

They began to host universities from the United Kingdom that were involved in scientific diving, or diving that is performed as a part of research or educational activity. About the same time, he and Poole became involved with the nonprofit Bay Islands Conservation Association, hosting fundraisers to help fund the production of educational materials about sustainability for schoolchildren in English and Spanish.

Peterson says these two activities made him think more about how he wanted to use his education. He and Poole decided to sell the resort, and Peterson moved to California.

Soon after moving, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which has a mission to “inspire conservation of the ocean,” hired him for a three-month position to lead a new children’s program called Underwater Explorers. That 2003 program was so successful, the aquarium named him its first director of dive programs. Sixteen years later, Peterson, his staff, and Underwater Explorers volunteers celebrated having introduced 40,000 children to scuba diving and the wonders found below the surface of Monterey Bay. Additionally, 1,500 kids with disabilities have been able to experience scuba diving through the Days of Discovery program.

“I have about 4,000 dives in well over 20 countries, but the greatest thing I have done in the water is scuba diving with kids with disabilities,” Peterson says. “The ocean is the great equalizer. It’s amazing the level of confidence these kids gain from participating in the program. I can’t quantify in words what it means to the kids and what it means to us and the community.”

Along with inspiring in children a love of oceans and the life they contain, Peterson manages 50 staff divers and 110 volunteers who dive 8,000 times a year, every day except Christmas. Some of these dives are in the aquarium’s exhibits for maintenance, feeding, and animal health exams, while others are done around the world as part of research projects.

Peterson says despite his extensive experience, diving never gets old.

“The ocean encompasses about 70 percent of the world’s surface. The vast majority of habitable space is in the ocean. The vast majority of life on the planet is in the ocean. And we humans have only explored a tiny sliver of the top,” Peterson says. “Every single time I go diving in the ocean, I see something different, or a new behavior.”

Peterson says he doesn’t get back to Iowa as much as he’d like, but he plans to ride his bike across the country in the summer of 2019 with a group that includes a few UI grads, and they plan to cross Iowa with the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, better known as RAGBRAI.

Peterson admits his journey has been a winding one, but says many of his colleagues are in the same boat.

“The common thread between all of us seems to be that we found our passion and pursued it at all costs,” Peterson says. “Education doesn’t end when you’re done at a university. It’s a lifelong journey. At Iowa, I learned to mentally prepare myself for that journey, and I learned to be accepting and open to other ideas and people.”

He has some advice for today’s UI students.

“Don’t waste your opportunities,” Peterson says. “I don’t believe in luck. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. So be prepared. Follow your passion, and you never know where you’ll end up in life.”