HANOVER, N.H. – In a career that has taken him from the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) to the National Science Foundation and back to CRREL as a contractor, George Blaisdell’s accomplishments as an applied snow and ice engineer are impressive.
He played critical roles in the design and construction of both the Pegasus glacial ice and Phoenix compacted snow runways on the Ross Ice Shelf near McMurdo Station, staked out the 1,000-mile long South Pole Traverse route, served as operations manager for the U.S. Antarctic Program, was the architect of snow foundations for major infrastructure at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and pioneered the use of snow for expedient protective structures and patching of conventional runways, among other accomplishments.
So, it’s no wonder that he was deemed worthy of membership in The Explorers Club, an international organization dedicated to the advancement of field exploration whose 3,500 members have included the likes of Ernest Shackleton, Sir Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay and Neil Armstrong.
The U.S. Army Engineer and Research Development Center’s Public Affairs Office recently spoke with Blaisdell about The Explorers Club, his admittance into it and what it means to him.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
ERDC PAO: What did you know about The Explorers Club before you became a member?
Blaisdell: I knew about The Explorers Club, but I hadn't really researched it a whole lot. I thought it was just for people that had done world firsts and recognized world-wide for their achievements. I knew that Sir Edmund Hillary and Ernest Shackleton and Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong and Jacques Cousteau and people like that were members.
Did you ever think you’d be Explorers Club material?
Blaisdell: Honestly, I never considered myself anywhere close to that caliber of accomplishment. But starting a couple years ago several of my colleagues who are Explorers Club members who were aware of my work, one from NSF and one from the private sector, encouraged me to apply and said they would sponsor me. And you need to be sponsored by current members to be considered. You can't just say, ‘Oh, I'd love to join. Here's my money.’
When I was filling out my application and listening to the encouragement from my two colleagues, I realized that, and I am sort of uncomfortable saying this, but my accomplishments when I look at them in whole, they are not trivial. I don’t expect them to be featured on the National Geographic Channel or anything like that, but when I looked at the club’s purpose and the kinds of people they desire as members, I thought ‘OK, I guess I fit.’
Why is it important that that a group like The Explorers Club recognize the contributions of scientists and field researchers, not just world firsts like you mentioned earlier?
Blaisdell: I should grab my dictionary and look up what it says “exploration” is. I think an awful lot of the public believes the word explorer means a first bagger. Or somebody that is doing something, maybe not intentionally just for the attention, but that’s a big part of their motivation. ‘I want to be the first to do this,’ or ‘nobody’s done that before,’ or ‘I want to be able to do this faster than somebody else.’ That’s the public's perception of what an explorer is.
I’m sure that the dictionary would agree that someone sitting in a laboratory staring through a microscope at a Petri dish full of little things running around, is an explorer as well. They are following their curiosity. They have a question about why something is the way it is, and they are trying to figure it out. So, The Explorers Club maybe originally was about people that had made the news and were significant because of what they did that nobody else had done before, but now it’s about the broader meaning of exploration.
How does it feel to have an honor like this serve as a career capstone of sorts?
Blaisdell: I feel blessed for a number of reasons. One of them is that while I have a pretty strong ego, and I have had to learn how to manage it, it is completely natural for me to forget that I am a Fellow Member of the Explorers Club or that there is an Antarctic feature named after me [Editor’s note: The Blaisdell Spur, a four-mile ridge on Mt. Beazley, is named after him].
I would never introduce myself with these accolades, but it is gratifying to have received them. It’s validating, but it is not essential to my well-being.
ERDC PAO: By your count, you visited Antarctica 33 times and spent about two years in total there. You’ve been to Greenland several times and to other off-the-beaten-path places. One wouldn't necessarily associate a career as a civil servant with being an explorer, but yours certainly has been. What advice would you give to younger scientists and researchers who want to combine both the public good and adventure?
Blaisdell: It’s terribly cliché to say this, but I strongly believe that the key to a successful, rewarding, honorable, and adventurous career is to follow your passion. This requires that you discover your passion, which is not always obvious initially and may shift with time. I am blessed to have discovered my love of snow and engineering at a very early age and have had the opportunities to pursue my understanding of the two at the same time. It is unfair that some passions don’t facilitate the same level of recognition or compensation. I wish that wasn’t the case. However, a career that feeds your passion and curiosity, and contributes to the betterment of the world, will always provide internal rewards that make you healthy and empowered.