Paul Kronfield

Born in Toledo, Ohio. Musician playing clarinet and saxophone. Began SCUBA diving at 16 with a local diving club. Made night time ice dives to 90 foot water depths. Attended University of Toledo, majoring in Chemical Engineering, but dropped out in 1966 to volunteer for service in the US Navy. Had a student deferment, but the Vietnam war was raging and he felt enlisting was the right thing to do. Boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, in Illinois. Assigned to advanced electronics schools there and was ordered to sonar school in Key West Florida. Upon graduation was ordered to USS Brownson DD-868, a destroyer based out of Newport RI. Volunteered as ship diver to retrieve practice torpedoes in the open sea, and inspect the ship hull. Was selected for NESEP in 1970 (Naval Enlisted Scientific Education Program). After graduation from Naval Academy Preparatory School in Bainbridge MD, was assigned to University of Washington (Seattle) to study oceanography. Graduated with BS in physical oceanography, minors in physics and mathematics in 1973. Moved to Athens, Greece to work on a NATO funded study of the Saronic Gulf 1973-1975. Joined Western Geophysical in Houston in 1975 as chief oceanographer and worked aboard research vessels Hollis Hedberg and Anne Bravo in the Gulf of Mexico and Gulf of Alaska. Began consulting as oceanographer and geophysicist in 1977 for Texas Pacific Thailand on the first 3D exploration project in the Gulf of Thailand. Incorporated Oceanprobe, inc. that year and ran the company until 1989 when he moved to China for work on the Yangtze River in Hunan Province. During that period of time participated in the search for ancient Helike in Greece, as well as discovering the remains of the lighthouse of Alexandria offshore Alexandria Egypt. Cleared out a Soviet minefield in the Gulf of Suez. Worked on an Explosive Ordnance Disposal project in Iraq on the Shaat al Arab waterway and Faw Peninsula. Measure the water mass movements through the Suez Canal. Married Weihong in 1991 in Guangzhou China. Companies Oceanprobe and Geoprobe conducted many diverse projects over the decades, involving diving, sonar, geophysics, and oceanography in Australia, Tasmania, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Bali, China, Korea, Tunisia, Spain, Panama, and other locations in and around the USA. Paul Kronfield and his wife, Weihong now live on their cattle ranch in the Texas Hill Country.