We started the day with Geraldine Knatz. Geraldine is the port expert – having started as a student working in marine biology and working her way to serve as the Executive Director. She is now a professor at USC but spent the morning sharing ghost stories of Warehouse No. 1 and the plans for the original pier and cargo buildings. From the water’s edge, we looked at SpaceX holdings and Robert Ballard’s vessel that located the remains of the Titanic. Geraldine pointed out the tremendous volume of cargo that comes in and out of the Port of Los Angeles and the various ways that cargo works its way inland. We then made our way across the street to our friends at AltaSea, where we learned that sharks might sleep while swimming in a circle, as well as other fascinating things their research teams are working on involving geotagging the great whites that live off the coast of Southern California.
After lunch we crossed through the Port of Long Beach to meet with Ken Blake, a civil engineer working on the new Gerald Desmond Bridge. The new bridge will sit significantly higher to allow double stacked container vessels easy access. Thanks to his expertise our students had many engineering and strategic planning questions answered, and his navigational skills led us to a work site underneath the new sections of bridge so we could see the construction for ourselves. The plans and execution of the towers and innovative construction methods captured our imaginations!