A professional geologist, Louise Hose, PhD, and has dedicated her life to the exploration and study of caves around the world. She is a Fellow and Life Member of the NSS as well as a 36 year Fellow of TEC. She has served in many leadership positions the caving community to include a Director of NSS and is currently serving as the Treasurer of the NSF.

Louise has led and carried the Explorers Club flag to Mexico and Oman as well as participating in many other flagged expeditions.

She spent her early career as a university professor and finished her career as a Senior Scientist for the National Park Service. With NPS she developed and ran the National Cave and Karst Research Institute.

As field geologist, she has explored and documented “virgin” cave passages in Greece, Mexico, Oman, Papua New Guinea, as well as many caves in the United States.

She has written 15 articles for peer-reviewed scientific publications, as well as hundreds of articles, reports, books, and presentations in other scientific forums.

Twice, her work has been published in National Geographic.

Jim has been a Fellow member of TEC for 46 Years (FN’79).

And a Fellow of the National Speleological Society
He was honored by the NSS in 1990 and awarded the NSS’s highest award for cave exploration, the Lew Bicking Award.

Like Louise, Jim has dedicated most of his life exploring and studying caves around the world. What I mean “Most’ started caving a age 4 in a sandstone cave in St. Paul, MN.

As he got a little older, he would ride his bicycle throughout the Twin Cities looking for caves. Unfortunately, Minnesota is not a state with extensive cave resources so it was a number of years before he was reintroduced to caving.

Eventually he connected with the National Speleological Society (NSS) in Colorado in the 1970s.

At that time, Colorado cavers were interested in pushing beyond a sump in Spring Cave but most did not even own a wetsuit. Pisarowicz, of the other hand, owned a wetsuit, was a certified SCUBA diver, and had experience diving in cold water under ice.

With this background he immediately joined the exploration of Spring Cave, completing multiple sump dives, far back into Spring Cave.

After that project, his caving interests blossomed across the United States, Mexico and Central America, and eventually to Papua New Guinea.

In 1984 he became a Park Ranger for Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota. And led numerous survey teams into the cave including mapping the 40th mile. Today Wind Cave is one of the top ten longest caves in the world with over 154 miles of mapped passage.

Jim has published nearly 300 articles on cave exploration.

He and Louise Hose*, were the initial co-editors of the Journal of Cave and Karst Studies which has the largest circulation of any journal of speleological research.

After the initial discovery and exploration of Cueva de Villa Luz near Tapijulpa, Mexico, Pisarowicz founded and directed the NSS’s Caves of Tabasco Project. There, teams of explorers and researchers began unraveling the toxic atmosphere in the cave and its chemo-autotropic ecosystem. The ground breaking work in Villa Luz has implications for the search for extra-terrestrial life. NASA supports research in Villa Luz.

Pisarowicz is an award-winning wildflower photographer. He recently published two books of Colorado wildflowers with co-author Mary Menz. His pictures have appeared in US News & World Reports, Time, New Scientist, Weekly Reader, and various publications, textbooks, and field guides.

NOTE: Even though Jim has been a TEC Fellow for 46 years, he has never been here to TEC HQ. Jim has brought with him something very special, and at the end of his presentation you’ll get to see what it is.

Michael is a caver and journalist known for his work on caves and cave science. His books include Cave Passages, Dark Life, Caves: Exploring Hidden Realms, and Hidden Nature, which was a 2021 finalist for the Reed Environmental Writing Award.

His cave-related stories have appeared in The New York Times, Audubon, Sports Illustrated, National Parks, and many other magazines and newspapers. He has led expeditions for the National Speleological Society, the Cave Research Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution. 

He is a Fellow National of The Explorers Club and a Fellow of the National Speleological Society and the Cave Research Foundation, as well as recipient of the NSS Spelean Arts and Letters Award.

Paul is the longest-serving NASA Flight Director in history.

He was in a leadership position for 38 Space Shuttle missions, nine of which he served as the Lead Flight Director.  Paul was responsible for development and training for the mission, as well as real time execution of all facets of the shuttle flight. 

He Coordinated the work of thousands of mission planners, flight controllers, trainers, and astronauts.

Paul spent twenty years in the center seat of Mission Control.  Before that he spent twelve years as a systems flight controller, and more years spent as an International Space Station Flight Director.

Paul retired 2013 with over 50 years of aviation experience as an aerospace engineer, aircraft builder and pilot. 

The scope or his career has ranged from restoring classic light aircraft to planning and leading manned spaceflights. 

His love of flying machines dates back to early childhood, and he became involved with full-sized aircraft as a teenager, rebuilding J-3 Cubs with an FBO in Minnesota. 

He earned his degree in Aeronautical Engineering with a specialization in aircraft design and flight testing from the University of Minnesota in 1982. 

He has flown over 140 different types of aircraft, many of them experimental, and many of those on their first flights. 

Dye is a licensed Commercial pilot rated for single and multi-engine, instrument, seaplanes, gliders, and several experimental jet aircraft.

He is also a licensed airframe and powerplant mechanic as well as an FAA Designated Airworthiness Representative for Experimental Aircraft. 

He has built five aircraft (an RV-3, RV-8, Dream Tundra, Subsonex, and an electric Xenos motor glider) and is working on his sixth (an F1 Rocket).

Paul has been the recipient of many prestigious awards including the Johnson Space Center Director’s Commendation, the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, and four NASA Exceptional Service Medals.

He is a prolific writer and editor in the experimental aircraft world and is currently Editor at Large for Kitplanes Magazine. Paul is the author of “Shuttle, Houston: My Life in the Center Seat of Mission Control.”

Paul Dye is a Lifetime Member of the EAA, a Fellow of the Explorers Club, and was inducted into the Minesota Aviation Hall of Fame in 2024.

Larry and Olga enjoy creating photographs when diving in caves and caverns. They also explore shipwrecks worldwide, including their dark interiors. Besides diving during the day, they enjoy photographing the behavior of marine life at night, including giant Manta Rays in the waters of Kona, Hawaii. Join Larry and Olga as they tell tales and show photos of their favorite dark places under the sea.

Larry Cohen is a past president of The NYC Sea Gypsies, co-founder of NYUPS, and is the US Editor of X-Ray Magazine. Larry’s photos have been published internationally, including Sport Diver, Scuba Diving, Alert Diver, Diver, Immersed, Advanced Diver, Sub Aqua Journal, and Northeast Dive News. To see more of his work, visit www.liquidimagesuw.com

Olga Torrey is a nature photographer below and above the water. She is a fine artist and a life member of the Art Students League in New York City. She has been published in InVetrum, X-Ray Magazine, Northeast Dive News, The Ultimate Depth, PNG Air’s Flight magazine, and many other magazines and websites. To see more of her work, visit www.fitimage.nyc

Mammoth Cave, KY is the longest cave system in the world. No other cave comes anywhere close.  Over 410 miles of mapped cave and still going.

Roger Brucker is one of the world’s experts on Mammoth Cave. He has been an active cave explorer all his life and has participated in and chronicled expeditions in Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky for seven decades. 

He is the cofounder of the Cave Research Foundation (CRF). An organization of cavers and scientists who oversee the exploration and mapping of Mammoth Cave.

Roger and fellow explorers are responsible for many discoveries throughout the second half of the 20th century which led to Mammoth Cave being recognized as the world’s longest cave.

Roger wrote the book “The Caves Beyond” as well as “The Longest Cave”and “Beyond Mammoth Cave: A Tale of Obsession in the World’s Longest Cave”.

Roger has consulted for National Geographic Television and has been interviewed on NPR and CBS Evening News

Roger is also the coauthor of “Trapped! The Story of Floyd Collins”.  This book helped inspire the acclaimed stage musical Floyd Collins by Tina Landau and composer Adam Guettel.

This play is now opening on Broadway next month in April.

Roger is now the author of the historical novel “Grand, Gloomy and Peculiar: Stephen Bishop at Mammoth Cave”.  This is also the title of his presentation today.  A true story of a slave who not only guided tours at Mammoth Cave during the early 19th century, but explored farther into the cave than anyone had done at that time.

Grand, Gloomy and Peculiar: Stephen Bishop at Mammoth Cave

Mammoth Cave in Kentucky has been a popular tourist attraction since the early 1800s, long before it was a national park and was known to be the world’s longest cave. During those early years, humans had only ventured a couple of miles into the cave, using torches and lanterns. Stephen Bishop changed that.

Bishop was a Black slave, acquired by Mammoth Cave’s owner, attorney Franklin Gorin, in 1838 and was soon put to work guiding visitors into the cave. Known for his intelligence and sense of humor, Bishop became popular among tourists and was allowed more personal freedom than most other slaves. When he was not guiding tourists, Bishop explored the cave on his own, describing it as “grand, gloomy and peculiar” (a phrase lifted from Napoleon Bonaparte’s eulogy by Charles Phillips) and pushing farther than anyone had ever gone at that time. He created one of the first maps of Mammoth Cave, which, though crudely drawn by modern standards, was useful for navigational purposes.

Stephen Bishop was one of the most important early explorers of Mammoth Cave and is regarded as one of the greatest cave explorers in history. As such, he is worthy of induction into The Explorers Club’s Society for Forgotten Explorers.