Rob Church
Marine Archaeologist
C&C Technologies
Rob lives in Lafayette, Louisiana where he works for C&C Technologies as a Marine Archaeologist. He has been with C&C for fifteen years. He and his wife Stacey, a K-6 Music teacher, have four kids, a number of dogs and cats, as well as peacocks. When not working on marine projects, Rob keeps active hunting, fishing and building things around his home.
At C&C Rob works on archaeological assessments mostly for Industry (e.g. oil, cable, and coastal construction), but through his discoveries he also gets to investigate deep wrecks on special projects. In fact, his work on Gulf of Mexico deep wrecks has garnered him a leading role in deepwater archaeology. Rob believes that his job allows him “the best of both worlds,” blending the priorities of Industry and the curiosity of archaeology.
Rob began his career at the University of Arkansas majoring in History and minoring in Biology. In graduate school at East Carolina University, Rob pursued Nautical Archaeology and planned to work in the Age of Sail leaning toward Medieval shipwrecks. But time and work have changed Rob’s focus to deepwater and his passion now tends towards making new discoveries that allow him to both find and study shipwrecks that are remarkably preserved at depth.
When asked about his most exciting shipwreck moment, without hesitation he replied, “the U-166—2001. It was my first dive on a deep wreck and the experience was surreal.” Then smiling he noted, “but my favorite wreck is the Robert E. Lee.” Interestingly both ships were lost in the same battle and sit not far from one another on the seafloor. Yesterday Rob logged his 50th deep water investigation and as fate would have it we studied the U-166.