Graham Hawkes

Graham Hawkes (born 23 December 1947) is a London-born marine engineer and submarine designer. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Hawkes designed 70% of the manned submersibles produced in those two decades. As late as 2007, he held the world solo dive record of 910 metres (2,990 ft) in the submarine Deep Rover.

Hawkes invented the first robotic machine gun, the Telepresent Rapid Aiming Platform (TRAP), the first weapon he designed. He had been inspired to create a safer way for police to deal with situations after watching a shootout in North Hollywood, Los Angeles on television.

In 1976, in association with OSEL of Great Yarmouth, UK, Hawkes designed the one-atmosphere deep diving suit Wasp. Two years later, he designed the one-man microsubmersible Mantis, which included remote manipulator arms. A Mantis sub was used in the James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only", which he himself piloted in a large tank at the Pinewood Studios, UK.

Hawkes founded the San Leandro based firm, Deep Ocean Engineering (DOE), in 1981 with Sylvia Earle, his wife from 1986 to 1992. DOE has produced over 300 ROVs.

By 1982, he had completed the Challenger submersible, capable of diving 5,000 feet (1,500 m).

In 1981, he designed the first of the Deep Rover-series of 1- and 2-man submersibles. A Deep Rover submarine was used in the 3-D IMAX film "Aliens of the Deep". In the same year, Hawkes founded Deep Ocean Technology (DOT) with Earle.

In 1985, the Deep Ocean Engineering team designed and built the Deep Rover research submarine, which operates down to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft).

An insight into his personality was provided by a scene that occurred during the sea trials of the first Deep Rover vehicle. Operating near San Nicholas Island, CA, from a converted mudboat the R/V EGABRAG, the sub had been launched after dark with Hawkes as pilot. He had dutifully reported the descent depth every 100 meters, down to 1000 meters on the Underwater telephone (UQC). Amongst the people on the bridge of the R/V EGABRAG, where the UQC was installed were the Captain and helmsman, his then wife Sylvia Earle, a reporter, cameraman and sound man from a San Francisco TV station, the Operations Manager from CANDIVE and the Diving Safety Officer from the University of Rhode Island, Phillip Sharkey. Hawkes reported, "1000 meters." There was a quiet ripple of applause on the bridge, and the reporter took the UQC microphone. He pressed the "push to talk" button and asked Hawkes, "What does it mean to you to be there, at 3000 feet?" The reporter was clearly expecting the flowery prose that Sylvia Earle was so justly famous for, but all he got from Hawkes was a clipped British, "It means my calculations were correct."

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