Congratulations to the 2014 GLSPS Awards. We had three Award Winners again this year and here are the winners with their Nominations.
2014 Dive Community Award:
Dick (Grumpie) Hagen
Nomination:
Dick (Grumpy) Hagen Nomination for the Dive Community Contribution Award
If you have always participated in the recreational side of diving, chances are you may not be aware of
Dick (Grumpy) Hagen's contribution to our dive community. Although he was an instructor for Smith
Diving and Scuba Center for years, his quiet contribution to the diving community was through his work
with the county Sheriff's Offices doing the often not so glamorous jobs that someone needed to do.
Dick is no youngster. He started diving in 1958 taught and certified by Jack the Frogman before there
were national certification agencies. He started diving for Hennepin County in 1960 doing search and
recovery. He advanced to Divemaster and NAUI Instructor for Hennepin County by 1992. In his 53
years working with the County Sheriff's of Hennepin, Ramsey, and Washington Counties he has trained
countless deputies scuba diving and search and recovery techniques. He and his team have recovered
cars, planes, boats, trucks, trailers, motorcycles, bicycles, snowmobiles, hand guns and of course the
victims of every accident on local Minnesota waterways for those 50 years. When major disasters struck
Grumpy was there to help. He packed his gear and headed for New Orleans where he spent three
weeks doing recovery after hurricane Katrina. When the 35W Bridge collapsed Grump was there within
the hour to direct recovery efforts.
The walls of his home office are covered with awards of appreciation and professional
acknowledgements from the officers he worked with. Captains Awards, Service Awards, Minnesota
Sheriffs Association Volunteer of the Year for 2008 award, President's Volunteer Service Award,
awarded by President Bush are the short list of plaques and medals that adorn those walls. In his off
time he worked as an electrician for a boss that understood like his family that he was always on call
and would be called away at anytime to do his service. Whether it was to be a first responder for the
automobile accident near his job site or to do recovery for a boat accident on the Mississippi, Dick kept
his gear ready in his truck so he could be on his way at a moment's notice. In 2009, just one typical
year, Dick racked up over 2000 hours of volunteer time. Yes, I did say volunteer. For all or his field
work, all of his training time, and all of his time underwater groping in the dark, Dick never received one
dime. It was all volunteer work. His only reward was the satisfaction of giving closure to the relatives of
the victims of these accidents by returning their loved one's remains or completing the recovery task at
hand for evidence or lost vehicles or machines. In the words of Lisa Weis, who nominated him, "He is a
caring individual who inspires others to enjoy diving and to take that extra step in diving to recover the
bodies and evidence of crimes lost beneath the water."
You may think this award will be just one more award on his already full wall, but this award is given by
the dive community of his friends and peers that Dick serves. With it we are saying thank you Dick for all
of those families you have helped through their worst times. Thanks for being the one who stepped up
to do the job no one else wanted or was trained to do. Thank you for being that Good Samaritan who
was always thinking of others. For all of those hours you selflessly gave in service to our community,
the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society and your friends, the local dive community, with all due
respect and gratitude honors Dick (Grumpy) Hagen with the 2014 Dive Community Contribution Award.
2014 GLSPS Appreciation Award:
Jay Hanson
Nomination:
Jay Hanson is a farm boy from North Dakota who caught the diving bug at ten years of age. As a kid
he dove the local lakes near Morehead with Mick’s Scuba where he eventually was certified as an
instructor. He studied at UND and Colorado State University and received a degree in Psychology,
Sociology, and Criminal Justice, which of course is valuable when dealing with crowds of scuba divers.
He is a man of varied talents and has worked as an Ag pilot, scuba instructor, dive shop owner, soldier,
boat captain, and commercial diver as well as being a dedicated father of soon to be five kids. He is as
comfortable digging into a boat engine or welding deck support as wheeling a big boat into a tight slip
in the wind. Whether organizing a night dive to see spawning lake trout or diving North Shore, Apostle
Islands, or Isle Royale shipwrecks, Jay has shared his love of diving and respect for maritime history with
many of us on his scuba charters.
His talents and ambition have been invaluable to GLSPS. He has worked on National Register
Nomination surveys of most of the deep wrecks we have documented including the Benjamin Noble,
Robert Wallace, Olive Jeanette and Mayflower both as a boat captain and diver. Jay is the GLSPS Access
Chairman in charge of making sure the North Shore shipwreck buoys get deployed and retrieved each
season. He is often the GLSPS link to information about the current lake conditions as we decide if
weather and visibility is conducive for GLSPS diving projects. He has applied his shipbuilding talents
working on the Preservation, the Meteor Projects, as well as moving and welding the Madeira anchor
and hull piece displays at Split Rock State Park. GLSPS is not Jay’s only contribution to community
service. He has helped train Sea Cadets and has always made his charter service available to disabled
vets for lake tours.
Jay is chairman of Discover Rebreathers at the UMSAT Show and is a respected speaker at many
shipwreck shows and seminars. All of us enjoy his humor and friendly way of sharing his adventures
and diving stories. Last year we missed his normal active involvement is many projects as he and his
partners started a new business North Shore Scenic Cruises in which we wish him continued success.
For his active contributions to the UMSAT Show and GLSPS projects, and for always entertaining us with
his enthusiasm and wit, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society Board of Directors respectively
thanks and honors Jay Hanson with our 2014 GLSPS Appreciation Award.
C. Patrick Labadie Special Acknowledgement Award:
Kimm Stabelfeldt
Tom Brueshaber and Phil Kerber Displaying Kimm Stabelfeldt's Award Plaque
*Kimm was not present at the Awards Banquet Dinner*
Kimm Stabelfeldt Presented his Award from The GLSPS President Phil Kerber
at the
Ghost Ships Festival Three Weeks Later
Nomination:
If you have attended Midwest shipwreck shows, read books or magazine articles on Great Lakes diving
and shipwrecks, or seen a site map of a Lake Michigan shipwreck you have probably run across the
name Kimm Stabelfeldt. Kimm has been a scuba diver for forty years and has been sharing his passion
for shipwrecks with the diving community for all of those years. Although he holds advanced degrees
in Business and Computer Science and was an executive and consultant for various businesses, like
many of his peers his successful career subsidized many contributions to his true passion of shipwreck
discovery and archeology. In his diving career he has been captain and president of his Adventure
Diving charter business. He has written six books on wreck diving, and Great Lakes shipwreck guides.
He has participated in or organized around ninety shipwreck site surveys. He is or has been a member
of every Great Lakes area historic society or shipwreck preservation organization and in so doing has
supported their efforts to preserve Great Lakes history. Perhaps his crowning achievement was building
the Ghost Ships festival to the largest shipwreck show in the Midwest. As a director of the Great Lakes
Shipwreck Research Foundation his energy and perseverance built the show to a level where it funded
not only its own field projects, but also managed to give thousands of dollars in grants to the Wisconsin
Historical Society and other organizations including GLSPS for their shipwreck related projects. A joint
project between GLSRF and GLSPS funded the 2001 Put-It-Back project which put back the boiler to the
Pretoria shipwreck site in the Apostle Islands. The boiler had been salvaged and left as junk in Bayfield
for over thirty years. It was the largest Put-It-Back project ever completed in the area. Grants from the
proceeds of the Ghost Ships Festival have also funded numerous Wisconsin Historical Society Projects
and Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates projects which have led the discovery and documentation
of many new shipwrecks.
His love of shipwreck research led him to amass the largest private collection of Great Lakes historical
books and ephemera in the state of Wisconsin, which he has just donated to the Wisconsin Historical
Society. Kimm has been a speaker and exhibitor at numerous shipwreck shows including our former
Dive Into the Past Show. Although he is often in front of the audience, he is just as comfortable working
in the background of projects and shows planning , promoting, organizing, and making sure things run
smoothly. Tonight we are putting him in front of the audience once again to honor him for his many
contributions to our Great Lakes shipwreck preservation community, and for being one of the many
pillars of the amazing Great Lakes shipwreck preservation ethic. For his work, passion, and commitment
the Board of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society with our utmost respect and gratitude
honors Kimm Stabelfedlt with the 2014 C. Patrick Labadie Special Acknowledgement Award.
Congratulations once again to all the 2014 award winners.
Tune in for next years Awards Banquet Dinner to find out who the next awards recipients are going to be!
GLSPS Board of Directors
Phil Kerber
GLSPS President
Awards Banquet MC
Ken Merryman
Awards Chairman
UMSAT Show Chairman
GLSPS Board Member
Tom Brueshaber
GLSPS Secretary
Nominations Presenter