Undercurrents: January 2025
SeaGen's roundup of company news and perspective on all things climate.
Blythe Taylor, Chief of Staff
It’s been a choppy start to the new year. We’ve had some pretty abysmal weather in the UK, the U.S. has faced first fire and now snow, and we’re all watching a historic political storm in the form of Trump and his moves to roll back climate legislation. It’s hard not to feel despondent in the face of such definitive action, but at SeaGen we’re clinging on to the moments of joy and progress, and focusing Undercurrents this month on a more positive start to January.
It’s been a huge month for SeaGen with the testing and deployment of our foundational monitoring technologies and seaweed cultivation system. We’ll hold back on details and photos for now, but what we’d love to do this month is introduce you properly to our new engineering team who have made this all possible.
Late last year we made the tough decision to shift a large part of our operations down to the South West. Mike Allen, our Chief Science Officer and Professor at Exeter University, was thrilled to have the team closer, and our new premises in Paignton have on-site sea access, which is going to rapidly increase the pace of development and iteration.
We’ve been lucky enough to secure the skills of three amazing engineers. They’ve worked together for years in Dyson’s new concept team, so are more than familiar with the process of turning ideas into reality. It’s their inherent inventiveness, pace of progress and autonomy over projects which has proved so powerful for SeaGen over the last 3 months.
Steven Forbes is our Chief Technology Officer. For the last 4 years Steve has managed a team responsible for the generation and development of new ideas from market research and business case propositions, all the way to design and development activities. His can-do attitude, passion for sailing and the ocean means he’s a perfect fit for SeaGen, and we’re so delighted to have him head up our engineering team.
Queron Williams is our lead Electronics engineer. His focus has been on electromechanical integration on new concept projects, and he’s been responsible for design, prototyping and tolerance testing of water resistant electronic enclosures. His incredible skill set is going to be instrumental for us as we take our technology forward into increasingly hostile marine environments.
Finally, Alexander Munro is our Lead Robotics Engineer. Alex is a professional ‘super generalist’ with skills in mechanical design, Computer Aided Design, electronics, programming and prototype building. He has particular experience with motor and drive system design, which has already proved fundamental in the design and build of our prototype AlgaRover monitoring glider.
We’re thrilled to have them onboard!
SeaGen
Meet the team!
