David Driver has 36 years of experience working in the physical oceanography realm, 28 of which were spent working in the offshore oil and gas industry. Before retirement, his primary responsibility was the development of environmental (metocean) criteria for the design, installation, and operation of offshore production facilities (spars, semis, TLP, etc). He collected and analyzed meteorological and oceanographic data from a variety of sources, including measured data from company/industry monitoring programs, government and academia monitoring programs, and proprietary numerical hindcast data. He served as BP’s Principal Metocean Engineer and Technical Authority for the Gulf of Mexico, Trinidad, and Brazil.

Driver has been active on the GCOOS Board of Directors since 2012, participating on the Observing Systems Committee and the Glider Task Team and serving as Board Chairman. BP and the industry routinely send real-time GoM current data to NOAA-NDBC and are actively working on the development of operational forecast tools aimed at better prediction of the Loop Current (LC) and it associated Loop Current Eddies (LCE). He has worked closely with Scripps Institute of Oceanography with Spray glider deployments and offshore HF radar installations, data from which are/will be shared. His M.S. – Physical Oceanography, is from Old Dominion University.