My family came in 1635 from England and settled in Williamsburg. Shortly after, they split up; half went to New England and half stayed in Virginia. I'm a Virginian Ballard.

His first graduate degree (MS 1966) was in geophysics from the University of Hawaii's Institute of Geophysics where he trained porpoises and whales. Ballard was placed on temporary active duty in the Navy in charge of finding and investigating the wrecks. He discovered the wreck of John F.

Kennedy's PT-109 in 2002 and visited Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana who saved its crew. Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30 1942) is a former United States Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of shipwrecks.