Interviewer(s): D. Austin. Lafayette, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

I was referred to Dean Whitaker by Maryann Galletti. Dean worked for J&J Diving in the 1960s. I tracked Dean down in Lafayette and met him at Charlie G's restaurant there. We began the interview in the restaurant and then went over to his office to continue talking.

Dean Whitaker is from New Orleans. His parents were migrant farmworkers and would travel from place to place picking crops. Dean left home when he was 14 years old and found a job unloading produce trucks and living under the docks in New York. He stayed there two years and then went to Los Angeles doing similar work until he turned 17 and joined the U.S. army. He was inducted in December 1949 and was sent to Korea from 1950 to 1952. He had spent several years sailing around the world and motorcycle racing when he came across a commercial diving school. He enrolled in the school and began working right away. He worked salvage and construction jobs around Los Angeles for several years and then returned to the Gulf of Mexico. Dean worked for J & J Diving, Dick Evans Divers, and Dive Con, where he ended up in the North Sea. He left Dive Con shortly after the company was bought by Oceaneering and worked as a pilot. In 1990 he bought a project management company and continues to work off and on in the Gulf.