In Memory of Stan Cummings

1945-2021

About:

Stan had a vision and in 1977 founded Ocean Institute, renamed from the Orange County Marine Institute, which began construction in 1980. In 1984 he was elected President of the Dana Point Chamber of Commerce. In 1985 he brought the Pilgrim to Ocean Institute and was named Dana Point Citizen of the Year. He started the annual Tallships Festival in 1986 and it continues to this day. He led the way to create the Ocean in Motion van, bringing ocean education directly into classrooms. He brought the R/V Sea Explorer into the Ocean Institute family in 1994. As the years continued, the awards and recognitions mounted, including the inaugural Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Maritime Education from the National Maritime Historical Society in 1995 and the Sea Education Program of the Year Award from the American Sail Training Association in 1996. In 1999 the OCMI became the Ocean Institute, with the ground breaking on the $16.5 million Ocean Education Center in 2000. Today the Ocean Institute serves approximately 100,000 visitors each year and has continued to fulfill Stan’s legacy through providing programming that embodies the tagline he created, “Experience is the Teacher”.

Founders Day

 Admission into the Ocean Institute will be free for all in celebration of our founder, Stan Cummings. Each year we will celebrate his legacy in August!

The Stan Cummings Scholars Internship Program

We feel the most fitting way to honor and continue Stan’s legacy is through the creation of the Stan Cummings Scholars Fund. This supports scholarships for Ocean Institute’s year-long internship program for emerging marine scientists. This program engages passionate and talented high school students in research projects on the water and in our living laboratories, truly cultivating the minds that will undoubtedly grow to become the next generation of leaders in ocean research and education. The students receive robust guidance and support from Ocean Institute staff and outside researchers and culminates with a symposium in which participants engage the public through presentations of their semester projects.

With additional funding, Ocean Institute can provide more scholarships and support and we are hopeful that we will develop and discover the next “Stan Cummings”, who will go on to create life-changing programs, just as Stan did when he founded the Ocean Institute.