Peter Brunk

From 1954 to 1980, Peter served with the U.S. Coast Guard. He began his Coast Guard career serving on a buoy tender in the Chesapeake Bay and along coastal Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina.

Then in 1975, just in time for one of the most notorious and tragic shipwrecks on the Great Lakes, Peter jointed the USCG Atlantic Strike Team. The team was sent to spot oil spills from the eastern U.S. coast all the way to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Greenland. In November 1975, that duty included trying to spot an spill or wreckage from the lost Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior.

While on the Atlantic Strike Team, Peter also served from 1970-71 as captain on the LV Nantucket lightship (or lightvessel) sent out to mark the Nantucket Shoals south of Nantucket Island. These ships would substitute for the lighthouse that could not mark the open-water hazards. More than a dozen lightships would be assigned to this location, starting in 1853.

After retiring from the USCG, Peter took on a number of jobs, including for Industrial Marine Service, in part as an oil spill contractor; operating tug boat by North Carolina and the intra-costal waterway; and doing fishing and crabbing part time.

Hayes Scriven

Originally from Nerstrand, Minnesota, a small town just outside of Northfield, Hayes earned a history degree from University of Minnesota Duluth. After college he served as Executive Director of the Northfield Historical Society for 11 years and in 2017, he became the Director of the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center.

In 2019 became the Site Manager of Split Rock Lighthouse, taking over for Lee Radzak who held the position for 36 years. He has been married to his wife, Jenny, for 14 years and has two kids Aneliese (12) and Devin (9).

Hayes is an outdoor enthusiast that enjoys hunting, fishing, canoeing, kayaking and photography. If he is not at Split Rock, he is probably on a trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area or chasing pheasants/grouse or ducks.

Dave Mascarenas

Dave spent his 20+-year career on the Los Angeles Police Department, ending up LAPD Dive Unit sergeant.

Much of the dive team’s job consisted of finding and securing evidence of crimes. In the pursuit of that goal, Dave dove under moving ships, in underwater reservoir sheds, in dams, besides piers, in pipelines and, perhaps more tamely, into swimming pools.

Dave and his team came to their tasks with the attitude that they didn’t want anywhere to be considered a “safe” place to hide incriminating evidence. That attitude is what moved Dave to do one of his most famous dives – into the La Brea Tar Pits. It’s a dive both Dave – and later his wife – would consider one of the craziest things he’s done.

Dave retired just this year.