William Rand; Deep-Sea Pioneer
William Bradford Whitehill Rand, geological engineer and inventor of the first rotary drill rig that made sea exploration from a ship possible, has died, his daughter, Joan Moschovakis, said Monday.
Rand, 86, a Santa Monica resident, died at St. John’s Hospital on March 9, she said.
In 1966, Rand became the first director of the 20-year Deep Sea Drilling Project at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla.
“We were very fortunate to get Bill to work for us. He contributed so much to the technology of drilling into the sea from a vessel,” said Jeffery D. Frautschy, a friend and former assistant director at the institution. “The deep-sea project was an extremely ambitious program . . . and Bill deserves a lot of credit for that.”
Rand also worked for Shell Oil and Union Oil Co. as a field geologist and was a member of the National Academy of Engineering, his daughter said.
Rand is also survived by two grandchildren.
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