Stockton Rush, the chief govt and founding father of OceanGate and the pilot of the Titan submersible, was declared lifeless on Thursday after his vessel was present in items on the backside of the Atlantic Ocean, close to the rusting wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic. He was 61.

Mr. Rush oversaw funds and engineering for OceanGate, a privately owned tourism and analysis firm primarily based in Everett, Wash., which he based in 2009. In 2012, he was a founding father of the OceanGate Foundation, a nonprofit group that inspired technological improvement to additional marine science, historical past and archaeology.

Mr. Rush first appeared skyward for journey. In 1981, when he was 19, he was believed to be the world’s youngest jet-transport-rated pilot.

If the sky was the restrict, although, it was too confining for Mr. Rush.

“I wanted to be the first person on Mars,” he advised Fast Company journal in 2017.

Ineligible for Air Force pilot coaching due to poor eyesight, he mentioned, he deserted his dream of turning into an astronaut. Interplanetary journey didn’t appear economically viable within the foreseeable future. But he noticed potential in underwater journey, and he mentioned he was keen to tackle danger and bend the foundations to attain his objectives.

“I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed,” he mentioned in an interview with “CBS News Sunday Morning” final 12 months. “Don’t get in your car. Don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk-reward question. I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.”

Richard Stockton Rush III was the scion of one among San Francisco’s most well-known households. He was descended on his father’s aspect from two signers of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton.

He was born on March 31, 1962, in San Francisco. His father is chairman of the Peregrine Oil and Gas Company in Burlingame, Calif., and the Natoma Company, which manages condominium and different funding properties in and round Sacramento. His grandfather was the chairman of the transport firm American President Lines. Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco was named for his grandmother.

The Davies household’s inherited wealth was derived from Ralph Okay. Davies, who started at Standard Oil of California as a 15-year-old workplace boy and rose to grow to be the youngest director within the firm’s historical past.

Stockton, as Mr. Rush was identified, graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and earned a Bachelor of Science diploma in aerospace engineering from Princeton University in 1984. He acquired a Master of Business Administration diploma from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business in 1989.

During summer season breaks, he served as a DC-8 first officer, flying out of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for Overseas National Airways. The 12 months he graduated, he joined the McDonnell Douglas Corporation as a flight check engineer on the F-15 program and was named the corporate’s consultant at Edwards Air Force Base on the APG-63 radar check protocol.

Before founding OceanGate, he served on the board of BlueView Technologies, a sonar developer in Seattle, and as chairman of Remote Control Technologies, which makes remotely operated gadgets. He was additionally a trustee of the Museum of Flight in Seattle from 2003 to 2007.

In 1986, he married Wendy Hollings Weil, a licensed pilot, substitute instructor and account supervisor for journal publishing consultants. She grew to become the director of communications for OceanGate.

Her grandfather, Richard Weil Jr., was president of Macy’s New York, and she or he was the great-great-granddaughter of the retailing magnate Isidor Straus and his spouse, Ida, two of the wealthiest folks to die when the Titanic sank.

The growing older Mr. Straus, a co-owner of Macy’s, refused to board the lifeboat whereas youthful males have been being prevented from boarding. Ida Straus, his spouse of 4 many years, declared that she wouldn’t depart her husband, and the 2 have been seen standing arm in arm on the Titanic’s deck because the ship went down.

Information on Mr. Rush’s survivors was not instantly obtainable.

In his CBS News interview, Mr. Rush acknowledged that it was prudent whereas exploring the ocean at depths of 1000’s of toes to keep away from fish nets, overhangs and different hazards. But, he mentioned, security issues is also a drag on a swashbuckling profession during which danger paid returns not solely in earnings but additionally in unforgettable experiences.

“It really is a life-changing experience, and there aren’t a lot of things like that,” he advised Fast Company. “Rather than spend $65,000 to climb Mount Everest, maybe die, and spend a month living in a miserable base camp, you can change your life in a week.”

His journeys within the Titan introduced him the journey he craved.

“I wanted to be sort of the Captain Kirk,” he mentioned. “I didn’t want to be the passenger in the back. And I realized that the ocean is the universe. That’s where life is.”