Stephen O. Sears grew up in South Florida, boating and fishing off the Florida Keys and in the Everglades. He studied geology at the University of Florida and earned a PhD in geochemistry from Penn State. Following a career as a petroleum geologist with Shell Oil in Texas, California, and Louisiana, Sears joined the faculty of the LSU Petroleum Engineering Department in 2005. Sears' interest in the German U-Boat campaign originated in 2001, when he was on an oil field vessel that discovered the sunken U-166, on the Gulf of Mexico seafloor in mile-deep water near the wreck of the torpedoed freighter Robert E Lee. The author of over forty technical, scientific, and general interest publications on geology, engineering, and higher education, Stephen O. Sears lives with his wife, Barbara, in Mandeville, Louisiana.