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Hi. My name is Fred Hochstaedter. I'm looking forward to teaching this class. On this page, I thought I'd share a little bit about myself.
I've always been happiest outside. Maybe it's because of where I'm from.
I grew up in a town called San Anselmo. That's it in the photo, nestled under Mt Tamalpias, which is located a few miles north of San Francisco. My best childhood memories are of time spent running around in the hills back there.
When it was time to go to college, I went to Humboldt State University. Now it's called Cal Poly Humboldt because of its strength in the sciences. I majored in Geology and had a great time up in the redwoods.
After graduating from Humboldt, I went to graduate school at UC Santa Cruz. I spent a few years collecting and investigating volcanic rocks that we collected from the seafloor in the western Pacific south of Japan.
Here are a few pictures of me and some others on a research vessel in the western Pacific. This is in the late 1980's. You can see me studying maps, unloading rocks that we've just dredged from the seafloor, and excitedly taking photographs of them. I'm amazed looking at them today that there are no computers in any of the photographs. And no grey hair either!
Today, my partner, Catherine, and I enjoy visiting national parks and hiking. Here we are in Big Bend National Park in Texas. That's Santa Elena Canyon behind us. Mexico is behind my head, and the United States is behind her head.
Here I am near Yellowstone National Park. I'm pointing The Great Unconformity. There's more than a billion years represented between the crystallization of the granite below my finger and the deposition of the sandstone above my finger.
Today, Catherine and I live in Pacific Grove with our dog Louis and our two cats. That's Louis when he was a puppy a few years ago.
Here's a more recent photo of Louis (on the left) with a couple of his dachshund friends. Louis is a Minature Wire-haired Dachshund. Every day we go on a walk we try to decide who is more stubborn, him or me.
We also like going to museums. Here I am with my nephew Quinn at the Field Museum in Chicago. Behind us is the front leg of Maximo the Titanosaur, the largest dinosaur that ever lived.
Our favorite hobby is birding. Here we are along the Snake River in Grand Teton National Park, trying to figure out what birds are flying around. I serve on the Board of Directors of the Monterey Audubon Society. Check us out if you'd like to learn about birds.
Well, that's a little bit about me. I hope to learn a little bit about you as we go through the semester. I've been fascinated with the Earth and Ocean since my high school days. I look forward to sharing my passions, and hopefully passing some of them along to you as we spend time together in class.
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