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News and Media

News and Media

At Ocean Defenders Alliance (ODA), we cherish the opportunity to honor the incredible people who pour their passion and talents into safeguarding our oceans. This month, we’re excited to shine a spotlight on Jeff Milisen, an outstanding volunteer and devoted advocate for ocean conservation from the Big Island of Hawaii.

Jeff Milisen is a reliable and hard-working ocean volunteer!

Jeff has been volunteering with us since April 2019, and it’s been an amazing almost five years having this energetic and ingenious problem solver on our team.

Our Founder and President Kurt Lieber has the following words to share about Jeff:

I’ve been taking underwater photos for the last 40-plus years.  I’ve been seeking out other like-minded photographers for all that time – both to learn from and hopefully get to know personally. 

I first met Jeff Milisen about six years ago. He and his wife, Sarah Milisen, were going on some cleanup dives with ODA, and of course our topside conversations always turn to “what did we see down there,” and “who saw the most unique or outlandish.” They both have a keen eye out for weird critters. 

On one particular cleanup, we were removing thousands of pounds of debris out of Honokohau Harbor.  Jeff later told me that he had seen a “flying gunard”.  Excuse me!  A what?!?!

Since he was solely focused on debris removal, he didn’t have a camera in his hands.  BUT, he said, I have some pictures at home that I can show you. He sent me this shot that night. Really cool ocean creature.

2025 01 25 2022 01 29 Flying Gunard 1

It was then that I found out about the range of his photography skills. Turns out he and Sarah lead dives that are called “black water” dives. This is a calling for people who want to see some of the well-known beasts, as little babies. These fish, like swordfish, marlin and tunas, start out life as part of the plankton population. Lots of them are around 1/4 of an inch long.

In order to see them you have to go out for a night dive, when the water is pitch black, and huge numbers of these fish rise to the surface to feed. The reason they do this at night is to avoid being seen by predators during daylight hours.

Jeff has some images of these creatures that defy logic. He put out a book a couple of years ago that shows what they look like in their formative years. I highly recommend it.  It’s called: A Field Guide to Blackwater Diving in Hawai’i.

Along with those skills, Jeff is an excellent diver and has proven time and time again that no underwater removal task is too challenging for him. 

He and his buddy, Tony White, spearheaded the removal of 61 tires that were dumped on a reef system just outside of the Kona Harbor area last year. It was a huge undertaking, involving several dive boats, a barge, and dozens of volunteers. 

In case, you don't look at the photo gallery below, I'm going to share a photo of Jeff to show you his great sense of humor. He found this sealed beer bottle on a dive...and...drank it that night!

Jeff has removed ocean debris of all kinds!

I feel lucky to know Jeff and Sarah personally, but the oceans are the real beneficiaries of their time and dedication.

Captain Kurt

Dear Reader, after you read our Q&A interview with Jeff, be sure to look at the photo gallery below and watch his video interview!

Enjoy our Q&A with Jeff

Q: What drew your attention to the ocean and when?
A: I have been a naturalist my whole life, and my attachment to the ocean is an extension of that. I was the creepy kid who, when I was growing up, kept snakes. I skipped class to catch snapping turtles and go fishing. If I wasn’t in the woods, I was thinking about being in the woods.

I eventually picked up a job at a pet store that sold reptiles and aquariums, which quickly blossomed into working at a public aquarium. I was tragically underqualified, but I faked it and started learning my fishes and corals. Four years later, I had gone as far as the occupation would take me and moved to Hawai’i to get an education. I ended up with a bachelor’s and a master’s in bioengineering, studying a weird mix of cone snails and plankton.

Today, I am a data analyst for the local fish farm during the day and guide blackwater dives by night.

2025 01 25 2024 02 15 23 Crew removing debris 1 004 1200w wm

Q: What are your favorite ODA expeditions?
A: I’m on the ODA Advisory Board, so I appreciate all of the hard work that gets done, while also helping to steer the ship toward some of my favorite projects. Exploratory dives like Deep Step and the Hive are always fun, but I really thrive on moving immovable objects and the jobs that don’t seem possible. For example, ODA had been getting reports of a net that washed ashore at Pololū Valley, and nobody wanted to touch it. The only way out for that net is straight up a 500-foot sea cliff One night over drinks, a group of us finally shrugged and opted to check it out – after all, we figured, who else was going to do it? We’ve now done five grueling, sweaty trips to the site using as many as 30 volunteers at a time making as many as four trips each up the cliff! Each hike up is burdened by a backpack containing a sopping 50+pound chunk of net. Even though I’m not in the same shape as our younger volunteers and only managed two trips up, my Garmin activity watch registered that I burned 1,600 calories!

2025 01 25 2025 01 09 56 Crew w Catch o the day 1 PS LR 1200w wm

My ultimate favorite, however, was a tire field that my friend and I accidentally stumbled across a spot in Kailua Bay where more than 80 tires were scattered all over the deep reef. Tires are a trifecta of bad news. First, waves can throw them around like bowling balls against the corals. Second, they leech nasty chemicals that have been shown to be certain death for lots of fish species. But third, reefs need a lot more than just coral to be healthy. Reef invertebrates do a lot of things that keep reefs healthy, and tires trap snails and urchins that fall into the middle and can’t work their way out. The logistics of the mission were super hard. First, the tires were in over 60 feet of water, and they were half a mile offshore, so we needed a flotilla. Then, because they were industrial tires, they were huge and heavy, so we needed a crane. Finally, getting the tires back to shore, then hauling the tires, and finally finding a disposal service – this was where top-notch coordination brought everything together. The day went (nearly) flawlessly, and we removed well over half of the tires from the area. This day required lots of planning and an incredible amount of grunting to be successful. I love watching an intricate plan come together!

Editor's Note: Be sure to look at the photo gallery for the great series of pictures from this epic cleanup:

Q: Any funny stories to share from an ODA cleanup?
A: Note from the editor: Jeff may not remember this, but in April of 2019 at a cleanup of Honokohau Harbor he got crowned the “Carpet King.”  He focused several hours peeling carpet off the ocean floor and passing it to the volunteers on the dock. The young ladies told us that he pulled up so much carpet they could furnish their apartments! :)

Jeff w carpet

Q: Why do you like volunteering with ODA?
A: After college, I took up a spot on NOAA’s Marine Debris Project. We worked in teams to methodically clean the northwestern Hawaiian Islands. At the time, I considered it one of those defining times of my life because it made me feel good, I was good at it, and the team developed a sense of comradery.

There are scant few more direct ways to impact the ocean positively. There are a lot of ways that we can make choices that help the ocean refuse single-use plastics, eat less meat, opt to bike instead of drive a car, etc. The trouble is that we don’t often get to see those impacts happen, we just know that somewhere we are helping play our part in incremental change. When you first show up at an ODA site, it is usually a mess. After a liberal application of what my dad would call “elbow grease,” the site magically returns to some state of natural. We get to watch the reef improve over a few hours, and sleep well that night at a job well done.

The act of cleaning something is satisfying in itself, but it is the diversity of skill sets that work together that pushes the satisfaction over-the-top! One skill I’ve honed over many years involves moving big things underwater. By day, I work with divers on a fish farm, and through building large structures, we have gotten good at applying force to immovable objects. Outside of work, cleaning debris is the ultimate way to put this specific skill set to good use, which is why I like to include my coworkers whenever I can. ODA organizes everything so all I have to do is show up, do what I’m good at, and go home.

While job satisfaction is nice, our happiness is usually derived from the relationships that we foster. Making friends as an adult is hard. What makes ODA events so ripe for team building is the diversity of backgrounds that we all have, and then the commonality of working together for one specific purpose. We are an inclusive group where all are welcome. For that reason, most of my best friends are ODA volunteers, and ODA gives us the chance to work together to do something great for the ocean.

Q: Your wife Sarah also volunteers. Can you talk about the positives of volunteering together? Did one or the other start first with ODA or did you both “dive in” at the same time?
A: The special teamwork that Sarah and I get to share is an extension of the aforementioned comradery. She and I usually try to set some time aside on our fun dives to clean any debris we find. I don’t normally gravitate to big group events, but when Sarah started coming back beaming from ODA events, I wanted to get a piece of the action.

Sarah is a natural planner, a skill that she has applied to propel the Kona chapter of ODA to become a staple organization within the community. My role is increasingly advisory, pointing out the biggest projects I can think of and then figuring out how to make them happen. Together, we are unstoppable. [Note from the Editor: We love this!! And...it's hard to get a photo of these two together because they're so active, but here's Jeff on the top deck (middle, with hat on) and Sarah on the deck (standing in the front)].

ODA Crew before departure

Q: Aside from diving with ODA, where else do you like to dive and why?
A: I am a trained scientific diver and a working fish farm diver. For me, scuba is a tool, and like any tool, you can get good at using it by tackling a variety of tasks. I like to plan a dive ahead of time and then use it to build toward the next one. The more complex the assignment, the greater the feeling of success at the end. My favorite dives are those that blend exploration, task loading, and, when I can, science.

I’ve become known for spending my Friday nights blackwater diving. This is a dive that is conducted many miles offshore at night where we observe plankton and vertical migrators. For a naturalist who likes to explore like me, this dive scratches a lot of itches. I started by simply taking photos. Then, I sent the photos to experts to help me identify the animals. I eventually started taking data on what we saw every night. These photos and information combined to make a series of online articles, two peer-reviewed papers, and now a book.

When blackwater dives are really good, they are the best diving on the planet, but some of my most memorable dives have been even more remote.

I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in a few NOAA cruises to the Pacific Remote Islands and the Northern Marianas. These islands are protected from the nearest humans by thousands of miles of open ocean. They are the most isolated islands on the planet and, thus, some of the most pristine. One of the reasons the U.S. government keeps them protected is to use as a control to compare the effects of a changing planet against the anthropogenic stressors found near human populations. When we are there, we are working to collect as much data as we can. So not only do we get to dive in some incredible places, but we get to document what is happening. The stories of global change that we get to witness hit hard.

We hope you enjoy Jeff's video interview:

Isn't Jeff's story inspirational?! If you're ready to help out on a cleanup we need all kinds of volunteers, not just divers. We have many opportunities for people who don't scuba dive such as helping as a deckhand on the boat or doing an onshore cleanup. If you would like to help from where you are, your finanical support is just as important - thank you!

Email us to volunteer or Donate to help keep the oceans debris-free!