Our Officers

President: Dr. Tony Gow

Dr. Tony Gow is an highly regarded glaciologist and a veteran of ice core research, both in the field and the laboratory where he has focused primarily  on physical properties analysis. He has also maintained a diversified approach to ice in all its forms including significant research on the physical characteristics of lake, river and sea ice.  Following his initial involvement in 1957-58 as a team member of a United States core drilling project in Antarctica, he has subsequently participated as a principal investigator in a number of deep ice core drilling  programs, including a 1967-68 project at Byrd Station, Antarctica that penetrated bedrock at a depth of 2164m.  Additional core drilling  programs in which Tony also participated included the second Greenland Ice Sheet Project (GISP2) that penetrated the bottom of the ice sheet at 3054m depth in 1993 and the 1997-99 project at Siple Dome, Antarctica that also reached bedrock at 1004m depth.

Tony's contribution to polar glaciology has been recognized by the 1994 award of the Seligman Crystal from the International Glaciological Society, election in 1998 to Fellowship in the American Geophysical Union, the 2001 award of the Goldthwait Medal from the Byrd Polar Research Center, the American Polar Society award in 2004 and the naming of an Antarctic mountain after him, the 1770m Mt. Gow.

Originally from Blenheim, New Zealand, Tony received his university education at Victoria University of Wellington and was awarded a D.Sc. in 1973.  Though retired from the U.S. Årmy Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory since 1998, after 41 years of service, Tony still retains an active role in the laboratory's ice and snow research program.

Vice-President : Liesl Schernthanner

Having grown up with an Austrian father, Canadian-Mainer mother, and five siblings in Sun Valley, Idaho, Liesl Schernthanner learned to enjoy hard work, great outdoors, snow, and sunshine – all great precursors to working in Antarctica. Years of successful ski racing earned her a full-ride scholarship to University of Alaska Anchorage, where she was an All-American Athlete and student of Economics and Anthropology. Upon graduating, she did applied human-environmental research for Impact Assessment, Inc. in Alaska, Washington, North Carolina, and Nevada. In 1995, however, she took a sabbatical from research to work as a contract laborer in Antarctica, and never went back to her “real job.” Antarctica--the place, people, and lifestyle--captured her interest and she continued working for station operations at McMurdo, field camps, Palmer, South Pole until recently when took on a conservation role with the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. Among her ice work titles, she has been a Fuelie, Fuels Foreman, Operation Manager, Winter Site Manager, Communications Supervisor, and Conservator, but in life, she can also claim to be a ski coach, sports instructor, tutor, chimney sweep, sales associate, property manager, and factotum.

Liesl now spends most her time in Obsidian, Idaho, with her Welsh husband, Michael David Powell, another Antarctic sojourner. She has done 2 winters and 16 summers in Antarctica, met her husband at South Pole, and has also spent time at the bottom of the earth with two of her sisters. She remains passionate about the Antarctic and feels quite lucky to have had the experience of being there – a common feeling for Antarctican Society members.

Acting Treasurer: Tom Henderson

Tom Henderson has been a member of the Antarctican Society since 1983. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering. His career has included time with the U.S. Geological Survey, the New Mexico Highway and Transportation Department and the New York State Office of Homeland Security.

He made his first trip to Antarctica in 1979 as Topographic Engineer with the USGS field survey team on the Ellsworth Mountains Project and returned in 1981 as team leader on the Northern Victoria Land Project. After completing the 1981-82 summer season, he went immediately to Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station where he joined the USGS winterover team monitoring satellites and managing the seismograph there. He returned to Antarctica in 1997-98, serving as a marine technician aboard the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer on the Ross Sea Project.

Tom became a filmmaker in retirement. His first feature-length film was "Ice Eagles: American Aviation in Antarctica," which won an Award of Merit in the 2018 Impact DOCS Film Festival.

Secretary: Joan Boothe

Joan Boothe has been fascinated with stories of Antarctic adventure and exploration since childhood. In 1995, after many years working in the worlds of economics, finance, and teaching business administration to graduate business students, she at last made her first trip to Antarctica and saw where so many things she had read about took place. Ms Boothe has returned to the Antarctic regions many times since, including on a number of trips on which she has lectured on the subject of Antarctic exploration history. In 2010, she taught a course on Antarctica’s Heroic Age for Stanford University’s continuing education program. Her highly praised Antarctic history work, The Storied Ice: Exploration, Discovery and Adventure in the Antarctic Peninsula Region, was published in late 2011. Ms Boothe has two children, both raised in San Francisco, California, where she and her husband have lived since 1970.