Biographical Sketch
Dr. Robert G. Williscroft served twenty-three years in the U.S. Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He commenced his service as an enlisted nuclear Submarine Sonar Technician in 1961, was selected for the Navy Enlisted Scientific Education Program in 1966, and graduated from University of Washington in Marine Physics and Meteorology in 1969. He returned to nuclear submarines as the Navy’s first Poseidon Weapons Officer. Subsequently, he served as Navigator and Diving Officer on both catamaran mother vessels for the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle. Then he joined the Submarine Development Group One out of San Diego as the Officer-in-Charge of the Test Operations Group, conducting “deep-ocean surveillance and data acquisition”—which forms the basis for his Cold War Mac McDowell Mission Series. Bestselling Operation Ivy Bells is the first book in the series and tells the story of Navy divers tapping into Soviet underwater communications cables. Operation Ice Breaker, the second book in the series, tells the story of pacing top secret acoustic arrays under the ice pack in the high Arctic. It will be released in August 2020.
In NOAA, Dr. Williscroft directed diving operations throughout the Pacific and Atlantic. As a certified diving instructor for both the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) and the Multinational Diving Educators Association (MDEA), he taught over 3,000 individuals both basic and advanced SCUBA diving. He authored four diving books, developed the first NAUI drysuit course, developed advanced curricula for mixed gas and other specialized diving modes, and developed and taught a NAUI course on the Math and Physics of Advanced Diving. His doctoral dissertation for California Coast University, A System for Protecting SCUBA Divers from the Hazards of Contaminated Water, was published by the U.S. Department of Commerce and distributed to Port Captains worldwide. He also served three shipboard years in the high Arctic conducting scientific baseline studies, and thirteen months at the geographic South Pole in charge of National Science Foundation atmospheric projects.
His military decorations include:
Good Conduct Medal
National Service Defense Medal
Antarctic Service Medal (w. winterover device)
Unit citation (w. bronze star)
Submarine Dolphins (Silver & Gold)
Fleet Ballistic Missile Patrol Device (w. silver star & 2 bronze stars)
Navy Saturation Diving Officer Pin
NOAA Diving Officer Pin
After retiring in 1985, Dr. Williscroft served as CEO of the largest editorial service in the United States, and founded a publishing company. He sold the publishing firm to serve as Chief Staff Officer for a consortium of five marine industry related firms in San Diego. In 1994 he moved to Philadelphia, and focused on writing, real estate, and the stock market. In 1997, he joined Morgan Stanley in Los Angeles as a Series 7 stockbroker. Since 1999 Dr. Williscroft has been independent.
Dr. Williscroft has written extensively on terrorism and related subjects. He is the author of a popular book on current events published by Pelican Publishing: The Chicken Little Agenda—Debunking Experts’ Lies, now in its second edition as an eBook, and a new children’s book series, Starman Jones, in collaboration with Dr. Frank Drake, world-famous director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe and the SETI Institute.
Dr. Williscroft’s 1st novel in The Starchild Trilogy, Slingshot, tells the story of the construction of the world’s first Space Launch Loop. Slingshot was launched at the Seattle International Space Elevator Conference in August 2015. His 2nd novel in The Starchild Trilogy, The Starchild Compact, is based on the discovery that Saturn’s moon Iapetus is actually a derelict starship, and how Earth explorers eventually meet with the “Founders,” who originally arrived on the starship and populated the Earth long ago. The 3rd book in The Starchild Trilogy, The Iapetus Federation, the Federation expands Solar Systemwide, while a new Caliphate sweeps Earth. The Starchild Institute creates wormhole portals to enable the Exodus. Earth becomes medieval, while human focus shifts to the Iapetus Federation. Humans settle every potentially habitable spot in the Solar System and begin expanding into the rest of the Galaxy.
The Daedalus Files takes place in the world of Slingshot. In four short stories, Daedalus, Daedalus LEO, Daedalus Squad, and Daedalus Combat, Dr. Williscroft follows the U.S. Navy SEALS Winged Insertion Command (SWIC) and its development of the Gryphon hard wingsuit for combat drops from Low Earth Orbit.
Icicle—A Tensor Matrix, is a hard science fiction story about a wealthy engineer in today’s world who has terminal cancer and arranges for his head to be cryonically preserved. He wakes up about a century later inside an electronic matrix. He becomes the spearhead of humanity’s defensive effort against an invading space fleet operating under the Dark Forest Theory (Like hunters in a “dark forest,” a civilization can never be certain of an alien civilization’s true intentions. The extreme distances between stars creates an insurmountable “chain of suspicion,” where any two civilizations cannot communicate well enough to dissipate mistrust, making conflict inevitable.) This is the first of three books in The Oort Chronicles.
Dr. Williscroft is an active member of the Colorado Author’s League, Science Fiction Writers of America, Libertarian Futurist Society, Los Angeles Adventurers’ Club, Mensa, Military Officer’s Association, American Legion, and NRA. He lives in Centennial, Colorado, with his wife, Jill, and their twin college boys (when they are home from school).