I'm a civil engineer from New Zealand who after working in hydro electric construction and design for 5 years returned to university to do post graduate research in coastal engineering and qualified with MS and PhD from Caltech. My PhD thesis was on propagation of tsunami (26 years before the Sumatra tsunami made tsunami a household word). I worked for 25 years in a research organisation in the fields of eco, coastal, and river hydraulics. In 2003, I set up my own consulting business. I work mainly for port companies and oil companies advising on waves, especially long waves (like tsunami), and tides.