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Mercy Medical Center of North Iowa, Principal Financial Group, Elizabeth Muse Norris Charitable Fund and NIACC proudly present Redesigning our Future: The Great Ocean Adventure, featuring Jean-Michel Cousteau, the son of ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau.  Cousteau will take the stage at the North Iowa Community Auditorium on Tuesday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m.  Tickets are on sale now and cost $15 for adults and $5 for students.

For more than four decades, Jean-Michel Cousteau has dedicated himself and his vast experience to communicate to people of all nations and generations his love and concern for our water planet.  Since first being “thrown overboard” by his father at the age of seven with newly invented SCUBA gear on his back, Jean-Michel has been exploring the ocean realm. The son of ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, Jean-Michel has investigated the world’s oceans aboard Calypso and Alcyone for much of his life.

Honoring his heritage, Jean-Michel founded Ocean Futures Society in 1999 to carry on this pioneering work.  Ocean Futures Society, a non-profit marine conservation and education organization, serves as a “Voice for the Ocean” by communicating in all media the critical bond between people and the sea and the importance of wise environmental policy.

In the first attempt ever to return a captive orca to the wild, in 1999 Jean-Michel guided Ocean Futures Society as they researched orcas and provided care for Keiko, the captive killer whale of “Free Willy” film fame. In working with Keiko, Jean-Michel and his team pioneered both husbandry techniques and scientific research on wild orcas. In 2002, Keiko was returned to the wild and entrusted to the Humane Society for any continued long-term care and monitoring.

As Ocean Future’s spokesman, Jean-Michel serves as an impassioned diplomat for the environment, reaching out to the public through a variety of media. He has produced over 70 films, received the Emmy, the Peabody Award, the Sept d’Or, and the Cable Ace Award. Since 1989, he has been a syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times where his articles appear in over sixty newspapers worldwide.

As Chairman of the Board and President of Ocean Futures Society, Jean-Michel travels the world, meeting with leaders and policymakers at the grassroots level and at the highest echelons of government and business. He is dedicated to educating young people, documenting stories of change and hope, and lending his reputation and support to energize alliances for positive change.

Cousteau’s Redesigning our Future: The Great Ocean Adventure presentation explores how the world has become one community through communication advances, and how what happens on one corner of the world effects another.  What we do in our social and business lives impacts the environment, and what happens to the environment impacts our social and business lives.  He shows how the environment needs to be managed like a corporation – living off the profits and interest, and not off the capital itself. 

For tickets to Redesigning our Future: The Great Ocean Adventure, call the NIACC Box Office at 1-888-466-4222, ext. 4188.  Tickets may also be purchased online at www.niacc.edu.  Platinum sponsors for the 2008-2009 series include NIACC, Globe Gazette Elizabeth Muse Norris Charitable Fund; the Globe Gazette; Alliant Energy; Community National Bank; Henkel Construction; and Principal Financial Group.  Gold sponsors include Diamond Jo Casino; First Citizens National Bank; First State Bank of Belmond; Kraft; Mercy Medical Center – North Iowa; Martin, Cooney, MacNider & Cooney, Financial Consultants of Raymond James and Associates, Inc.; Dr. Gary W. Swenson and Dean A. Genth; and Sukup Manufacturing.  In kind sponsors include Country Inn and Suites; KIMT; and Pepsi.

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