Stockton Rush biography: 13 things about Seattle, Washington native, OceanGate founder

Richard Stockton Rush III was a billionaire born in Seattle, King County, Washington, United States. He was commonly known as Stockton Rush.

Aside from Seattle, Rush lived in other parts of Washington including Redmond and Issaquah. He also lived Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA and in San Francisco, California, USA.

Rush is Richard Stockton “Tock” Rush Jr. and Ellen Davies Rush‘s son. Stockton has two sisters namely Deborah Rush and Catherine Rush.

Stockton was 3 months older than his wife Wendy Hollings Weil Rush. She is a great-great-granddaughter of Isidor Straus and Ida Blun Straus, a couple who died together in the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Wendy and Stockton have two children together. Here are 13 more things about him:

1. In 1980, he earned a commercial pilot’s license. After being told his visual acuity would disqualify him from becoming a military pilot, he moved from San Francisco to Seattle to work for McDonnell Douglas as a flight-test engineer for F-15 Eagle jets. From 1980 to 1984, he attended Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, USA where he earned his bachelor’s degree in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering.
2. In 1981, he was arrested for possession of a controlled and deadly substance and became the world’s youngest jet transport-rated pilot by qualifying with the United Airlines Jet Training Institute. From 1981 to 1983, he flew for Saudi Arabian Airlines on his summer holidays from his aerospace engineering course at Princeton.
3. In 1983, he allegedly drove a Volkswagen into the Dinky, the train that connects Princeton University to Princeton Junction in West Windsor, New Jersey. He was charged with drunk driving.
4. In 1984, he worked with the U.S. Air Force on F-15s and anti-satellite missile programs with the aim of eventually taking part in the space program.
5. On July 5, 1986, he and Wendy got married at the Vail Chapel in Vail, Colorado, USA. Their wedding was a Presbyterian ceremony performed by her great-uncle Rev. George B. Edgar. John Christian Stauffer and Jean Hellen Weinberg were the respective best man and maid of honor.
6. From 1987 to 1989, he attended the Haas School of Business of the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California where he earned his master’s degree in business administration.
7. In 1989, he personally built a Glasair III experimental aircraft.
8. On January 1, 2000, his grandfather Richard Stockton died after a short illness in San Francisco.
9. In 2004, he attended the launch of SpaceShipOne in the Mojave Desert, which is located primarily in California and Nevada, USA with small portions extending into Arizona, USA and Utah, USA.
10. He unsuccessfully attempted to buy the submersible of explorer and businessman Steve Fossett, who died in a plane crash at the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California, USA on September 3, 2007.
11. In 2009, he and his business partner Guillermo Söhnlein founded OceanGate Expeditions.
12. In 2011, his son Richard “Ben” Rush graduated from Princeton.
13. He was on board the Titanic submersible Titan, which vanished on June 18, 2023. Also on board the OceanGate watercraft were Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood and Suleman Dawood. They died while visiting the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic. He was 61.

Wendy Rush, the wife of OceanGate CEO and missing tourist sub pilot Stockton Rush, is the great-great-granddaughter of Titanic victims, Isidor and Ida Straus. pic.twitter.com/I8pCvGvvPW

— Inside Edition (@InsideEdition) June 22, 2023