Remembering Jack Blanton

Jack Blanton aboard the Blue Fin, SkIO’s research vessel before the R/V Savannah. (Photo courtesy of Dana Savidge)

Jackson (Jack) Blanton, 84, who was a faculty member at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography (SkIO), passed away on August 14, 2024. Blanton is remembered by many of his former colleagues and students for his passion for physical oceanography, kindness, loyalty, patience, dedication and generosity. 

“When I think of Jack, I smile. He was kind and generous and thoughtful and special,” said Julie Amft, who worked with Blanton for more than 20 years, primarily as a research coordinator. “I miss him very much.”

After earning his doctorate degree from Oregon State University in 1968, Blanton went on to work as a professor of physical oceanography for four decades. At SkIO, where Blanton started in 1976 and worked full-time until he retired in 2008, Blanton was an expert in and wrote many papers on circulation and currents near the Georgia coast. Blanton studied how the winds and tides mixed water masses in estuaries and on the continental shelf. He was particularly interested in how density fronts form and dissipate in these environments and how they control the flow of water between the ocean and inland waters. 

“Talking to Jack was like taking a course on coastal physical oceanography, except it was always right to the point and even fun,” said James Yoder, emeritus dean at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI), who worked with Blanton at SkIO in the late 1970s and 1980s. “Jack was also a gracious and kind person with a wonderful family. I was fortunate to know him and to learn from him. I know that not every young scientist has supportive colleagues like Jack, and that’s a shame.”

Jack Blanton (front-middle) during a night cruise aboard the Blue Fin during the 1990s. It was a cooperative project between Georgia and South Carolina Sea Grant to study the ingress of larval shrimp. (Photo courtesy of Julie Amft, second from right)

When Blanton first accepted his position at SkIO, he moved his family into the Roebling House on campus, where they stayed temporarily before finding a family home and settling on Isle of Hope. 

“Ever since then, we would go out (to the SkIO campus) all the time,” remembered Brian Blanton, Jack’s son. “We would go jumping off the dock in the summertime to go swimming. I spent a lot of time out there as a kid.”

Brian Blanton, who is also an oceanographer and currently the director of earth data sciences at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), fondly recalls the deep and informative conversations he would have with his father. 

“I learned a lot about physical oceanography from him,” said Brian Blanton. “To me, that was really cool. I will always miss it.”

The Roebling House, originally built by the Roebling family in the 1930s.

At home, Jack Blanton and his wife Barbara had two children, Brian and Kathleen. At work, Jack’s patience, knowledge and ability to share complex topics in digestible terms made him a role model to several students and young scientists. 

“It is just hard to express what a positive force Jack was with everyone he ever came in contact with,” said Dana Savidge, an emerita SkIO professor who had Blanton as her master’s advisor in the late 1980s. “Once he was on your team, he was always on your team. He was a science dad for me, and a model of cordial professionalism.”

Jack Blanton teaching a class to students on the Blue Fin. From left to right: Jack Blanton, Dana Savidge, Julie Amft and Vicki Pickell. (Photo courtesy of Dana Savidge)

When Blanton was getting his doctorate from Oregon State, his advisor was June Pattullo, who was the first woman to receive a PhD in Physical Oceanography. 

“It was ‘68 that he graduated with his PhD,” said Savidge. “It was unusual in those days for men to work for women. Jack was the kind of guy who could do it, without feeling like he was less for it. And that’s an important feature of who he was.”

Blanton’s interest and willingness to work and collaborate with colleagues is something that persisted throughout his career, explained Herbert Windom, a SkIO emeritus professor and former colleague of Blanton’s. 

“He quite literally could get along with anybody,” said Brian Blanton. “Collaboration is just who he is. It isn’t that he decided to collaborate. It is that he went into things knowing that he would collaborate and assuming that everybody else would, because that is the way that innovative things got done.”

“In my experience, Jack Blanton was a singular individual — an insightful scientist, a generous mentor, a supportive colleague and a good-humored, compassionate man,” added Clark Alexander, SkIO director. “When conducting the interdisciplinary science for which Skidaway Institute is known, Jack always worked to ensure that everyone’s field plans were successful, and did so with humility and grace.  Working closely with him for decades, I can certify that Jack left the world a better place everywhere he went.”

To many of those he worked with at SkIO, Blanton was more than a colleague. He was a friend — someone who made going to work an enjoyable experience.

Rick Jahnke, a SkIO emeritus professor who worked with Blanton from 1987 to 2008, remembers taking long walks along Modena Island with Blanton and several other colleagues. 

“It made for a pleasant break in the middle of the work day,” said Jahnke. “The discussions and camaraderie during those walks truly made me feel welcomed into the SkIO family, which made our (my wife Debbie also worked at SkIO) years at SkIO most enjoyable.”

“Jack always had time for questions, or just to shoot the breeze about oceanography in general,” added Jim Sanders, a SkIO emeritus professor and former director. “He was a kind and gentle soul. I will miss his good nature and friendship.”