When Martin “Marty” Klein, Sc.D. was an M.I.T. student in 1960, he was intrigued by the cover of Life Magazine and the story of the historic 35,813 foot dive of the Bathyscaph Trieste in the Mariana Challenger Deep with US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard aboard. Little could Klein have imagined that just three years later he would have an intimate connection to Trieste and Walsh.

Klein was starting his career in the Oceanographic Department of a Boston company, Edgerton, Germeshausen & Grier, Inc. (later E. G.&G., Inc) when news came that the nuclear-powered submarine USS Thresher (SSN-593) had sunk in 8400 feet of water in the Atlantic. Trieste was shipped from San Diego to the Boston Navy Yard to assist in the search for Thresher. During this period Don Walsh became a hero, friend and mentor to Marty. Klein was put in charge of designing and installing a special sonar for Trieste that looked right and left, up and down with a hydrophone for a long-baseline acoustic navigation system. Because of some parameter and reliability problems the sonar failed to find Thresher. Klein became determined to make a new sonar that would make improved results and would be available to the public. At a 1967 conference of the Marine Technology Society, Klein introduced a new dual-channel, towed, affordable system that was the first of its kind.

The system became a dramatic worldwide success. Later that year Klein helped archaeologist George Bass locate an ancient ship off the coast of Turkey. In that same year Professor Harold Edgerton of MIT used the sonar to help assist in finding Mary Rose, the warship of Henry VIII that sunk in 1545. The sonar went on to become an extraordinary success and helped revolutionize ocean exploration and survey.

In 1968, working in the basement of a small rented cottage in Lexington, MA, Marty started his own company, Klein Associates, Inc. (now Klein Marine Systems). Over 50 years since its founding, the company continues to lead the world in performance and innovation. Klein’s sonars helped to form a new industry with many worldwide competitors, survey companies and companies making peripheral systems such as image processors. His sonars have been used to help find many famous shipwrecks including Titanic, Atocha, Lusitania, Edinburgh, DeBraak, Breadalbane, Hamilton and Scourge, Lake George Radeau, HMS Erebus and countless others.

In 2006 Don Walsh helped Marty to be elected to the National Academy of Engineering. A fellow of the Marine Technology Society and the Explorers Club, Klein has won many awards including the 1992 MTS Compass Distinguished Achievement Award, the Oceanology International 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2011 Boston Sea Rovers Diver of the Year Award. He has served for many years on the advisory boards of MIT Sea Grant, the MIT Museum and the NOAA Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Helping to encourage a new generation, he continues to work as a judge and mentor to the Marine Advanced Technology (MATE) International ROV Competition.