Dr. Rob Yonover has always had a taste for danger—

—and entrepreneurship.

I guess those are pretty much the same thing. 🤷

Those crazy kids

As a kid in 1970s Miami, Dr. Rob Yonover discovered a few entrepreneurial ways to put cash in his boardshorts, such as:

• 🐊 Walking his pet alligator around the neighborhood and charging other kids a dime to get a closer look.

• 🦞 Free-diving off the coast for lobsters to sell to hungry tourists.

• 👑 Trying (unsuccessfully) to become a teenage drug kingpin when he once stumbled across a plastic-wrapped haul of marijuana the size of a sea turtle.

Y’all — I grew up in Florida, but never truly understood what it meant to be a “Florida kid” until I met Dr. Rob. 

Damn, that guy’s got mad creds.

In his youth, Dr. Rob crew’d up with a group of “derelicts” (his word, not mine), and realized pretty quickly that as long as he kept his grades up, he basically had permission to get into as much trouble as he wanted.

So what does a non-conformist, danger-seeking, straight-A student end up doing with his life?

I’ll answer this question with another question—

Did you know you can get paid to jump into volcanoes? 🌋

Let’s blow the top off this bitch

I mean, you gotta get some degrees first, but yeah, you can absolutely make a living being batshit-crazy enough to hang out in volcanoes all day.

The official title is “Volcanologist”, if you wanna be formal about it. 🤷

Dr. Rob put that brain of his to work, earning degrees in geology, geochemistry, and eventually a PhD in volcanology.

His doctoral studies brought him to some pretty interesting places, including TWO MILES under the Galapagos Islands in the ALVIN submersible (the same vessel that discovered the Titanic).

If I had to analyze Dr. Rob, I’d say that his interest in studying volcanoes stems from three driving forces:

1. His deep and unabated love for nature.

2. His desire to live in Hawaii (where he’s now resided for 40 years).

3. His mission to collect a lifetime of unbelievable stories.

It was the 80’s, man.

Dr. Rob had recently moved to Hawaii to complete his doctoral studies.

He and a fellow grad student were on the island of Oahu and needed to get to the neighboring island of Kauai. Between these two islands stood 100 miles of open blue ocean.

But the distance was no problem. Dr. Rob’s friend had his private pilot’s license, and offered to rent a plane to fly them over to Kauai. 

Easy peasy.

So Dr. Rob boarded a rickety Cessna with his pal at the controls, and sped off over open water.

He regretted that decision almost immediately. 

The sputtering plane sounded like a flying Volkswagen Beetle, and was violently tossed around by the trade winds.

Dr. Rob clutched his seat and stared out at a blanket of blue thinking only one thing:

“If we go down, they’ll never find us.”

Luckily, they made it to Kauai, but Dr. Rob is still a little –clenched– to this day.

Shortly after, Dr. Rob braved another airplane, but this time it was a safe-as-can-be commercial jet taking him home to Miami for a visit.

As the plane was banking over Biscayne Bay, he took in an airborne view of an incredible art installation by Christo & Jeanne-Claude.

The creative duo had surrounded 11 islands in the bay with 6.5 million square feet of floating pink fabric.

The bright fabric transformed the islands that were otherwise camouflaged by the surrounding water into glistening donuts that were viewable from thousands of feet in the air.

This gave Dr. Rob an idea…

A life saving invention

As someone who regularly found himself in perilous environments, both at sea and in the rugged wilderness, Dr. Rob recognized problems with search and rescue technology:

• Smoke signals, flares, and dye markers dissipate in minutes.

• Digital tracking beacons fail, and offer no visibility markers for rescuers.

Imagining himself stranded in the unforgiving ocean between Oahu and Kauai, Dr. Rob developed an idea to replicate the floating art installation that Christo & Jeanne-Claude created — but as an emergency rescue signaling device.

And thus, the SEE/RESCUE Streamer was conceived.

As most inventors know, conceiving an idea and executing it are two completely different things.

Dr. Rob leaned into biomimicry (which is my new favorite word btw) to try to develop a device that was:

• Large enough to be visible from thousands of feet in the air.

• Pliable enough to be compacted and carried.

• Would float without getting twisted.

That’s a helluva puzzle.

And between his graduate work (those volcanoes ain’t gonna study themselves), and his family commitments, it took some time.

Like… six years.

Who’s gonna buy this thing?

Even once Dr. Rob had a eureka breakthrough and developed a fully functional prototype, he had only really solved half the equation.

Could this invention earn him a living?

The short answer is — heck yes. But it was going to take some time.

The first step was to get the word out. Back in those days, there was a resource called Bacon’s Media Directory — a Bible-length book containing contact information for every media outlet in the country.

So Dr. Rob started faxing them information about his invention.

One at a time. 

After 11pm — because it was cheaper. 🤷

He made himself a “persistent, positive, polite, pain-in-the-ass,” and managed to get some glowing press using this tedious nocturnal method.

After a while, the U.S. military came knocking.

Not wanting to deal with the headaches of manufacturing and distribution, Dr. Rob entered a lucrative 15-year licensing deal. 

Soon enough the SEE/RESCUE Streamer started flying on F-16’s, diving in Navy submarines, and hanging out in survival kits across all branches of the U.S. military, and other militaries around the world.

And over that period, it was confirmed to have saved four lives.

Well done, Dr. Rob. Well done. 👏👏👏

Swimming with the sharks

At the conclusion of his licensing deal, Dr. Rob attempted his most dangerous feat yet — an appearance on Shark Tank.

He wanted to get a retail version of the SEE/RESCUE Streamer into the hands of the everyday adventurer. For that, he wanted a savvy partner who understood the world of e-commerce and digital marketing.

👋 Enter — Mark Cuban, Kevin O’Leary, Lori Greiner, and Robert Herjavec.

…7 minutes later…

👋 Exit — Mark Cuban, Kevin O’Leary, Lori Greiner, and Robert Herjavec.

The sharks didn’t bite.

But they did show tremendous enthusiasm for the product, a sincere appreciation for its proven ability to save lives, and huge respect for Dr. Rob’s talent.

And while he was disappointed, if there’s one thing Dr. Rob had embraced throughout this entire process, it was indomitable patience.

It took him six years to develop a working prototype, and another seven years to earn his first military contract through a tedious PR campaign.

And at home, Dr. Rob had dutifully cared for his wife with multiple sclerosis, whose disease paralyzed her for 19 years of their 31-year marriage.

The sharks passing on his 7-minute pitch? A mere blip in time. 🤷

He returned home, and did what he does best — chip away at the problem.

An unexpected phone call…

Dr. Rob developed a sustainable e-commerce business after Shark Tank with the help of Amazon, and his military customers remained loyal.

He was rebuilding his personal life following the loss of his wife, embracing a fantastic relationship with his (now adult) children, and surfing huge waves off the coast of his idyllic home in Honolulu.

Life was good.

Then Elon came a-callin’.

Well, not the man himself, but SpaceX.

They wanted the SEE/RESCUE Streamer on their first crewed spaceflight.

At 7:27pm local time at Kennedy Space Center on November 16, 2020, Dr. Rob’s invention traveled to space under the ass of every astronaut on that mission…

…and every mission since.

Two years after his invention initially traveled to space, Dr. Rob received another phone call — this time from NASA.

They acquired the SEE/RESCUE Streamer to fly on their upcoming Artemis missions — to the moon. 🤯

Rob likes to credit being a “persistent, positive, polite, pain-in-the-ass,” for his success, but I think there’s another “P” word that underpins it all:

Patience.

Patience doesn't mean sitting on your ass and waiting for something to happen.

It means being ok with not receiving instant gratification for the work you’re putting in.

You can work for years and years, pour your heart and soul into something, only for Mark Cuban to tell ya to get lost.

But if you keep your head down and continue to chip away at the problem, your work could soar beyond the stratosphere. 🚀

Cheers! 🍻 

-Kristin