Leadership

Global Xploration is a marine exploration and engineering company working at the intersection of maritime history, subsea technology, and natural resources. Since 2010, the company has grown from a focused shipwreck salvage venture into a firm with three practice areas, a developing portfolio of proprietary subsea technology, and a substantial collection of recovered historical material.

Global Xploration at a Glance

Established: 2010, as Aurelia Enterprises
Locations: Arkansas and Miami, Florida
Practice areas: Shipwreck search and recovery · Subsea mineral exploration · Marine engineering and design-build
Intellectual property: Four patents pending covering autonomous submersible and surface vehicles and manned submersible vehicles
Collection under management: Thousands of historical artifacts, including coins, cannons, firearms, swords, and ceramics from around the world
Project regions: Atlantic, Caribbean, Pacific, Mediterranean, and Southeast Asian waters (active and proposed)

Cooper Wade, PhD, MEng, MBA-SE

Founder & Managing Partner

Cooper Wade founded Global Xploration to bring engineering discipline to one of the oldest pursuits in the world: searching the sea for what has been lost. As Chief Executive Officer, he sets the company's strategic direction, leads its technology development program, and oversees project planning and execution across all three practice areas.

Education. Cooper holds three graduate degrees spanning engineering and enterprise:

PhD in Energy Engineering, University of North Dakota
Master of Engineering, University of North Dakota
MBA in Social Entrepreneurship, Southern Arkansas University

Field experience. Cooper is a certified diver trained through Scuba Schools International (SSI), with specialized training in wreck diving and underwater search and recovery. That operational background keeps the company's engineering grounded in the realities of working sites: limited visibility, strong currents, and conditions that rarely match the plan.

Company history. Cooper established the company as Aurelia Enterprises with a clear mission: to locate and salvage historic shipwrecks and recover the treasure and artifacts they carry. Under his leadership, that mission expanded into today's Global Xploration, adding subsea mineral exploration and in-house engineering to the original salvage work. Over that time, the company has recovered, acquired, and now manages a collection that includes thousands of coins, numerous cannons, arms, and pottery spanning several centuries of global trade and conflict.

How Global Xploration Is Organized

Global Xploration operates on the project-based model common across offshore engineering and marine exploration. Rather than maintaining a fixed fleet and crew sized for one kind of job, the company builds each operation around the site, depth, permits, and objectives involved.

Executive leadership sets strategy, evaluates opportunities, and maintains direct oversight of every active project.
Technology development designs and engineers the company's proprietary subsea systems, including the Project Zugzwang platform.
Project operations bring together qualified specialists for each engagement, which may include vessel operators, commercial divers, ROV pilots, survey technicians, maritime archaeologists, conservators, environmental consultants, and in-country legal advisors.
Collections management oversees documentation, conservation, and stewardship of recovered and acquired material.

This structure gives clients and partners a direct line to company leadership while giving each project a team selected specifically for its demands.

Engineering and Innovation

Global Xploration designs and develops its own subsea technology. The company's four pending patents cover autonomous submersible and surface vehicles and manned submersible vehicles. Together with Project Zugzwang, this work is aimed at making search and recovery safer, more precise, and possible at depths and in conditions that conventional equipment struggles to reach.

"The frontier has not disappeared. It has simply moved deeper."

Guiding Principles

Research first. Every search begins with historical records, survey data, and a clear understanding of the site and its legal status.
Engineer for the problem. Equipment is chosen or built for the actual depth, conditions, and objective.
Document everything. What is recovered is recorded, conserved, and understood, so each project adds to the historical record.
Build the right team. Each project brings together specialists suited to its demands.

Contact

For partnership discussions, commissioned projects, speaking requests, or media interviews, contact Global Xploration through our Contact page.

info@globalxploration.com

Phone

+1-(305)-330-2440