Toby Stephenson

Toby Stephenson is a passionate mariner, educator, and naturalist. Starting out as a carpenter and boat builder, he attended a year-long apprenticeship on the coast of Maine and never really left. After building several houses and small boats he decided he ought to grow up and do what inspired him the most, teach and explore. In 1991 he began teaching environmental science and leading wilderness expeditions in the Appalachian Mts of New England and throughout the coastal Maine islands. In 1995 he began his marine mammal studies at the College of the Atlantic where he worked on humpback whale identification and studied anatomy. Following this he began guiding whale and seabird tours to remote nesting islands and offshore feeding grounds, and that’s when things started to get weird. After several years working as an endangered species observer for NOAA, he obtained his USCG license in 2001 and started running whale watch excursions and curating a small college-museum dedicated to marine mammals during the off-season. Then, when things couldn’t get any muddier, in 2011 he became the captain of a research vessel for the College of the Atlantic, where he currently teaches navigation, safety, and small boat operations in the spring and fall terms. He started guiding on expedition ships in 2018 to get back to teaching natural history and explore more of this incredible world while he still has time.

Toby has a particular interest in dead things (though nothing illegal) and has dissected numerous marine mammals, as well as assembling several whale skeletons for private and public exhibitions. He has never met a bone he doesn’t like and is always happy to examine special finds along coastlines…or anywhere for that matter.