The Blogfather

Former Cousteau staffer joins Cape Cod TODAY

Dick Farley signs on as our Washington correspondent
Cousteau policy staffer and Journalism Award winner

WASHINGTON -- May 17, 2006 -- Award winning investigative reporter and former Cousteau Society policy staffer C. Richard "Dick" Farley, Jr., is joining Cape Cod Today's editorial team as its Washington correspondent.

Farley, 58, continues a varied career as a newspaperman, nonprofit executive and scuba diving instructor. He lives in suburban Maryland with his wife of 27 years, Lucia, an environmental scientist working for a Rockville, MD firm, and their son Richard, 22, who is blind, developmentally disabled and autistic.

Won AP's Mark Twain Award for Investigative Reporting

In 1990, Farley won a Mark Twain Award for Investigative Reporting from the Associated Press in the Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Region for newspapers under 75,000 circulation. A series of stories he reported on alleged improprieties in university nonprofit foundation spending in Maryland contributed to the resignation of a university president and changes to regulations governing the accounting and spending of charitable contributions by Maryland higher education institutions.

From 1976 through 1983, Farley, shown on right with Jacques-Yves Cousteau, was continuously associated with various Cousteau family organizations, initially as a divemaster with Project Ocean Search Expeditions conducted by the "first incarnation" of the Jean-Michel Cousteau Institute, established by the elder son of the late Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau at Hilton Head Island, SC.

After the death of Captain Cousteau's younger son, Philippe, in a plane crash in 1979, Jean-Michel Cousteau son rejoined his father's larger, membership-supported nonprofit group, The Cousteau Society, taking Farley and several other key staff with him.

Farley moved to Norfolk, VA in 1980, first serving as coordinator of Cousteau's relocation of his operations center and expedition base for the famed research vessel, Calypso. He later served as coordinator of information and policy analysis for The Cousteau Society and as a contributing editor of Calypso Log, the organizations membership publication, tracking environmental affairs during the early Reagan years.

Before leaving The Cousteau Society in 1983, Farley served as the advance man for Calypso's filming expedition along the Mississippi River, handling ship logistics and coordinating public relations for the Cousteau team's "whistlestop" appearances along the river, from New Orleans, LA to St. Paul, MN, and back downriver to St. Louis, MO.

After leaving Cousteau's organization, Farley did some consulting before returning to journalism and working briefly for the Orlando Sentinel. He left the Sentinel after his father, a dentist, died from asbestos disease, probably contracted while working in a steel mill in the 1950s to put himself through dental school.

Directed New York Toxic Litigation Group

Farley for a time directed the New York Toxic Litigation Group, a program organized by plaintiff's attorneys representing asbestos victims and families trying to change the statute of limitations in New York for the filing of damage claims, a move ultimately rendered unnecessary by the asbestos industry's capitulation, with many firms filing for bankruptcy to avoid paying claims to victims.

Upon discovery of his son's multiple disabilities, Farley's focus shifted to meeting the many therapeutic and educational needs of his son, Richard, moving through five states in four years before settling in Maryland in 1988. Along the way, Farley helped to found a nonprofit national effort to promote sailing and maritime recreational opportunities for individuals with disabilities and worked in executive capacities with several other nonprofit organizations.

Besides being a free-lance writer and policy analyst, Farley currently teaches swimming part-time at a large public indoor aquatic center, mostly to pre-schoolers and their parents.

Farley will cover issues of interest to Cape Cod Today readers. He initially will focus on the politics and policies surrounding the ongoing Cape Wind controversy and its attendant environmental, ocean policy and energy related developments. He will also do an occasional column for cct, "Washington Window" as a blog on our online newspaper site.