From "Spill and Science Technology Bulletin":

This book is a pleasure to read. It's one of those books about a guy that you only hear about at scientific meetings or people refer to his work in a bar or a coffee shop as they discuss concepts or results and conclusions of studies. He is one of those guys that you wish you could meet or know better. After reading the book I wished that I did. I met Miles Hayes only once (when he gave me this book) and I thought he was older than I. But often I am fooled in estimating age, but one should remember that it's the mileage on a car that makes a car look older, and not the age. It's a wonderful story of a man-of-science and his studies, friends and students. Hayes was an early pioneer in the oil spills response and damage assessment business. He came into it from his interest in shoreline development, ecology, and environmental effects. It's a story of the early hay day in oil spill response and as such makes very interesting and colorful reading. But it's written about travels, field studies and the people involved in them, and the inside reasons that people love field studies. The best part is you can see he had fun doing it. Ed Owens told me that Professor Hayes is STILL doing it – the last time Ed saw him was last November (2002) on a remote beach in Saudi (oiled from the 1991 war) when he was in the middle of a 6-month survey. Ed said he was and still is a great teacher. Oil spills was, in a way, a second career as he trained Owens and many dozen other graduate students on beach processes and coastal geology while at University of Massachusetts and University of South Carolina, many of whom are now full professors or senior scientists in the private sector. It's the role model. The secret is in picking a good one.

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]