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CHAPTER ONE
Early Life and Career
S
tephen McDannell Hillenburg’s life began far from the sea. He
was born in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, on August 21, 1961. Oklaho-
ma is a landlocked state, centered in the middle of the country, far
from the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Hillenburg’s father worked as
a draftsman and designer for aerospace companies, and his mother
taught students with visual handicaps. Hillenburg also had a younger
brother. While his brother followed his father’s lead and became a
draftsman and designer, Hillenburg says that he took after his moth-
er’s more artistic side of the family, especially his grandmother, who
was a talented painter and artist.
In the mid-1960s, the Hillenburg family moved to Anaheim,
California. If the Hillenburg family had stayed far from the ocean
in Oklahoma,
SpongeBob SquarePants
may never have been created.
In California the weather was warm and sunny for most of the year.
There were also miles of beaches that lined the Pacific Ocean. On
these beaches Hillenburg played as a child. There he developed an
early love of the ocean and the amazing sea life it contained.
Inspired by Jacques-Yves Cousteau
As a boy Hillenburg watched several films and television shows made
by the famous French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. He
was fascinated by Cousteau’s work and says that watching Cousteau’s
shows got him interested at a young age in learning about the ocean
and marine life. Cousteau was the twentieth century’s most famous
underwater explorer. In the 1950s Cousteau converted a Britishmine-
sweeper vessel into an oceanographic research ship named the
Calypso
.
He and his crew embarked on many research expeditions aboard the
Calypso
.They explored oceans all over the world.
