Lonnie Schorer
Lonnie Schorer with Rocky Mountain Chapter EC member Andrew McKenna
Nikumaroro 2015
An architect with single engine and floatplane licenses, Lonnie became interested in Amelia Earhart’s life and impact on society. After taking TIGHAR’s Aviation Archaeology course and helping excavate a P-47 Thunderbolt submerged in quicksand bogs, she was on the Earhart team for the 1997, 2007, 2010, and 2015 expeditions. Using survey equipment, kite aerial photography and drones, Lonnie documented site topography and the distribution of artifacts on the uninhabited island of Nikumaroro in the central Pacific nation of Kiribati. She worked at sites throughout the island and, with three teammates, stayed on the island for several days and nights, working and observing conditions and surviving in the open during a tropical cyclone. In 2012, she traveled to Fiji to search the Colonial War Memorial Hospital, medical school, national museum, and underground bunkers for the bones sent to Suva in 1940 from Niku. She served on the Explorers Club Conservation Committee, served as Vice Chair of the Explorers Club Washington Group for two years, and is currently serving as Chair. She has completed the Maritime Archaeological Historical Society course, has worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Maritime Heritage program to locate and document missing USN planes and ships, is an executive on the Alumni Board of Connecticut College, and serves on Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots board, helping children make a difference for their communities and the environment. As staff for Lillehammer Olympics and Paralympics, and for the Atlanta Olympics and Paralympics, she was awed by the power of the human spirit to persevere and overcome challenges.
While her husband Dave was posted to the US Embassy in Norway, Lonnie participated in meetings of the Norwegian Explorers Club, and was on the Oslo-based logistics team supporting Liv Arnesen on her successful solo trek to the South Pole in 1994. Drawn to Norway, she trekked solo in the Arctic regions. With a BA in Russian, she lived and worked in Bangkok, Moscow and Leningrad behind the Iron Curtain, Istanbul, Rome and Oslo, striving to maintain a sense of normalcy while raising three children amidst the chaos of terrorist threats and political uprisings. To establish balance and fulfill a lifetime dream, she returned to school to earn her Masters of Architecture at Virginia Tech. Breaking barriers for what had never been done before, Lonnie lived in Oslo, Norway, and on the ship under construction on the island of Rissa for 5 years as Senior VP of Design and Construction for a new concept 43,000-ton residential ship, The World of ResidenSea.
Forming Global Space Travelers with Buzz Aldrin, Lonnie worked in schools to inspire children to engage in their own futures. This led to the publication of three Kids to Space books and numerous articles for professional periodicals and space journals. For the testing of new technologies for space settlements, she works with CASIS (Center for Advancement of Science in Space), with student teams that are creating and sending experiments to the International Space Station.