Gerald was only 19 when he entered the Peace Corps in 1967 after two years as a literature student at Albion College. After graduation he returned to the Marshall Islands with a love for literature and an interest in transcribing the stories he had heard in previous years. He taught for a year and worked as a commercial fisherman for two, honing his knowledge of the language and culture. Then he went for an uninterrupted four year stay on remote Rongelap Atoll to study with the renown traditional navigators and storytellers there. In 1979 he attended a one-year apprentice program at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu to prepare as Director of the Alele Museum and National Archive. He held that position for ten years culminating in a two-year collaboration with the Field Museum of Natural History on their permanent “Traveling the Pacific” exhibit that features a donated traditional outrigger canoe.
