Sonar expert to describe search for missing plane

Flathead Valley Community College alumnus Jay Larsen will give a free presentation Friday to discuss his company’s involvement in the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370.

Larsen’s Whitefish-based company, Hydrospheric Solutions Inc., was hired to use its high-resolution sonar technology to search for the airline’s wreckage in the Pacific Ocean.

Larsen attended Flathead Valley Community College before completing his degree in electrical engineering from Montana State University.

He got his start doing sonar work through graduate courses in applied physics at the University of Washington.

In 2009, he and a partner launched his startup company and worked to bring high-resolution, Synthetic Aperture Sonar, which allows acoustic imaging of the seafloor, into the commercial world.

The presentation will begin Friday at 3 p.m. in the Arts and Technology Building on the college’s Kalispell campus.

For more information, contact associate professor of physics Jim Boger at [email protected].