United StatesMichael G. Johnson
Michael Gordon Johnson is a marine engineer by training, with a degree from Texas A&M University and a career spent on complex projects in offshore oil and gas, marine transportation, and salvage. Before founding Sea Machines he was a vice president at Crowley Maritime and its salvage affiliate TITAN Salvage, overseeing some of the industry's most demanding wreck-recovery operations — experience that convinced him most marine casualties trace back to human error that autonomy could prevent. Johnson started Sea Machines Robotics in Boston in 2015 — initially one person in a shared Cambridge office working with Jaybridge Robotics on a prototype — and built it into a leading provider of autonomous command-and-control and intelligent perception systems for workboats, tugs, and commercial vessels, including the SM series of autonomy retrofit kits and AI-RIS computer vision. In 2025, as the company deepened its push into the defense sector, Johnson handed the CEO role to David 'Chip' Wasson and moved to president and chief technology officer, keeping his focus on the product and engineering side of marine autonomy.