Following an engineering education at USMMA [US Merchant Marine Academy at King's Point] and RPI [Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY] culminating with acquiring a Nuclear Reactor Operator's license for the N/S Savannah, Ray Mahr began a long career in submarine and underwater acoustics.  In 1965 he became a member of the engineering staff at the DTMB [aka David Taylor Model Basin and now the Naval Ship Warfare Center, Carderock Division] in the Radiated Noise Branch support of the Submarine Ship Silencing Program at the Naval Sea Systems Command.  Ray was the Sea Test Director for the USS Dolphin [AGSS 555], a deep diving research submarine, during east coast acoustic trials for the Dolphin conducted in 1969, and in 1970, Ray then followed the Dolphin to the west coast where she was assigned to NOSC [aka Naval Ocean Systems Center and now the SPAWAR System Center – Pacific Division].  Ray became the Dolphin Sea Test Director and led the successful 4-month RAP [reliable acoustic path] cruise to the Gulf of Alaska in 1973.

As a NOSC Branch Manager Ray established a systems development branch in the SVM [system validation model, aka the Navy's Integrated Undersea Surveillance System [IUSS]] Test Division.  Ray led the development of the conceptual  design of TRANSEX [Transportable System Exerciser] which was used for on-site testing of all the high value SVM Naval Facilities of the IUSS.  TRANSEX also became the prototype operational training system for all IUSS operational personnel.  Ray had a one-year tour at the Naval 3rd Fleet Command center as an Operations Analyst for the NSAP [Navy Scientific Advisory Program].  He then left  federal service for 2 years and founded a solar energy company.

In the 1980s Mahr began supporting the DavidTaylor Model Basin as a member of two engineering companies in the Washington DC area, becoming a Business Unit President in one  of them. His groups assisted the DTMB program manager in developing the conceptual design of AMFIP [Acoustic Measurement Facility Improvement Program] and successfully selling the program to the CNO [Chief of Naval Operations] submarine program office.  This AMFIP program developed a new enhanced fixed acoustic range at the Behm Canal in Alaska, and initially a mobile range in AUTEC [Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center] in the Bahamas.  The  Bahamas Center has recently been converted to a fixed acoustic range on Andros Island similar to the range at Behm Canal.

With the cold war ending and the threat of Russian submarines greatly diminished, Mahr became General Manager of an oceanographic instrumentation manufacturer [Polar Research Lab] located in Carpenteria, CA.  PRL developed and deployed Arctic data collection systems, and also developed air-deployed TOGA [Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere] data collection buoys in support of NOAA's [National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency] ocean research program.  Metocean Data Systems [now Metocean Telematics] of Dartmouth, NS, Canada, attracted Mahr to them to establish similar buoy data  collection programs.  During his 11- year tenure Ray was VP Sales & Marketing and President of Metocean.

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After Metocean was sold to a French company, Mahr began working with InterOceans Systems in San Diego as Executive Vice President where he helped design, develop and sell an oil spill detection sensor system called Slick Sleuth.  Mahr was also a partner at Ocean Innovations and the Director for Marine Acoustic Inc in San Diego before becoming the VP of Sales and Marketing at Rowe Technologies Inc.  After more than 2 years at this  position, he returned to the east coast and semi-retired to Lewes, DE to be close to his east coast family.  Retirement did not last long and he started KRK Consultants, Ltd acting as a manufacturer's rep specializing in autonomous systems for environmental measurements in coastal and ocean regions.

As passive acoustic measurements [PAM] have become important due to anthropogenic noise impacts on mammals and fish in the open oceans and the coastal regions of the USA, there is a rapidly growing requirement for acoustic measurements and analysis to be conducted.  Infrastructure improvements to harbors and rivers require pile driving activities for bridges and piers, which entail detailed surveys of underwater acoustic measurements.  Mahr has 20+ years of hands-on underwater acoustic measurement surveys and is currently working in the PAM field, using autonomous systems.