A single walk on the beach with Jace Tunnell, HRI’s director of community engagement, might turn up an alligator gar skeleton, a fish aggregating device tangled in rope, or a life raft that drifted ashore. For him, that is just a normal Tuesday. Now, thanks to a new sponsorship with Phillips 66, more people across the Coastal Bend are going to get a front-row seat to those discoveries. 

Phillips 66 has invested $25,000 in a yearlong sponsorship with the Harte Research Institute (HRI) at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, becoming the first corporate sponsor of HRI’s Beachcombing program. The sponsorship supports Phillips 66’s giving pillars of Environment and Education Equity, and it is helping expand a program that has quietly become one of the most beloved ways the public learns about the Gulf. 

What exactly is Beachcombing? 

If you have ever scrolled past a video of someone holding up a strange object on a Texas beach and wondered what it was, there is a good chance it was Jace Tunnell. Through HRI’s Beachcombing series, Tunnell walks the shoreline each week explaining what washes ashore and why. His finds range from the beautiful to the bizarre. Every item tells a story about ocean currents, marine life or the debris that travels for miles before landing on Texas sand. 

That is exactly what drew Phillips 66 to the program. 

“The Texas Gulf Coast is an important part of our way of life,” said Jessica Follett, regional public affairs for Phillips 66’s Texas and Gulf Coast region. She said the sponsorship gives people meaningful ways to learn about the coast, understand what it faces, and get involved in protecting it. 

Tunnell feels the same pull toward the shoreline. He has said the beach has a way of sparking curiosity, where a single find can lead to bigger questions about currents, marine life, or pollution. “Thanks to Phillips 66’s support, we’ll be able to reach even more people with the message that understanding our coast is the first step toward protecting it,” Tunnell said.  

A free event is coming this fall 

The sponsorship is doing more than keeping the videos and Beach Finds Friday posts coming. It is making HRI’s first public community Beachcombing event possible. Families across the Coastal Bend will get the chance to comb the shoreline with the program’s team, ask questions and see firsthand how coastal science works. The free, family-friendly event will take place this fall on North Padre Island in Corpus Christi, with more details to come. 

Reaching the Coastal Bend, one find at a time 

Beachcombing already reaches a wide audience across the Coastal Bend and beyond. Beyond the weekly videos, the program shows up in Beach Finds Friday posts on Facebook and Instagram and in newspaper columns up and down the Texas coast. 

With Phillips 66’s support, that reach is only expected to grow, bringing more presentations, more digital content and more chances for Coastal Bend families to fall in love with the science sitting right in their own backyard. 

To follow along with Jace Tunnell’s latest finds, visit HRI’s Beachcombing page, or follow along on YouTube and Facebook. 

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