[4] After college, Hardberger started his professional career with a short stint teaching English at Mandeville High School in Louisiana.

[5] In 1977, Hardberger returned to Louisiana to work as a deckhand and then as a mate on the oilfield supply vessel Magcobar Mercury, in the Gulf of Mexico.

Between oilfield hitches, Hardberger continued his flying lessons, earning commercial and flight instructor licenses, and took a wide variety of flying jobs, including towing banners, dusting crops, doing nightly check runs for banks, and transporting dead bodies for mortuaries.

[8] He briefly returned to the oilfields of Guatemala in 1985, then began crop dusting on a full-time basis in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.

[2][9] When Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier was overthrown as the ruler of Haiti in 1986, trade opened up between the Caribbean nation and the United States.

In 1998, following his admission to the California Bar, Hardberger began to practice maritime law alongside his marine consultancy and vessel extraction business.

A Sea Captain's Adventures Battling Scoundrels and Pirates While Recovering Stolen Ships in the World's Most Troubled Waters, was published by the Broadway Books imprint of Random House.