From the President’s Office – 6/05/09
Filed under: About,From The President's Office,News & Resources
Last week, the Ocean Leadership Members and Trustees gathered in Washington for their Annual Meeting. A number of important business items were handled, most importantly, the appointment of newly elected Trustees. Joining the Board of Trustees for 3-year terms each are: Don Boesch (University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science), Rob Dunbar (Stanford University), Larry Mayer (University of New Hampshire), and Bob Owen (University of Michigan). I am also very pleased to report to you that Shirley Pomponi, Steve Lohrenz and Brian Taylor, will remain as Board Chair, Vice Chair and Treasurer respectively. During the meeting significant discussion focused on how Ocean Leadership’s efforts and resources in advocacy can be focused to improve decision makers’ understanding of the important role of the oceans in climate change. This effort is viewed by the Board as extremely important at this point in time when President Obama’s climate change priorities are clear and decisions on Capitol Hill are being made very quickly.
At the meeting, several speakers from the federal agencies updated Members on activities within the agencies and the impact of the climate change priorities of the new Administration on new and existing programs. Speakers included Mike Freilich from NASA, Frank Herr from the Office of Naval Research, Tim Killeen from NSF, Monica Medina from NOAA, and Jerry Miller from the Office of Science and Technology Policy. All of the presentations were excellent and engendered much discussion about how the ocean science and education community might assist the agencies in supporting these priorities. In fact, I heard from more than one Member that these were some of the best presentations they had seen in a long time. We are fortunate that the speakers could join us for nearly the entire afternoon, and I think our Members truly appreciated the opportunity to engage the federal agencies on these issues.
Finally, I want to personally thank all the Members who were able to join us and actively participate in the discussion during last week’s meetings. At Ocean Leadership, we are very much aware of the pressing budget challenges many of our Members are currently struggling with, and I fully recognize that making the decision to spend the resources and time to join us was carefully made. I very much appreciate your commitment. Thank you.
I can assure you that the heavy Spring rains we have had here in Washington over the past few weeks have not dampened our enthusiasm for taking advantage of the new opportunities that have been presenting themselves in Washington at record speed!
