NOAA Administrator Lautenbacher toured NOAA Fisheries’ Galveston, Texas laboratory last month during Sea Grant Week. The Galveston laboratory is charged with research on management of shrimp, sea turtles, and coastal wetlands.

Estella Garcia and Becky Benoit, Data Transcribers for the Gulf of Mexico Shrimp Trawl Fishery Observer Program greet VADM Lautenbacher as Observer Coordinator Mike Harrelson and Fishery Management Branch Chief Jim Nance look on.

Biologist Ben Higgins (right), holding a juvenile loggerhead sea turtle, briefs Admiral Lautenbacher on sea turtle research conducted at the NOAA Fisheries Galveston laboratory.

Early last month, the Northwest Fisheries Science Center ship Harold Streeter spotted a low flying aircraft in Padilla Bay, Washington. Moments later the plane crashed into the water. The crew immediately halted all tow netting operations and rushed its small vessel, the Rhinotto to the rescue. The Rhinotto was the first boat to the scene and the crew immediately pulled the pilot, Bob Ajeman, out of the water. And just in time, too — the airplane sank soon afterwards. The downed plane may have had a carburetor failure, Ajeman said.

The NOAA research vessel Bay Hydrographer was on display and gave tours to grade school children and adults at the sixth annual Baltimore Waterfront Festival, in late April at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The Bay acquires hydrographic survey data in support of nautical charting. The ship works mostly in the mid-Atlantic region and specializes in navigation-related development of methods and equipment for the Office of Coast Survey.

The NOAA research vessel Bay Hydrographer held an open house at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in late April.

NOAA physical scientist Shyla Allen with kids touring the Bay Hydrographer.

NCDC employees contributed $472 through the Harris Teeter grocery store chain to Red Cross Armed Forces Emergency Service’s Operation Phone Home, which purchases phone cards for soldiers, allowing them to stay in touch with loved ones back home. NCDC’s Diversity Panel sponsored the collection, with staffers Terri Esham and Debbie Franklin taking the lead. Each $20 donation purchased a phone card and service men and women can use it to call home from many places in the Middle East.

Terri Esham (NCDC), Harris Teeter Store manager Ken Casteel, Deb Franklin (NCDC), and Wayne Faas (NCDC Diversity Consultant.

After 39 years of service to NOAA and its predecessor agency, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, the NOAA ship Whiting was decommissioned on May 2 in a ceremony at its home port in Norfolk, Va. The ship was an essential part of the NOAA fleet, working in support of NOAA’s mission to ensure safe navigation of the nation’s coastal waterways.

Commissioned in 1963, the ship has successfully completed deployments from Duluth, Minn., to Honduras and all waters in between. The Whiting also was one of two NOAA ships that were instrumental in finding the wreckage of John F. Kennedy’s aircraft in 1999, and located the primary wreckage fields of downed Egypt Air 990 off the coast of Rhode Island.

Rear Admiral Evelyn Fields, director of the NOAA Corps and NOAA Marine and Aviation Operations, and NOAA Corps Cmdr. Steven Barnum, who commanded the Whiting for the past two years.

NOAA Administrator Lautenbacher premiered a new National Aviation Services Award for outstanding contribution to the NOAA aviation weather effort at an aviation conference at NOAA's Kansas City campus last month. The awards followeds his presentation on NOAA’s role in forecasting for air transportation. Aviation weather experts representing government, public and private interests across the United States and Canada examined ways to improve the efficiency and safety of aviation.

NOAA Administrator Lautenbacher at an aviation conference in Kansas City last month.

 

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Date Last Updated: May 30, 2003 11:00 AM