NOAA Forms Management

Kids visiting the Auke Bay Laboratory in Alaska get up close and personal with marine life in the “touch tank.”

In their lab coats, sixth graders participate in a variety of hands-on activities, including figure out how to clean up a mini-oil spill in a pie plate using only the supplies provided to them.

NOAA volunteers at Louisiana’s Calcasieu Lake.

While some worked on marking debris and hazards, others at Louisiana’s Calcasieu Lake celebrated trout fishing in America.

Team Member of the Month


Wei Guo
NESDIS

NOAA’s Employee and Team Member of the Month for September are Joseph McCabe from the Office of General Counsel, and Wei Guo from NOAA Satellites and Information Service.

Joseph McCabe has provided critical and timely guidance to the Alaska Marine Ecosystem Forum, an important interagency forum under the President's Ocean Action Plan for improving coordination of activities affecting the nation's marine ecosystem off Alaska. In recognition of his exceptional paralegal skills and communication abilities, the NOAA Alaska Regional Counsel assigned him to participate in interagency discussions directed toward the Forum's formation. His initiative and exceptional paralegal skills will allow NOAA to establish this important regional ecosystem Forum in support of the President's Ocean Action Plan. Joe's timely advice, problem-solving initiative and professional demeanor have been greatly appreciated by the participating agencies and the Council and have reflected well on NOAA and on NOAA's mission in the Alaska Region.

Wei Guo, a systems developer with the NESDIS Center for Satellite Applications and Research, has been instrumental to the development, improvement, and implementation of satellite-based estimates of land surface characteristics and the products derived from them. These products are critical to NOAA's Environmental Monitoring Center and Climate Prediction Center for weather and climate forecasts and for monitoring global drought and vegetation conditions. Wei also played a lead role in the development and enhancement of the current operational version of the Global Vegetation Index and a new vegetation index climate data set, the most comprehensive vegetation data set in the world, with the longest period of observations—26 years—and the highest spatial and temporal resolutions.

Team Member of the Month


Mike Terrell
NWS

NOAA’s Employee and Team Member of the Month for August are Linda McLaughlin from NOAA Research, and Mike Terrell from NWS.

As a program specialist for the NOAA Research Cooperative Institute program office, Linda McLaughlin has made important contributions to its success, helping to process more than $112 million in fiscal year 2005 for NOAA-supported extramural research. During the year, Linda worked closely with Cooperative Institutes at four universities, NOAA staff at six offices, and many NOAA program managers across the country to ensure that NOAA external research partners receive NOAA funding for important research projects. Her contributions have ultimately benefited various research programs in all NOAA line offices, particularly NOAA Research. These contributions helped the program meet its performance goals despite numerous major changes that occurred during the past year.

Mike Terrell, a contractor at the NWS National Reconditioning Center, decided to look inside failed pulse forming networks, a critical part of NWS radars, to see if they could be repaired. The devices, which shape radar pulses, began to fail at higher than expected rates, and NWS was soon running out of spares - which meant a number of radar sites would be down before we they would get replacements. Experienced technicians had never heard of repairing a pulse forming network, and there was some snickering. However, the situation was becoming desperate, and Mike stepped up to solve the problem. Mike found an innovative way to repair them, cutting open their cases and cannibalizing good parts from one to replace the failed part of the others. NWS ran out of new networks and no less than four of Mike's repaired devices were used to keep radars operating and insure people could properly be informed of severe weather hazards.

Team Member of the Month


Pam Boatwright,
NMAO

NOAA’s Employee and Team Member of the Month for July were Rebecca Reuter from NOAA Fisheries Service, and Pam Boatwright from NMAO

Rebecca Reuter serves as one of two outreach coordinators for the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center, in addition to her duties as a fisheries biologist. In October 2003, Rebecca initiated and chaired the multi-line office Northwest Regional Education and Outreach Group, which sponsors NOAA public awareness events such as the annual NOAA Science Camp for middle school students, Earth Week with NOAA at local community centers, and a One NOAA fair for NOAA employees in November 2005. Rebecca also is instrumental in facilitating the group's ability to form partnerships outside of NOAA to further public awareness of the agency's programs. Having received a NOAA 200th Anniversary grant in 2006 to bring the Treasures of NOAA's Ark exhibit to Seattle, Rebecca and the group collaborated with Seattle's Pacific Science Center to host the exhibit and produce NOAA-related educational activities.

Pam Boatwright is the River Stars program manager with the Elizabeth River Project, a non-profit grassroots organization that promotes voluntary pollution prevention and habitat restoration as a way to restore the Elizabeth River watershed in southeast Virginia. She helped NOAA have the Marine Operations Center-Atlantic named a "River Star," which recognizes a commitment to "do right by the river." Pam connected us with other Elizabeth River partner firms to provide a free energy audit of the facility, a free landscape design, and free services of a roofing contractor to explore the option of a "green roof." Pam provided over $4,000 in matching funds, which paid for landscaping with native Virginia plants at the MOC-Atlantic, which not only helped beautify the site, but will also provide habitat for wildlife, and improve storm water runoff with low maintenance requirements.

Gina Tillis-Nash and Chris Vacarro hosted the NOAA booth at the Mississippi Recovery Expo in Biloxi, Miss., this month.