OBFS REPRESENTATIVES MEET WITH THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MARINE LABS (NAML) TO DISCUSS TOPICS OF COMMON INTEREST. WASHINGTON DC FEBRUARY 27 Ð 29TH 2000.

NAML is a sister organization to OBFS:
The National Association of Marine Laboratories (NAML), organized in the late 1980's, is a nonprofit organization of over 120 members employing more than 10,000 scientists, engineers, and professionals and representing marine and Great Lakes laboratories stretching from Guam to Bermuda and Alaska to Puerto Rico. NAML member laboratories provide a variety of academic, research, and public service programs". http://www.mbl.edu/html/NAML/NAML.html.

Several marine labs are members of both OBFS and NAML.NAML is composed of three regional associations:
Northeastern Association of Marine & Great Lakes Laboratories (NEAMGLL) includes institutions on the Great Lakes and marine laboratories from the eastern seaboard north of Maryland.
Southern Association of Marine Laboratories (SAML), includes marine laboratories from Maryland to Texas including Bermuda and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Western Association of Marine Laboratories (WAML) includes marine laboratories on the West Coast of the United States including Hawaii and Guam.

     They have regular meetings for the three regional associations and then every other year the whole membership meets at a marine lab. The broad membership meeting at the marine lab follows a format somewhat like the annual OBFS meetings. The Executive Board meets in Washington D.C } every year o which the general membership are also welcome. The Washington meeting has traditionally included meetings with congressional staffers and, every other meeting, a NAML reception for representatives, senators and staffers.
Background to attending the NAML meeting
     At last year’s OBFS annual meeting at Mountain Lake, participants discussed the benefits of Executive Board representatives attending the winter meeting of NAML. NAML was responsive to the OBFS request to attend and below follows a report of the meeting.
Highlights of events:
     OBFS representatives Art Mckee (Past president), Hilary Swain (President), and Sedra Shapiro (SDSU OBFS member) initially met with the NAML Executive Committee (notes say Lavern Weber (President) Alan Kuzirian (Secretary/Treasurer), Tom Malone, Art Brooks (Past President), Linda Shapiro, Tom Michaels, and Tim Nelson) and then also made presentations to the larger NAML group attending, with representatives from many labs. The objective was to look for areas of common interest and explore future joint activities to capitalize on our collective OBFS/NAML value.

     Some of the programs highlighted by NAML on their agenda were:
• LABNET http://www.mbl.edu/html/NAML/brochure/LABNET.brochure.html – NAML’s excellent interactive 3 year old project (original NSF, EPA NOAA funding) which is a network system (set of tools) to allow data retrieval, viewing and manipulation for different member sites at a variety of scales. NAML’s LABNET has targeted distributed databases (hosted on ftp sites at home institutions) of interest to state and federal agencies (e.g. tracking algal blooms).
• CBATS – www.cbats.org, an innovative interactive K-12 program to allow students and teachers to access the Bermuda Biological Station for research data and to promote inquiry based learning.
OBFS representative presentations focused on
• An overview of OBFS including a slide presentation of the GIS analysis by Hilary Swain, Mark Stromberg and Roberta Pickert demonstrating the broad geographical and thematic coverage of OBFS member sites within 25/33 of the US biogeographical ecoregions in the lower 48 states.
• Sedra Shapiro presented the goals and status of the NSF Project First, a case study on power of the collective – in which five OBFS member stations have undertaken workshops for undergraduate teaching faculty enhancement and to promote the inclusion of inquiry-based learning and collaborative learning techniques into undergraduate programs.
• Art McKee presented future possibilities including an early outline of an initiative to recommend that NSF establish a special competition for funding K-12 education programs at field stations and marine labs (analagous to the FSML program).

     The Executive Board and the OBFS delegates met in a closed session and decided that there was significant synergy with the two organizations. The consensus from the meeting was the timing is very good for collaborative OBFS-NAML initiatives. (The Teaming with Life PCAST Report, the report of the National Science Board Task Force on the Environment, and OSTP initiatives for a national scorecard of environmental conditions all support the role and contributions of sites such as OBFS and NAML members).

1. Consider holding joint NAML-OBFS Executive Board meetings in Washington, DC on a regular basis with the intent of making OBFS and NAML more visible on federal radar screens.
2. Define a joint federal agenda - possible topics include the power of the collective (network of environmental monitoring), some theme to support the NSF FSML program directorate, support of NEON initiatives, and Education programs from K-gray at field stations and marine labs. Will require a joint NAML-OBFS Executive Board preparation
3. Provide member field stations and marine labs with this federal agenda and develop a strategy to coordinate action at the site level with local congressional representatives. This could also act as a pipeline for encouraging participation in item 4.
4. NAML-OBFS agreed to consider hosting a joint Washington reception in subsequent years. Hilary Swain and Lavern Weber as Presidents of the respective organizations would work to establish the partnership and identify details regarding a jointly hosted event. There was concern that this has to be well organized and well advertised to be cost-effective. Fiscal impact to OBFS – unknown but reception is likely to be $5k per sponsor or less given past event costs. The agenda and details are yet to be worked out but the thought was to include an awards ceremony (to encourage congressional representation).
5. Another approach would be for OBFS and NAML to use AIBS or a similar umbrella organization to help set up other types of congressional interface such as a Roundtable (often held in the National Press Club) to promote a hot topic of interest to both OBFS and NAML, such as invasive exotics.
6. Work together to develop a new K-12 initiative to present to NSF.
7. Improve cross-referencing of web sites – e.g. consider annual class listings at both OBFS and NAML sites.
8. Consider including NAML sites in the second phase of Project First if it gets NSF award.
This September we will extend invitations for member(s) of the NAML Executive Board to attend the OBFS annual meeting at Andrews Forest to continue this encouraging conversation.

Hilary Swain,
Art Mckee,
Sedra Shapiro