Back ||NOAA Home REMARKS BEFORE THE CHESAPEAKE BAY BOWL at the NATIONAL AQUARIUM BALTIMORE, MD. February 22, 2002 Good afternoon. I am Conrad Lautenbacher, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator and I am pleased and excited to see so many folks here today who are getting ready to participate in the Chesapeake Bay Bowl regional competition. Let me add my thanks to all of the sponsors of this event, to the National Aquarium in Baltimore for their support, and certainly my thanks to all of the many volunteers, parents and students who make this effort so successful. You are all engaged in an activity that is truly important to the future of this nation and the world. I must add that I am very familiar with the National Ocean Sciences Bowl competition. I was in Miami last year to present awards to the finalists and I can assure you that presenting the awards in this competition is a lot easier than answering some of the questions. NOAA, which is by the way, the Nation's oceanic and atmospheric science agency, will continue to support the National Ocean Sciences Bowl under my leadership and I look forward to late April and seeing this year's final result in Providence, R.I. I know that all of you will acquit yourselves well this weekend and the winner will be a team to be reckoned with at the finals. I certainly wish all of you good fortune whether you go on to Providence or not. Just being here at this stage qualifies all of you as winners! First, let me be clear, NOAA has a very selfish reason for supporting the National Ocean Sciences Bowl and that is that in the future, we want you to work for NOAA. First of all I want to be certain you all know what NOAA is; many folks think it is guy who built an ark! The real NOAA, N – O – A – A, is our nations operational agency charged with environmental understanding, observation, and predictive capability -- in some areas we also play a regulatory and enforcement role. It is in fact a national center of excellence for ocean and atmospheric science and observation. We have five major line offices: The National Weather Service, the National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service (NESDIS), the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), the National Ocean Service (NOS), and The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Please take notes! Who knows, this may the answer to an important question for your team tomorrow! In the future, NOAA will need the best oceanographers, cartographers, biologists, chemists, and engineers to conduct our work in the future and I want all of you to consider NOAA when you think about future employment. Now I know that the idea to many of you about "employment" is a ways off, but please just think of NOAA in a few years. If you find the ocean sciences fascinating, and you are here because you do, I believe NOAA can provide you with a rewarding step in your future career path. I might add that your generation, which I refer to as "GenerationWEB", can learn more about what NOAA does at www.noaa.gov. The NOAA Web site is the second most visited government website and I think all of you may even find a few answers to some future ocean science questions on the site. Second, I am very excited to see so many of you for another fairly simple reason; you are the future of the ocean sciences in the United States. Even if you don't end up working for NOAA, your generation will carry out the work necessary to ensure the wise and judicious use of our marine resources. Your generation will explore the world's oceans with new technologies that allow us to go deeper and farther than ever before; (incidentally, looking out at this very balanced mixed gender audience, I need to remind all of you that while many of the names of our great ocean explorers and scientists included such names as Darwin and Drake, today it is wide open and we celebrate the present day accomplishments of such great leaders in ocean science such as Sylvia Earle, Shirley Pomponie, and Marcia McNutt. Your generation will produce the new drugs from the deep that will cure human disease; your generation will have to find ways to produce more food for all of the world's people from the oceans (remember that somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of the world's protein comes from the oceans). Your generation will be responsible for getting world leaders to gain an appreciation of just how important the oceans are to all of humanity—not just countries that border the oceans but all countries. And you know what, I envy all of you—I am jealous of the opportunities that are before you because your generation is standing on the edge of the precipice of a new wave of exploration—exploration that will be made possible by the enormous advances in technology in the past thirty years. You are getting ready to dive, literally, into the last great exploration adventure on our planet. Tell me, who do you consider the Lewis and Clark of the oceans? Bob Ballard and Jaques Cousteau come to mind, but I really believe that person is yet to be recognized and will come from your generation. I wish I was your age again because I see what is coming and it is exciting work with important meaning that is critical to the well being of our planet. One of the reasons that I was so willing to accept this job was my optimism and enthusiasm for the future of ocean science. Today, we are witnessing the confluence of both the need to increase our knowledge of the oceans and the technology to that will make it possible. (Global Hawk story) (Remote sampling example) (El Niño technology) What will you need to participate in these ocean adventures? Well, study hard and be disciplined, stay on the math and science path, and have fun in the process. When I was your age – (Univac story) Later when I completed my graduate degrees in Applied math and studied Tsunami run-ups on islands, great advances had taken place, my computational models were done on rudimentary main frame digital computeres using punch cards! Your generation will have better assets to help you explore all aspects of the ocean sciences and they range from submersibles to supercomputers. But to use these assets, you have to be fluent in the language of math and science. Math and science experts are the ones who drive the submersibles and run the supercomputing centers that will solve tomorrow's problems. Finally, I wish you best of success in the Chesapeake Bay Bowl competition. I am confident that your hard work in preparing for this event will pay off and I encourage all of you to follow your interest in the ocean sciences to the next level. I look forward to your generation leading the charge for a greater understanding of what mysteries the oceans hold, and I am confident that you will help to unravel those mysteries for humanity's benefit.