Proposal for upcoming DNR Status Meeting

Proposed Dates: UNKNOWN

Proposed Goals: - Inform each other of all DNR activities

• Inform the interested university community of DNR activities and plans
• Discuss short term and long term future of DNR with the interested university community
• Update of the present administrative status of DNR and the potential upcoming changes, if any, related to the Harte Institute and
• Overall finish the meeting with a set of short term (1-year) and longer term goals for DNR

The meeting will be divided in two general sessions, Morning Session and Afternoon Session separated by lunch together. The morning session will have 3 parts (1) General presentation of DNR recent activities (2) present vision of DNR members of DNR future (3) discussion with the interested TAMUCC staff and faculty members of DNR future and opportunities. The afternoon will be reserved for focused discussions.

Morning:

9:00 AM - 9:30 AM Presentation of DNR and recent activities (Gary with some power point slides provided by other DNR staff).

9:30 AM - 10:15 AM Options for DNR future, either single presentation (Gary) or series of short presentations or panel presentation or directly roundtable discussion.

10:15 AM - 10:30 AM Break

10:30 AM - 12:00 AM General discussion with DNR Staff and interested University community of DNR future including best opportunities and recommendations for top priorities.

12:00 PM - 1:30 PM Lunch

Afternoon:

1:30 PM - 3:30 PM Focused discussion based on morning session and discussion of a series of questions previously identified (see list in page 2). Note that only short discussions of these questions should take place in the morning as the morning should be reserved for overall long-term planning and interaction with non-DNR TAMUCC personnel.

3:30 PM - ? Write up of a short common document summarizing the content of the meeting. Draft a set of 1-year general goals and a set of long term priorities.

Possible topics to be discussed in the afternoon:

What is the current administrative status of DNR and what is the possible/foreseen future administrative of DNR? What is the present and future funding situation of DNR. Are there areas where we could/need to seek additional funding and what type of funded additional projects would be beneficial/feasible for DNR. IT personnel staff is down from 2 ½ to 1 (Scott). Discuss adding a permanent second IT person while considering the balance between priorities/funding/long term DNR plans. In general what are the most important personnel needs (present and near future) and do we have/will have funding to address them. The creation of a linked network of coastal stations with Mexico and contacts with the Florida Everglades, West Mexico, the Bahamas and Caiman Island is a tremendous opportunity but is mostly unfunded. The collaboration is based on the principle of a group of users helping each other but in the beginning DNR will be doing most of the work. Do we need to seek revenues or can we continue with seeking small ad-hoc funding when absolutely needed. If we need to seek revenues where should they come from, Harte Institute, joint proposals, support to DNR from other group members, support contracts from other group members? Research wise the emphasis is on use of mathematical methods for data quality improvements and assessment and the use of mathematical and artificial intelligence techniques for analysis and forecasting of environmental data sets. Discussion of this focus There is a general agreement that DNR should move in all its projects and operations towards the use of GIS (presentation, pre-processing, post processing) etc. Do we need to organize this move towards a fully GIS based DNR or is the present path fine. Should DNR form its own center (is it feasible?)