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Directors officially take their seats at the GCOOS Fall Meeting
The Gulf of America Coastal Ocean Observing System (GCOOS) announced the results of its annual elections today, Thursday, May 22. The nonprofit organization will welcome some new and returning members to the GCOOS Board of Directors.
GCOOS is a 501(c)3 organization responsible for developing a network of business leaders, marine scientists, resource managers, governmental and non-governmental organizations and other stakeholder groups that collect and combine their data to provide timely information about our oceans — similar to the information gathered by the National Weather Service to develop weather forecasts. In 2025, GCOOS is celebrating its 20th anniversary. With members from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, GCOOS has established a sustained observing system for the Gulf to provide observations and products needed by users in this region.
“We want to offer a warm welcome and many thanks to our newly elected and re-elected members of the Board of Directors for their commitment to the GCOOS mission,” said GCOOS Board Chair Dr. Kimberly Yates. “We appreciate the expertise, perspective, and dedication that all of our GCOOS members contribute to help deliver accurate information about the Gulf and its resources.”
The directors will officially take their seats during the GCOOS Fall Meeting. Members of the GCOOS Board of Directors serve three-year terms and are responsible for:
Newly Elected Members:
Private Sector: Nick Gagliano works in business development at Sofar Ocean, where he partners with ocean and coastal industries on innovative environmental monitoring solutions. As a resident of New Orleans, he has developed a passion for monitoring, protecting and restoring the valuable, yet vulnerable, coastal and marine resources of the U.S. Gulf region. Nick melds this passion with his background in physical oceanography and geospatial analytics to advise researchers, government agencies, and maritime industries on Sofar’s affordable, real-time ocean data solutions.
Government Sector: Dr. James “Jim” Kendall serves as the Regional Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) New Orleans Office. Before moving back to Louisiana, he served 11 years as the BOEM Alaska Regional Director. Kendall started his career in 1989 with the Gulf Office’s Studies program and then moved to headquarters where he was, as he remains, a proponent for knowledge-informed decision-making, including the use of science, indigenous knowledge and ocean exploration. While in headquarters, Kendall was fortunate enough to participate in the early years of the program when the National Office for Integrated and Sustained Ocean Observations, IOOS’s predecessor, was housed at Ocean.US. When he moved to Alaska, Kendall served for many years on the AOOS Executive Committee.
Returning Board Members
Private Sector: Dr. Ruth Perry is a Marine Scientist and Regulatory Policy specialist responsible for offshore marine environmental policy for Shell Exploration and Production Americas teams. In this capacity, Perry integrates marine science and ocean technology into regulatory policy advocacy and decision-making in the areas of marine sound, marine spatial planning, ocean observing, and marine mammal and life science, primarily in the Gulf of Mexico.
Government Sector: Dr. Pat Hogan is an oceanographer who serves as the Ocean Sciences Branch Chief for the National Centers for Environmental Information. In addition to directing the global ocean forecasting research, Hogan has been modeling and forecasting the Gulf of Mexico circulation for many years. These models have been and are used by many in the community for research and for boundary conditions to nested regional models within the Gulf.
Academic Sector: Dr. Stephan Howden is an Associate Professor in the Department of Marine Science at the University of Southern Mississippi, where he has directed the Central Gulf of Mexico Ocean Observing System since 2003. Howden has been involved with what became the GCOOS regional association since 2003 and has served on the Board of Directors since 2010, where he has helped to develop the GCOOS Build-Out Plan required for submission to the NOAA IOOS Office (leading the HFR and AUV sections) and the writing teams that later updated the plan.
Outreach and Education Sector: Dr. Nan Walker is a Professor in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences at Louisiana State University where she also serves as Director of the LSU Earth Scan Laboratory. Her research over the last 25 years has focused on advancing the understanding of circulation in the Gulf of Mexico by developing techniques to detect and track coastal and oceanic water masses. She has been involved in the real-time surveillance of Gulf circulation (river plumes and Loop Current) since 1991. She served as Associate Director of LSU’s Earth Scan Laboratory (www.esl.lsu.edu) alongside founder Oscar Huh, and became its director in 2003. She has managed research programs funded by NASA, NSF, MMS, USACOE, LA Board of Regents, NOAA Sea Grant, GCOOS, GOMRI, and the Water Institute of the Gulf.
Additional members of the GCOOS Board of Directors are:
Private Sector
Government Sector
Academic Sector
Outreach and Education Sector
About GCOOS
GCOOS is one of 11 regional associations that partner with the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System, U.S. IOOS®, a federal, regional, private sector partnership committed to tracking, predicting, managing and adapting to changes in our ocean, coastal and Great Lakes environments. GCOOS data is certified by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), meaning that the organization meets rigorous standards for data gathering and management practices and operates transparently and with stakeholder guidance to help determine Gulf system priorities. GCOOS has 36 principal investigators and 62 partners providing data from 1,730 sensors via 447 regional and federal stations. GCOOS has 181 institutional and individual members. www.GCOOS.org
About the Gulf of America Alliance
The Gulf of America Alliance is a regional partnership focused on enhancing the environmental and economic health of the region through increased collaboration. Led by the five Gulf states, the network includes more than 165 participating organizations from state and federal agencies, local governments, communities, academia, non-governmental organizations and industry. Working with these partners, GOAA addresses priority issues including coastal community resilience; data and monitoring; education; habitat; water resources; wildlife and fisheries; and marine debris. www.GulfOfAmericaAlliance.org