NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science

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CCEHBR employees pipetting in the lab.

However, the loss of expert staff having decades of "institutional memory" is a daunting prospect to the manager of any research organization, whether it’s federal, private or academic. The concern is that retiring employees will take with them their accumulated and cumulative experience, training and knowledge, all of which are critical to the continuity of the organization. Really, it’s an issue that every organization faces, whether they’re geared toward scientific research or civil service generally. It’s just a function of "baby boomers" moving through the workforce.

At NCCOS, we are dealing with this reality in two ways. First, we recognize and accept that retirements are, indeed, going to happen. Second, we are proactive, trying very hard to plan and prepare for the transition before those retirements occur.

This discussion actually brings me back to the point we touched on earlier. Our contract workers, in many cases, work alongside those civil servants whose retirements are approaching. In these cases, much of the institutional memory and know–how from our senior staff is being transmitted daily to our "pool of future talent," as I’ll call it. By making use of a contract workforce, we are actually increasing the pool of potential recruits and simultaneously preserving information that can make the so–called "brain drain" transition less problematic.

CCFHR employee working underwater, watching a manta swim by. (Credit: Shay Viehman)

You’ve spoken in the past about the priority you place on seeing NCCOS research results moving, if you will, from the laboratory to actual practical application and utility, perhaps much like an assembly line product is really only useful as that product is put into practice in the real world. Does that strategy also somehow fit into your meeting your mission objectives through your workforce practices?

GM: In fact, it’s absolutely central to what we are trying to do. In NCCOS, we routinely measure how well we transition our scientific work from research to applications for meaningful purposes. It is important for our work to be useful. Measuring success in this way forces us to undertake broader distribution and outreach of our research products and services. We go beyond merely publishing our work in scientific journals for an audience of our peers.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re extremely proud of our staff’s many professional journal and peer–reviewed publications, and we support and encourage those efforts. However, they’re really not the period at the end of the sentence, so to speak, but rather just the start of our story–telling.

We’ve been placing a premium on seeing our scientific research achieve practical benefits in the field for coastal resource managers and all of our partners. Our work on domoic acid test kits in the Pacific Northwest, our harmful algal bloom and ecological forecasting work, and our extensive public education and outreach activities are among numerous examples here. And through those efforts, we can see these research–to–application successes translate into increased research funding opportunities for our scientists. They also benefit NCCOS employees through additional recognition throughout Commerce Department and National Ocean Service awards systems.

CCMA employee working in his office

I think there’s another important distinction about how we go about managing our federal staff. We’ve touched on both recruitment and retention of a highly skilled workforce, but I want to put a bit of a twist on that discussion. Our goal at NCCOS is not to just retain bright, talented and capable workers. Rather, we want to provide them with opportunities to maximize their professional growth and development. Of course, we want to do so in a way that simultaneously advances our ability to meet our agency’s objectives and helps our employees achieve their own career and professional goals.

In some cases, this means that we actively encourage our federal staff to undertake temporary details, meaning they take a short–term job assignment in another agency or in a different office within NOAA. Both NCCOS and the employee benefit from that kind of cross–fertilization. I really believe that our holistic approach to our workforce is what helps NCCOS continue to attract the most capable people.

It sounds good in theory, Dr. Matlock, but when you come right down to it, aren’t those same strategies and tools available to all federal agencies? Is what NCCOS is doing in any way unique or different from what your counterpart agencies are doing?

GM: That’s a fair question, and there’s no doubt that this arsenal of tools is available throughout the federal sector. I’m certain that many agencies use a few of these approaches in their own workforce practices.

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Another CCFHR employee photographing a coral. (Credit: John Burke)

However, I think what distinguishes NCCOS in this respect is our reliance on the complete set of tools, and our broad application of them. The distinctions earned by our employees and contractors are evidence of our success. We’re constantly probing how many of our workforce are being recognized both within and beyond NOAA for the work they’re doing. We’re regularly exploring how their work not only forwards our own mission objectives, but also how it transitions into applications and operational activities. In other words, how what we do here ends up showing up in other arenas, and so forth. Consistently, our workforce is achieving that distinction.

Another important metric in looking at any federal work force—how it measures up in reflecting the ever–changing and quickly changing demographic profile of our nation’s diverse population. Is that a ball you can effectively juggle while at the same time making progress in these other areas we’ve discussed?

GM: Workforce diversity, too, is an absolutely critical measure of success for NCCOS. Diversity in our workforce is important to achieve because of how we want to do our work and how we want our workforce to be judged by others. We’ve achieved a lot in that regard, and you can be sure that it didn’t just happen by accident.

The Deputy Director of NCCOS and a summer 2008 intern. (Credit: Randy Cho)

We regularly conduct evaluations related to workforce diversity, whether for a small group of employees or for an entire research center. Experts who are entirely independent of NCCOS examine our programs and interview our managers. We regularly review those results and adapt our programs accordingly, and we’re seeing results.

For instance, the NCCOS workforce is about 50 percent female and about 50 percent male. Having a balanced workforce in terms of gender is unusual among federal scientific offices. We’re striving to have a more diverse workforce in other respects as well, including hiring scientists from minority groups that are traditionally under–represented in the sciences. We have aggressive programs in place to help identify and train promising young, minority scientists so that we can increase their exposure to NCCOS.

CCMA employees working at NOAA’s Kids Day. (Credit: Randy Cho)

The NOAA Educational Partnership Program, for instance, has created the Environmental Cooperative Science Center with a number of minority–serving institutions, or MSIs. I serve as the Technical Monitor to one of those centers. Our goal for NCCOS, and NOS in general, is to increase the capacities of those MSIs so they can increase the number of minority graduates in the marine sciences. In Alaska, for instance, NCCOS has invested about $700,000 over the past four years in the University of Alaska–Fairbanks and the College of Rural Alaska’s Tribal Management Program to establish a certification in Tribal natural resource management for Alaska Natives interested in environmental sciences.

All of this, in the end, is part of the crucial background story which, while largely invisible to the outside world, not only helps NCCOS meet its mission, but also helps ensure that we continue producing the kind of coastal ocean science results that best meet the changing needs of NOAA and our nation.

In a way, I guess you could say "it’s all in the day’s work." Yet, it’s also what makes coming to work at NCCOS such a stimulating and worthwhile opportunity for so many of us.