Contacts:  NOAA:  Dan Dewell,               FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
           U. S. Coast Guard: Lt. Cmdr. Ray Massey    11/20/97
          

An interagency team of navigation and safety experts has received Vice President Al Gore's "Hammer Award" for improving the efficiency and safety of maritime transportation in Alaska's Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound areas.

The team, made up of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U. S. Coast Guard experts, worked with other federal agencies, state and local officials, and waterway users to improve navigation safety by upgrading or installing a wide array of navigation aids and information services such as real time weather data and tide gauges.

The team's work meets the Vice President's Hammer Award criteria of putting customers first, cutting red tape, empowering front line employees, and getting back to basics in doing the government's work.

Work on the Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound Navigation Safety and Efficiency project began in 1995 when team members went to waterway users to identify key problems and needs. Since then a variety of improvements have been made in providing weather information, updating charts and other navigation services, responding to search and rescue calls, and issuing vessel traffic information. Although more improvements are planned and some members of the original team have been transferred, the Hammer Award was presented to both acknowledge the progress made to date, and recognize the team's quick and efficient method of getting the job done.

NOAA team members named in the award were: Robert Pavia of NOAA's Hazardous Materials and Response Division in Seattle; Cmdr. Kathy Timmons, a NOAA Corps officer with the Office of Coast Survey, also based in Seattle; and John Whitney, a NOAA pollution response scientific support coordinator who works with the Coast Guard Marine Safety Office (MSO) in Anchorage.

Coast Guard team members cited were: Cmdr. Kathy Hamblett of the 17th Coast Guard District headquarters in Juneau, Alaska; Lt. Cmdr. Terry Murphy from the Anchorage MSO; Cmdr. Larry Vose, who was chief of Waterways Management and Navigational Safety at the Juneau headquarters at the beginning of the project and has since assumed command of a Coast Guard cutter based in California; and Lt. Cmdr. Joe McGuiness, who was assigned to the Coast Guard MSO and Vessel Traffic System in Valdez, Alaska, and is now commanding officer of a Coast Guard cutter based in Detroit.

The award, which was accepted Wednesday on behalf of the team by Coast Guard officials in Washington, D.C., also cited the involvement of NOAA's National Weather Service and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers in the project.

From the start, the project team was customer oriented and focused on improving navigation safety without getting bogged down in bureaucratic processes and procedures. For example, hydrographic data requested by the Coast Guard to improve navigation safety near a newly opened mining operation was gathered by the NOAA survey ship Rainier within a matter of weeks. Interagency requests for this type of survey work typically take much longer to coordinate, sometimes up to a year.

The Hammer Award is presented to teams of federal employees who make significant contributions in support of reinventing government principles. The award is the vice president's answer to past wasteful government spending on items such as "$400 hammers." Fittingly, the award consists of a framed $6 hammer, a ribbon, and a note from Vice President Gore, all in an aluminum frame. More than 900 Hammer Awards have been presented to teams comprised of federal employees, state and local employees, and citizens who are working to build a better government.

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