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Northeast Fisheries Science Center Reference Document 05-18
Program Planning and Description Documents
for
the Northeast Fisheries Science Center,
Its Component Laboratories, and
Their Predecessors
during 1955-2005
by Jon A. Gibson
National Marine Fisheries Serv., Woods Hole Lab., 166 Water St., Woods
Hole, MA 02543
Print
publication date December 2005;
web version posted March 15, 2006
Citation: Gibson JA. 2005. Program planning and description documents for the Northeast Fisheries
Science Center, its component laboratories, and their predecessors during 1955-2005. US Dep
Commer, Northeast Fish Sci Cent Ref Doc. 05-18; 10 p.
Download complete PDF/print version
NOTE: All associated files are in PDF
PREFACE: Information on institutional planning and descriptive matters is often
lost due to the attitude that documents which contain such information
have little lasting value, with the consequence that the documents
are typically not entered into any enduring scientific, technical,
or even administrative series.
I disagree with that attitude. In 1996, I proposed to the NEFSC's
Deputy Center Director, George Grice, the following:
There have been numerous times that people both outside and inside
the Center, including myself, have sought information on the organization,
facilities, programs, personnel, funding, and publications of the
Center back through time. Not only is such information of interest
from an historical perspective, but it also has value from the standpoint
of current and future planning and evaluation efforts....[N]one of
these documents have been entered into any documentary series which
guarantees their availability to future generations. In fact, I suspect
that the only copy of some of these documents exists in my files.
I intend to compile these separate documents into a single issue
of the reference document series, with an appropriate introduction.
As future Center description documents are prepared, I intend to
enter them as "separates" into the series so that the information
is, again, not lost to future generations.
The Deputy Director immediately endorsed the effort. It took nine
years for the project to work its way to the top of the stack, but
this compilation represents the completion of the project.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
George Grice, as NEFSC Deputy Center Director, supported the initial
(1996) effort to prepare this compilation. Unfortunately, George
is deceased and never saw the completed project. Teri Frady, the
NEFSC Chief of Research Communications, supported the subsequent
efforts to prepare the compilation. She also provided excellent technical
comments on the draft version of this report.
Herbert Stern, Jr., Ambrose Jearld, Helen Mustafa, Claire Steimle,
and Jackie Riley assisted in the identification, location, and acquisition
of many of the compiled documents.
Laura Garner undertook the herculean task of the computerized scanning
and formatting of the compiled documents.
INTRODUCTION
Compiled in this document are 35 planning and description documents
for the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC), its component laboratories,
and their predecessors during 1955-2005. The 35 documents are assigned
to one of three categories. The first category (Table 1) includes 21
documents which deal with the whole organization (e.g., NEFSC,
Middle Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Center) or a whole facility (e.g.,
Woods Hole Laboratory, Sandy Hook Laboratory). The second category (Table
2) includes nine documents which deal with major research topics (e.g.,
aquaculture, food webs, pollution). The third category (Table
3) includes
seven documents (five unique to this table and two shared with Table
1) which deal with research support programs (e.g., library
services, editorial services, public affairs).
Only those documents developed wholly or in part by the NEFSC, its
component laboratories, or their predecessors are included. Those documents
developed wholly by higher levels (e.g., regional offices, headquarters)
in the parental agencies -- even if those documents deal with planning
and descriptive matters for the NEFSC, its component laboratories, and
their predecessors -- are excluded. Undoubtedly, some documents which would qualify for inclusion in this
compilation have not been identified; those developed in the earliest
portion of the 50-year period are most at risk for such. Even for those
documents which are included in this compilation, there are instances
of missing pages as well as instances (associated with mimeographed copying)
of missing portions of pages. On the surface, it would seem that description documents and planning
documents represent two different views: the former looking at the present
and the latter looking at the future. However, it is difficult to describe
a research program without including some explanation as to why that
research is being conducted; in other words, there is almost always an
implied program planning aspect to every program description document.
Analogously, it is difficult to plan for changes in the research being
conducted without some explanation of what research is already
being conducted; in other words, there is almost always an implied program
description aspect to every program planning document. The two are typically
complementary. For program planning and description documents which deal with whole
organizations or facilities (Table 1), an aspect that is often overlooked
by those documents is the broad reason, or rationale, for why the document
was prepared in the first place. For those who would wish to use previous
program planning and description documents as a resource for their own
program planning and description efforts, this underlying rationale is
valuable for understanding why those previous documents were approached
and constructed as they were. In an attempt to supply this rationale
for the 21 documents in Table 1, the table includes a "Comments" box
for each document which focuses on the rationale.
For program planning and description documents which deal with major
research topics (Table 2) and research support programs (Table
3), the
rationale for the preparation of those documents is either explicitly
or implicitly mentioned within them.
Table 1. Planning and description documents for either
the whole organization or a whole facility of the Northeast Fisheries
Science Center and its predecessors during 1955-2005.
Note: All associated files are PDFs. |
No. |
Year |
Title |
Comment |
1
|
1959 |
"Long-Range Program, Biological Laboratory,
Woods Hole, Mass." |
This document, dated August 12, 1959, comes in three volumes --
each a three-ring binder -- which contain one un-numbered and 41
numbered sections -- each separated by a tabbed divider. The un-numbered,
lead section of the document, which is titled just "Program," is
apparently the section which provides the rationale for the document,
but only page 8 now exists. Pages 1-7 and 9-? are missing. Two things
were going on at the time, though, which may provide the rationale
for the document's preparation. First, the old Woods Hole Laboratory
(WHL) -- built in 1885 -- was torn down in early 1958, and a new
laboratory with significantly enhanced research amenities was occupied
in early 1960. Second, by virtue of Amendment Two of President Eisenhower's "Reorganization
Memorandum No. 10" of November 18, 1958, the laboratory was no longer
to report to the Chief of the Biological Research Division in headquarters
in Washington, DC, but to begin reporting to the Director of the
new Region 3 in Gloucester, MA. The combination of new facilities
and new bosses could have triggered the document's preparation. |
2 |
1964 |
"Briefing Booklet: Program Review,
Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, January 6-10,
1964" |
This document comes in a three-ring binder which contains 27 lettered
sections -- each separated by a tabbed divider. The document contains
no rationale for the program review. However, since the review committee
included the top three positions in the agency's chain of command
for the WHL, it may have been that the program review was part of
an agency-wide effort in that regard. Another perspective is that
the WHL was ripe for review because of the incredible change that
it was undergoing at that time (new laboratory building and aquarium
in 1960, new vessel (Albatross IV) in 1962, new bottom trawl
survey program based on a stratified random sampling design in 1963, etc.) |
3 |
1970 |
"National Marine Fisheries Service, Woods
Hole Biological Laboratory: The Laboratory Mission and Organization" (Woods Hole Lab. Ref.
Doc. 70-5) |
This document, dated November 1970, is a small, single-stapled
booklet. The document contains no rationale for its creation, but
it came out the month following the effective date (October 3, 1970)
of President Nixon's "Reorganization Plan No. 4 of 1970" which sent
the WHL and all other laboratories of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries
from the Interior Department's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to
the Commerce Department's new component agency -- NOAA. It's likely
that the document was an attempt to introduce ourselves to our new
bosses. If that's the case, then it didn't entirely succeed; the
new NOAA Administrator, Robert M. White, in his first appearance
before Congress, referred to the WHL as the "Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution." In a good-natured but mocking gesture, the WHL's Director,
Robert L. Edwards, along with staff members Herbert Stern, Jr., and
Richard A. Cooper, walked up the street, bought three "WHOI"-emblazoned
tee shirts, put them on, had their photograph taken along the laboratory's
pier, framed the photograph, and shipped it back to the new NOAA
Administrator. (See Figure 1.) |
4 |
1971 |
"Organization, Structure, Mission, and
Operation of the Northeast Center for Marine Fisheries Research" |
This document, which is undated but which can be assigned to 1971
due to its content, comes in a small, three-brad folder. The document
contains no rationale for its creation, but it appears to deal with
the results of NOAA's early efforts to consolidate, organize, and
direct its newly acquired fisheries facilities, employees, and responsibilities
in the Northeast. NMFS was created, and a collection of offices --
each headed by an associate director -- was created within NMFS,
including the Office of Resource Research and the Office of Resource
Utilization. The biological laboratories in the Northeast were assigned
either to a new Northeast Fisheries Center (NEFC) which included
the Woods Hole (headquarters), Boothbay Harbor, and Narragansett
Laboratories, or to a new Middle Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Center
(MACFC) which included the Sandy Hook (headquarters), Milford, and
Oxford Laboratories. The larger NEFC answered to the NMFS Associate
Director for Resource Research, and the smaller MACFC answered to
the NMFS North Atlantic Regional Director. The Gloucester Technology
Laboratory answered to the NMFS Associate Director for Resource Utilization.
Four national laboratories were created; two of them were in the
Northeast (National Systematics Laboratory and Atlantic Environmental
Group), and answered to the NMFS Associate Director for Resource
Research. This document is an effort to describe the consolidation,
organization, and direction of the new NEFC. |
5 |
1972 |
"Middle Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Center,
NOAA-NMFS: Missions and Operational Guidelines" (Middle Atl. Coast. Fish. Cent. Inform.
Rep. 1) |
Documents No. 5 & 8-11 variously reflect an attempt by the
MACFC's Director, Carl J. Sindermann, to knit together the operations
of three laboratories which had relatively discrete research specializations
(marine gamefish conservation, shellfish aquaculture support, and
wild oyster disease prevention) into a broad-based coastal fisheries
research program. These documents basically had one or more of three
audiences/functions:
A. higher-level agency officials in order to assure them that
the MACFC was successfully developing a broad-based coastal
fisheries research program, but that it needed additional personnel
and funds for filling in "gaps" in the program;
B. MACFC staff in order to maintain esprit de corps as
their research activities were variously redirected for filling
in some of the gaps; and
C. other federal agencies (Interior Department's Bureau of
Land Management, NOAA's Environmental Research Laboratories, etc.)
in order to reassure them that the MACFC had the requisite capabilities
to perform work for them under reimbursable contracts -- such
contracts were used to directly (mutually useful research) and
indirectly (additional staff) fill in some of the other gaps.
This document, dated February 1972, is a large, plastic-comb-bound
booklet. The document is an analog of document No. 4 above --
only for the MACFC instead of the NEFC. It primarily targets
audiences/functions A & B. |
6 |
1972 |
"Briefing Book Prepared for New
England Steering Committee, September 6th, 1972, Massachusetts
Maritime Academy, Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts" |
This document is a medium-sized, plastic-comb-bound booklet. The
document appears to be an updated and expanded version of document
No. 4 above. It includes a thorough discussion of the major research
questions to be answered by the NEFC's work, plus provides a timeline
for the research results. |
7 |
1972 |
"Program Synopsis: Northeast Fisheries
Center" |
This document, which came out 16 days after document No. 6 above,
is a medium-sized, saddle-stitched booklet. It is almost identical
to that document. It does have better quality illustrations than
document No. 6.
|
8 |
1973 |
"Programs and Facilities of the Middle Atlantic
Coastal Fisheries Center" (Middle Atl. Coast. Fish. Cent. Inform. Rep. 12) |
See the comments for document No. 5.
This document, dated April 1973, is a small, plastic-comb-bound
booklet. It primarily targets audiences/functions A & B. |
9 |
1974 |
"Briefing Book on the Environmental and
Environmentally-Related Investigations of the Middle Atlantic Coastal
Fisheries Center, NMFS" (Middle
Atl. Coast. Fish. Cent. Inform. Rep. 20) |
See the comments for document No. 5.
This document, dated February 1974, is a medium-sized, plastic-comb-bound
booklet. It primarily targets audience/function C. |
10 |
1975 |
"Briefing Document -- Program Planning
and Operations: Middle Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Center" (Middle Atl. Coast. Fish. Cent. Inform.
Rep. 80) |
See the comments for document No. 5.
This document is undated, but can be assigned to September or
October 1975 by its location in the series. The document is
a medium-sized, plastic-comb-bound booklet. It primarily targets
audiences/functions A & B. |
11 |
1976 |
"Objectives, Programs and Facilities
of the Middle Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Center" (Middle Atl. Coast. Fish. Cent. Inform. Rep. 115)" |
See the comments for document No. 5.
This document, dated June 1976, is a medium-sized, plastic-comb-bound
booklet. It targets audiences/functions A, B, & C. |
12 |
1977 |
"Center Conspectus: Northeast Fisheries
Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, United States Department of Commerce,
Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 17 October 1977" |
This document is a small-to-medium-sized, plastic-comb-bound booklet.
Since I (Jon Gibson) prepared the document, its rationale for preparation
is fully understood. Although the NEFC had lost the Boothbay Harbor
Laboratory in 1973 due to the Nixon Administration's austerity program,
it nonetheless expanded greatly in October 1976 during a major NMFS
reorganization. The NEFC acquired: the MACFC's three laboratories,
one field station (Greenbackville, VA), and research vessels (including
the Delaware II); the Gloucester Technology Laboratory;
and the three national laboratories sited in the region (National
Systematics Laboratory, Atlantic Environmental Group, and MARMAP
Field Group). At the same time, the Fishery Conservation and Management
Act of 1976 (FCMA) had been implemented, the Commerce Department
had come out with its 1976 "National Plan for Marine Fisheries" (NPMF)
largely in response to the FCMA, and NOAA had come out with its 1977 "NOAA
Aquaculture Plan" (NAP) largely in response to the NPMF. This document
had two audiences/functions: a) the expanded NEFC staff in order
to build esprit de corps, especially for staff at the "new" facilities
(those other than the Woods Hole and Narragansett Laboratories) which
now found themselves with a new intermediate boss; and b) higher-level
agency officials and Congress in order to justify additional funds
to carry out the new mandates due to FCMA, NPMF, and NAP. |
13 |
1982 |
"Fisheries Management in the Northeast:
Its Social, Ecological, and Scientific Context" (Northeast Fish. Cent. Newsletter Spec.
Iss. 1, March 1982) |
This document was a 68-page special issue of the Northeast
Fisheries Center Newsletter. The newsletter series was a monthly
series that reported on routine activities of all NEFC programs
and on the significance of a single program or topic. It was written
for both NEFC staff and constituents. The Reagan Administration
had been in office for a year, had indicated that it was going
to cut federal discretionary spending greatly -- especially "non-essential
research" (which to it meant non-defense research), and was seeing
the country slip into a serious economic recession. With the outlook
for funding so bleak, the Center Director, Robert L. Edwards, contracted
for Donald W. Bourne -- a combination scientist-writer employed
by the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole -- to prepare
a document for distribution especially to Congressional staffers,
which would make the case for continued funding for the NEFC. Edwards'
first requirement of Bourne was that the word "research" not appear
anywhere in the document; it didn't! |
14 |
1984 |
"Northeast Fisheries Center: A Plan for Redirection by Committee
of Three" (see "Comments" column for choice of links) |
This document is undated, although it came out in 1984. The document
comprises two volumes: a medium-sized, plastic-comb-bound booklet
for the main report, and a large, plastic-comb-bound
booklet for the 14 supporting appendices. In 1983,
Allen E. Peterson became the Director of the NEFC. One of his first
actions was to ensure that the NEFC was doing what it ought to be
doing from the perspective of its constituents (NMFS, regional fishery
management councils, commercial and recreational fishing interests, etc.),
and that it was doing it in the most effective and efficient way.
This effort included an October 1983 external review of the NEFC's
overall scientific operations, and internal reviews and issue papers
on more than a dozen areas of NEFC scientific operations. This document,
prepared by Michael P. Sissenwine, Richard C. Hennemuth, and Carl
J. Sindermann (the "Committee of Three"), analyzed the results of
the external program review and the internal technical reviews and
issue papers, and then proposed a major organizational restructuring
and functional redirection of the NEFC's scientific operations. |
15 |
1984 |
"Study of Northeast Fisheries Center
Administrative Structure" |
See the comments for document No. 14. Allen E. Peterson excluded
the NEFC's "administrative" operations from the aforementioned reviews
and papers. He tasked the Commerce Department's Eastern Administrative
Support Center to perform the same functions for the NEFC's administrative
operations as the Committee of Three had done for the NEFC's scientific
operations. The result was this small, single-stapled report, dated
May 1984. (This document deals with research support programs, and
is listed, appropriately, in Table 3. Its interconnections with document
No. 14 warrant its listing here also.) |
16 |
1984 |
"Northeast Fisheries Center: A Plan
for Redirection [by Center Director]" |
This document is an extracted, slightly modified, and much smaller
version of document No. 14. The document is fundamentally the version
that Allen Peterson sent to higher-level officials in the agency
as the first step in receiving approval for the restructuring and
redirection of the NEFC. |
17 |
1986 |
"NEFC Core Research Program: The Purpose
and Direction of the Northeast Fisheries Center Research Program" |
An outgrowth of the NEFC redirection noted in document No. 14 was
the creation of a Research Planning and Coordination Staff (RPCS)
under Richard C. Hennemuth, which was tasked immediately to deal
with the expanding demands upon NEFC researchers in the face of shrinking
(inflation-adjusted) budgets. This medium-sized, plastic-comb-bound
booklet is the result of that task. It has an excellent introduction
to the overall problem and the rationale for how the question was
addressed. |
18 |
1986 |
"Northeast Fisheries Center" |
In fall 1986, NMFS decided to prepare a series of brochures for
its four fisheries centers. Each brochure was supposed to answer
three questions: 1) What do you do and how do you do it?; 2) Why
do you do it?; and 3) How are you organized, located, equipped, and
staffed? Unfortunately, NMFS never finished the brochures, but this
document contains the material for the brochure on the NEFC. |
19 |
1988 |
"Research Directory FY-1988: Northeast
Fisheries Center" |
From the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, the RPCS prepared an
annual document which listed the NEFC's/NEFSC's (named changed in
1992) key personnel, summarized its research investigations, and
listed its anticipated research products and services in the coming
year. These small/medium-sized, plastic-comb-bound booklets served
as a backgrounding or briefing tool for those NEFC/NEFSC constituents
with whom the NEFC/NEFSC had, or possibly was to have, cooperative
research endeavors (Sea Grant institutions, regional fishery development
foundations, state fish & wildlife agencies, etc.). |
20 |
1991 |
"Draft Descriptions of Center Programs for the NOAA Organizational
Handbook" |
In summer 1991, NMFS sought to standardize and streamline the organizational
structure of both headquarters and field operations. The changes
were mostly cosmetic (e.g., "Northeast Fisheries Center" was changed
to "Northeast Fisheries Science Center, the Fishery Ecology
Division was eliminated but its functions and personnel were just
reassigned to the remaining divisions). This 20-page, stapled document
describes the hierarchy and functions of both the research and support
programs of the NEFSC. (This document is listed in Table 3 as well.) |
21 |
1993 |
"Research Program of the National Marine
Fisheries Service at the James J. Howard Marine Sciences Laboratory" |
An act of arson in 1985 destroyed one of the two main buildings
of the NEFC's Sandy Hook Laboratory. Congressional action, spearheaded
by New Jersey Congressman James J. Howard, resulted in facility replacements
and upgrades at the site constituting a state-of-the-art marine science
laboratory. The new facility is owned by the State of New Jersey,
and leased long-term to NMFS and other partner institutions to carry
out research on the effects of natural and human-induced factors
on the biology, ecology, and management of coastal and estuarine
living marine resources. This document, a small, saddle-stitched
booklet, describes the NEFSC research program at the new facility
to achieve this research mission. |
Table 2. Planning and description documents on major
research topics addressed by the NEFSC, its component laboratories,
and their predecessors during 1955-2005.
Note: All associated files are PDFs. |
Date |
Title (series, if any, and National Technical
Information Service accession number, if applicable) |
Author(s) |
December 1974 |
"A Proposal for Reestablishment of Aquaculture
Research in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Center" (Middle Atl. Coast.
Fish. Cent. Inform. Rep. 46) |
Middle Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Center |
April 1985 |
"Regional Action Plan" (NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS- F/NEC-37;
NTIS Access. No. PB85-219962/AS) |
B.E. Higgins, R. Rehfus, J.B. Pearce, R.J. Pawlowski, R.L. Lippson,
T. Goodger, S. Mello Roe, and D.W. Beach |
May 1987 |
"NOAA's Northeast Monitoring Program (NEMP):
A Report on Progress of the First Five Years (1979-84) and a Plan
for the Future" (NOAA
Tech. Memo. NMFS- F/NEC-44; NTIS Access. No. PB87-210100) |
R.N. Reid, M.C. Ingham, and J.B. Pearce, eds., and C.E. Warsh (water
quality), R.N. Reid (sediments & bottom organisms), A.Y. Cantillo
(trace contaminants in tissues), and E. Gould (biological effects),
topic coords. |
July 1987 |
"Northeast Fisheries Center Framework for
Inshore Research" (NOAA
Tech. Memo. NMFS- F/NEC-49; NTIS Access. No. PB87-232286/AS) |
Research Planning & Coordination Staff, Northeast Fisheries
Center |
June 1988 |
"A Plan for Study: Response of the Habitat
and Biota of the Inner New York Bight to Abatement of Sewage Sludge
Dumping" (NOAA Tech.
Memo. NMFS- F/NEC-55; NTIS Access. No. PB89-100903/AS) |
Environmental Processes Division, Northeast Fisheries Center |
May 1994 |
"Marine Mammal Studies Supported by the
Northeast Fisheries Science Center during 1980-89" (NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS- F/NEC-103;
NTIS Access. No. PB95-108213) |
G.T. Waring, J.M. Quintal, and T.D. Smith |
September 1999 |
"Marine Mammal Research Program of the Northeast Fisheries Science
Center during 1990-95" (NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS- F/NE-120;
NTIS Access. No. PB2000-100809) |
J.M. Quintal and T.D. Smith |
August 2000 |
"A Framework for Monitoring and Assessing Socioeconomics and Governance
of Large Marine Ecosystems" (NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS- F/NE-158;
NTIS Access. No. PB2001-106847) |
J.G. Sutinen, editor, P. Clay, C.L. Dyer, S.F. Edwards, J. Gates,
T.A. Grigalunas, T. Hennessey, L. Juda, A.W. Kitts, P.N. Logan, J.J.
Poggie, Jr., B. Pollard Rountree, S.R. Steinback, E.M. Thunberg,
H.F. Upton, and J.B. Walden |
October 2000 |
"An Overview and History of the Food Web Dynamics Program of the
Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts" (NOAA
Tech. Memo. NMFS- F/NE-159; NTIS Access. No. PB2001-103996) |
J.S. Link and F.P. Almeida |
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