Each year OES presents two awards at the fall OCEANS conference. The awards include a certificate, a plaque, a watch, and placement of the person’s name on the historical list of past recipients on the OES web site. This year the following awards were presented at the OCEANS 2009 conference in Biloxi, Mississippi.
     The Distinguished Technical Achievement award was presented to Mr. Robert T. Bannon. This award is given to honor an outstanding technical contribution to oceanic engineering in either the fundamental or applied areas. The recipient need not be a member of OES or IEEE. The award recognizes either a single major invention or scientific contribution or a distinguished series of contributions over a long period of time.
     As a Director at AT&T and Bell Labs, Mr. Bannon was instrumental in the development of special underwater protection, maintenance and repair techniques for trans-oceanic communications companies. He was responsible for designing special application remotely operated and autonomous underwater vehicles and towed arrays for government and commercial applications. Mr. Bannon was the Chair of the International Systems Maintenance and SCARAB Committees. He was the lead scientist for Digital Signal Processing for sensor data real time detection and identification.
     Mr. Bannon is the founder of Bannon International Consulting, a recognized technical leader in the underwater communications and unmanned subsea robotics industries. He has over 40 years of design engineering, operations and program management experience in global fiber optics communications, underwater systems, advanced sensor technologies, SONAR, and development and integration of commercial autonomous underwater vehicles for communications, oil and gas industries, and military operations.
     Mr. Bannon was technical lead for the US-Russian Homeland Security Congress 2005 in Moscow, addressing the Russian Duma on behalf of the United States. He is a leading expert on Maritime Security and Critical Infrastructure Protection.
     Mr. Bannon holds a BSEE, MS, and multiple MBA’s from Pennsylvania State University, Wharton School – University of Pennsylvania, and George Washington University. He also holds a certificate from the London Power Engineering School. Mr. Bannon is a Fellow of the IEEE.
     The five most recent awardees are:
     2004     John P. Craven
     2005     Douglas C. Webb
     2006     Fred Noel Spiess
     2007     Donald E. Barri k
     2008     Thomas B. Sanford
     The OES Distinguished Service Award for 2009 was presented to Dr. Christian de Moustier. This award is given to honor an individual IEEE member for outstanding contributions towards furthering the objectives of OES. Candidates for the award are nominated by the OES Awards Committee and must be approved by a majority of the elected membership of the Administrative Committee.
     Christian de Moustier is completing his second 3-year term as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering. During that time he served two terms (2007-2008) on the Products and Services Committee of the IEEE TAB Publication Services and Products Board, and he contributed to rewriting the OES Constitution and Bylaws. He had served as Associate Editor for the Journal beginning in 1990 for topics related to seafloor acoustic remote sensing, bathymetry mapping and surveying, and sonar image and signal processing.
     Under Dr. de Moustier’s leadership, the Journal’s Editorial Board has streamlined editorial and publication process:

• Moved to an all-electronic web-based manuscript management system, thereby reducing the manual copy editing workload and associated publication delays;
• Offered authors various options for displaying figures in color;
• Provided clear composition and formatting guidelines for manuscript preparation;
• Instituted rapid posting of articles on IEEE Xplore.

     Dr. de Moustier holds the Diplôme d’Ingénieur (1979) Ecole Supérieure d’Ingénieurs de Marseille, France and a M.S. and Ph.D. from UCSD. He began his professional career at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He is now Principal Scientist for Heat, Light, and Sound Research, Inc. He is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America.
     The five most recent awardees are:
     2004     William M. Carey
     2005     Claude P. Brancart
     2006     Rene Garello
     2007     Stephen M. Holt
     2008     Archie Todd Morrison III