A ballot for the election of six members to the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society Administrative Committtee was issued on 8-Jun-2010 by IEEE. The following candidates have been elected for a three-year term beginning 1-Jan-2011.

• Robert T. Bannon
  
• James M. Gant
  
• René Garello
  
• Edward C. Gough, Jr.
  
• Jean-Pierre Hermand
  
• Pamela J. Hurst
  

     A biographical sketch and a statement is given below for each of the elected candidates.

ROBERT T. 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, program management and expert witness experience in global fiber optics communications, underwater systems, advanced sensors technologies, SONAR, and development and integration of commercial autonomous underwater vehicles for communications, oil and gas industries, and military operations. Bob serves as an advisor on risk assessment and mitigation, underwater infrastructure protection, and homeland security. Mr. Bannon was the technical lead for the US-Russian Homeland Security Congress 2005 in Moscow, addressing the Russian Duma on behalf of the United States. Bob was previously a Director at AT&T and Bell Labs and was instrumental in development of special underwater installation, 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 System Maintenance and SCARAB Committees. He was responsible for designing 18 special application ROVs, and various Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV’s), and Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV’s). He was the lead scientist for Digital Signal Processing for sensor data real time detection and identification. Mr. Bannon holds a BSEE, MSEE, 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.
     Bob is an IEEE Fellow and is the Chair- Oceanic Engineering Society (OES) Submarine Cable Technologies Committee and the Technical Advisor for Scientific Submarine Cable Applications. He is also the Co-Chair of Maritime Security and serves as Co-Chair for the IEEE-OES Maritime Homeland Security Technology Workshop for Ocean/Maritime Infrastructure Protection. Mr. Bannon is the recipient of the 2009 IEEE OES Distinguished Technical Achievement Award and is an OES Distinguished Lecturer. Bob is the Past President of the IEEE Sensors Council, served on the TAB and the TAB Publications Committees, is currently representative to the Society for Social Implications of Technology (SSIT), IEEE USA R&D and Critical Infrastructure Committees, and a member of the Robotics and Automation Society (RAS). Mr. Bannon previously served several terms on the OES AdCom and is an active member of the RECON Committee which is responsible for selecting conference venues, served on the Constitution and Bylaws Committee, and has been the Chair and/or Co-Chair for the various Submarine Scientific Cable Symposiums, Homeland Security Conferences, and TEHOSS – Europe. Bob is a frequent author and session chair at the OCEANS conferences, and reviews abstracts and papers for OCEANS, OTC and other OES sponsored workshops.
     Statement: I have been involved with the IEEE since the early 80’s and have participated in the OCEANS, Underwater Intervention, and Underwater Technology Conferences frequently serving as an author and session chair. Because of my involvement in various technical review committees for the conferences, I was asked to become a candidate for the AdCom in 2000, and I was elected and served several terms. If re-elected to the AdCom, I will continue to champion the oceans and maritime infrastructure protection with the US Congress and Senate, foreign governmental agencies and regulatory agencies. Through the OES I will continue to encourage the professional development of ocean related engineering and applied science careers, and I will continue to represent the OES at international venues promoting oceans awareness and fostering responsible use of this precious resource.

JAMES M. GANT, with over 28 years experience in the design, operation, testing, and maintenance of complex electromechanical systems and components, is an experienced systems engineer, project manager, and line manager. He has over 20 years of experience as a Systems Engineer and Project Manager involved with the design, fabrication, and testing of deep sea systems, specializing in the development and management of test programs for these systems. Prior to that, he was a submarine officer in the US Navy.
     Jim was born in 1955 in Ft. Belvoir, Virginia into a military family. As a child he lived in various locations in the US, Germany, and Okinawa. By the time he reached high school his family had settled near their extended family in Oklahoma. He attended the University of Oklahoma where he met his wife, Anne Marie, and earned a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering.
     Upon graduation in 1979 he was commissioned as an Ensign in the US Navy and became a submarine officer. After completing the required training in Naval nuclear propulsion and basic submarine training he served on the USS Norfolk (SSN-714). During much of this period the ship was in new construction in the shipyard at Newport News, VA. The ship was commissioned in 1983 and after completing his submarine qualifications and engineer qualifications Jim deployed with the ship to the Mediterranean Sea. Upon their return in December 1984, Jim was transferred to San Diego, CA where he served on the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle Avalon (DSRV-2). Here he qualified as a deep submergence Pilot and made numerous dives on the DSRV for submarine rescue training and object recovery missions.
     After completing his tour on DSRV Avalon in 1987, Jim resigned his commission and began a second career as a Systems Engineer with Westinghouse Electric Corporation in Annapolis, MD. During the next fourteen years Jim worked as a systems engineer on a variety of integrated systems functioning in the ocean environment containing a variety of sensors and electromechanical components. He specialized in the verification and testing of highly integrated systems that were deployed at sea. In this capacity he planned and executed system test programs at the factory and then led teams of field engineers in the final verification and validation of the system in the working environment. During this period Jim earned a master’s degree in Ocean Physics from the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory. Following this Jim became an adjunct faculty member at the Anne Arundel Community College teaching a course in oceanography. The course was a multidisciplinary survey of physical, chemical, meteorological, biological and geological aspects of the oceans. Topics included waves, currents, tides, chemistry of seawater, ecosystems and life in oceans and estuaries, plate tectonics, marine sediments and discussions of environmental trends and problems.
     In 2001 Jim joined Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio where he was a Systems Engineer and project manager in the Equipment Development and Mechanical Systems product line. His work has served a variety of US Navy customers including ONR, NAVSEA, and USSOCOM.
     In 2009 Jim joined Applied Signal Technology in Torrance, California as a Systems Engineer and Project Manager in the Sensor Division’s Sonar group. Jim manages projects that develop, design, and fabricate Synthetic Aperture Sonars.
     Jim joined IEEE and OES in 2008 and now serves as the Newsletter Editor. Jim and his wife live near Los Angeles and have four children, now scattered to the four winds. Their hobbies include gardening and brewing their own beer and wine.
     Statement: OES, like all other professional societies, strives to provide meaningful technical exchanges among its members, including written publications like the OES journal and newsletter and meetings such as the Oceans conferences where members are able to meet and network and exchange technical knowledge. The society and its outlets serve as a social lubricant, enhancing discourse in relevant technical disciplines in waterborne environments. Therefore, both the opportunities and challenges facing the society are defined by ways to enhance and promote the free exchange of new ideas, old ideas, salty experience, and a strong social network among all ocean engineering professionals.
     An important aspect of what we should be doing is to reach out and be as inclusive as possible in all that we do; it must remain a high priority. All that are involved in the work that we do have different insights that can be shared to further our goals. We must continually reach out to encourage an open, vigorous, and yet respectful dialog to ventilate these ideas. Another area that we should pay attention to is to include and encourage the exchange of day to day practical experience so that we are not restricted to purely academic discussions. Over the last year I have seen this even more clearly through my experience as the OES Newsletter Editor. We are an international society and an important part of our function is to encourage and cultivate a strong international discourse. In the newsletter I try to publish news from various chapters around the globe and make all of our members feel welcome and able to contribute.
     The steps to advance the OES, therefore, are to continue and expand the avenues of technical data exchange that have been established and to widen the participatory audience of these discussions, debates, and presentations thereby leaving our legacy and experience to the next generation of engineers, technicians, and other practitioners of the art and science of oceanic engineering.

RENÉ GARELLO was born in 1953. He received the Ph.D. degree in Signal Processing at the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG) in 1981. From 1982 to 1984 he worked as a Research Associate at Aeronomy Lab, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at Boulder, Colorado (USA). He joined the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne (Telecom Bretagne), Brest, France in 1985. In 1988 he became Professor in this engineering school in the field of signal processing and image processing and in 1995, Prof. Garello obtained his Habilitation (HDR; Habilitation to Supervise Research).
     Prof. Garello (together with Jean-Yves Jourdain, Thomson Marconi Sonar) has started a French IEEE/OES chapter in 1993 of which he became chairman in 1995. Since 1997 this chapter has been extended to all of Region 8 (except Norway), i.e. around 300 active members. He was in charge of the Student Poster Competition in the Organizing Committee for OCEANS’94, held in Brest, France. He has been co-organizing this competition (together with Norman Miller) for the following OCEANS’ series of conferences. For OCEANS’98, held in Nice, France, he was co-chair of the Technical Program Committee, Chair of the publicity Committee and Chair of the Student poster Competition. He is also, since 1997, Associate Editor for Region 8 of the Journal of Oceanic Engineering.
     Prof. Garello was an elected AdCom member from 1999 to 2001, from 2003 to 2005 and in 2005 for a new three year term. In the beginning of 2001, he headed the Committee on Conference Policies (CoCoPo) which was in charge of defining a new set of Conference Policies and Procedures in order to insure continuity between the successive OCEANS conferences. This committee jointly held with MTS members defined several new approaches and came up with the concept of two Oceans-a-year (every year in Northern America, every other odd year in Europe and every other even year in Asia-Pacific). In order to implement this plan a new committee was formed: the Joint Oceans Advisory Board or JOAB, of which Prof. Garello is the co-chair. The first actions consisted of implementing a permanent OCEANS Website facility with all the necessary tools for going ALL electronics (from abstracts/papers collection to CD/DVD Proceedings). The second action was the research of an “a la carte” contractor for handling all conference related items not supported by a given local organizing committee (ranging from hotel negotiation to registration supervision).
     Prof. Garello was the General Chairman of the first OCEANS of the new Two-Oceans-a-year concept: Oceans’05 Europe held in Brest, France in June 2005. He was elevated to the grade of Fellow of the IEEE, class of 2006. In 2005, he was elected Vice-President Conference Operations and then confirmed in 2006 for a two year term (2007–2008) after the constitutions & by-laws update. He was re-elected for a second two-year term in 2008. He received the OES Service Awards in 2006 for developing and implementing the two OCEANS conference policy.
     Statement: As a member of the AdCom, I will continue to serve for promoting and supporting our policy for the OCEANS conferences and the overall Society needs. This will be done mainly through my participation at JOAB as well as RECON and my interactions with the future conference LOC. The main word is “continuity”, but we need also to identify weak parts to be strengthened. The OCEANS conferences are our flagship. The process we have started with the formal definition of RECON and JOAB, the Two-Oceans a year, etc. is now in place and working fine. We need to pursue our efforts.
     We need also to expand our reach and have the Oceanic Engineering Society recognized as a leader in the field. This will be done through our mastering of the modern means of communication and a better way to respond to the needs and desires of our members.
     As a member of the AdCom, I will act in order that the following statement becomes true:
     “If you don’t go to OES, OES will come to you!”

EDWARD CONNELL GOUGH, JR. Since August 2003, Mr. Gough is the Technical Director, and Deputy to the Commander, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, headquartered at Stennis Space Center, Mississippi, and is a member of the federal Senior Executive Service. Mr. Gough is responsible for execution of the Navy’s operational oceanography program that includes observational and computational support for navigation, hydrography, meteorology, oceanography and environmental acoustics.
     Prior to joining government service, Mr. Gough worked at the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) for fifteen years, where he held a variety of positions and assignments to the U.S. Government. These included a position with the Office of Naval Research as Science Advisor to United States Pacific Command where he managed and coordinated a technology experimentation and insertion program that featured over a dozen ACTD (Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration) projects. Mr. Gough was also assigned to the Chief of Naval Operations Staff as the Technical Director of the Anti Submarine Warfare Assessment and Requirements Division from 1996–1998. From 1993–1995 Mr. Gough was assigned through the Naval Science Assistance Program as Science Advisor to the Commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet aboard USS Belknap and USS LaSalle. Mr. Gough headed two departments at APL: Environmental Systems, and Signals and Systems. In addition Mr. Gough conducted research in Arctic environmental acoustics, tactical implications of oceanographic variability, and adaptive sonar. Mr. Gough also led research in applications of computer visualization to improve understanding of ocean dynamics and variability.
     From 1977–1989 Mr. Gough worked as Principal Scientist at Planning Systems Incorporated (PSI). While there his work focused on submarine sonar systems engineering, especially issues of calibration and self noise measurements, environmental acoustics, and the sonar performance implications of oceanographic variability. Mr. Gough was instrumental in PSI’s successful Arctic Program conducted for the ASW Environmental Acoustic Support (AEAS) program at Office of Naval Research. Mr. Gough participated in fieldwork at several Arctic Ice Camps, and led successful expeditions to establish acoustic observatories in the Arctic.
     Mr. Gough holds a Master in Applied Mathematics from the University of Virginia, and a Bachelor of Science in Ocean Engineering (Honors) from Florida Atlantic University, where he was a Cooperative Education Student with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Smithsonian Institution at Harbor Branch.
     Mr. Gough is a Senior Member of IEEE and has been active in since joining as a student member in 1975. He was Registration Chair of the Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing Conference in 1979, and from 1996–2003 was Modeling and Simulation Chair for the Ocean Engineering Society. In 1997 he was elected to the OES AdCom. He was Co-Chairman, and a Plenary Speaker of OCEANS 2009. He is co-chair of the Numerical Modeling, Simulation and Data Visualization Technical Committee.
     Statement: I believe that both the professional opportunities and the stature of Ocean Engineers are resurgent as the Nation and the World recognize, again, the role of the seas in the health of the planet, the health of the global economy, and the security of nations.
     IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society provides a critical international forum for advancing the science and technology needed to understand and wisely manage this vast common resource. We must, collectively, use our professional forum as a tool to study, communicate and influence decisions that affect health, safety and security with respect to the sea.
     I would be honored to serve on the OES AdCom to assure that our profession and our insights become part of the public debate about the future of the oceans.

JEAN-PIERRE HERMAND received the Ingénieur Civil degree in electrical and mechanical engineering and the Ph.D. degree in applied sciences from the Université libre de Bruxelles (U.L.B.), Bruxelles, Belgium, in 1981 and 1994, respectively.
     Between 1985 and 2000, he has held several positions at the SACLANT Undersea Research Centre, La Spezia, Italy, conducting experimental and theoretical research in ocean acoustics with emphasis on inverse problems. In 1991, he became the Principal Investigator of a grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research to develop environmentally adaptive sonar processing at the Naval Underwater Systems Centre, New London, CT. In 1993, he was appointed Principal Scientist to the SACLANTCEN Environmental Research Division to lead the research and development of remote sensing techniques and inversion methodologies for the geoacoustic characterization of marine sediments. He has been Chief Scientist of many multidisciplinary experiments at sea. He has had adjunct appointments at the AILUN Free University of Nuoro, Sardegna, and the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy, and has been a consultant to industry and government on applied ocean acoustics and environmental measurements. Currently, he is Professor and Research Director at the Université libre de Bruxelles, where he founded the Environmental Hydroacoustics Laboratory. Since 2001, he has been coordinating research and technological development activities on ocean acoustic observatories, geoacoustic inversion, shallow-water tomography and data assimilation in the framework of European Union Framework Programmes and international projects.
     The author on over 100 publications and co-editor of two books he has been serving on technical committees for the Acoustical Society of America, the European Optical Society, the European Conferences on Underwater Acoustics, and the International Conferences on Theoretical and Computational Acoustics and Underwater Acoustic Measurements. He has co-organized the First and Second Workshops on Experimental Acoustic Inversion Methods for Exploration of the Shallow Water Environment in 1999 and 2004. His current research interests lie in adjoint modelling, Bayesian estimation, and the integrated use of acoustics to remotely sense and characterize ocean to very shallow aquatic environments, and in particular, monitoring of photosynthesis in marine habitats, ultrasonic imaging of marine biological communities, subseafloor profiling at very high resolution, and study of sediment dynamics in rivers and estuaries.
     Dr. Hermand is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America. He is currently the IEEE Vice-Chair for Europe of the OES Technical Committee on “Sonar Signal and Image Processing.”
     Statement: The IEEE Ocean Engineering Society has the enviable mission of bringing together many disciplines toward common objectives of the highest societal importance. This unique position, reinforced by the increasing concern about the state of the world’s oceans and implication for our future, constitutes a responsibility, a challenge but a great opportunity. In my view the specificity of OES resides precisely in the cross-disciplinary character which, if elected, I would like to develop by fostering interaction among OES members and other communities in emerging and frontier research domains. Our technical committees will play an important role in identifying and developing opportunities for this opening process, enlarging the scope of our meetings and publications. As a European member of our Society I would help to increase IEEE/OES membership and visibility in Europe strengthening links with participants of the EU RTD Framework Programme and international cooperation partner countries.

PAMELA J. HURST is employed by Battelle Memorial Institute as the Director of Undersea and Port Security as part of the Navy and Special Operations Market Sector since 2007. She has worked for Westinghouse, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, AT&T, Lucent and General Dynamics in various positions from engineer to senior engineer to program manager to director. She has managed programs in excess of $200M over her career and concentrated all her efforts in undersea and ocean engineering for technology advancements in AUVs, ROVs, undersea telecommunications, advanced undersea technologies, complex undersea mechanisms, battery development, port security and systems in support of government, Navy and oil activities.
     Pam has been a member of IEEE Member for 18 years and Senior Member since 2006. As a member of the IEEE-Oceanic Engineering Society ADCOM from 2001–2010, she served on the RECON committee for North America to review proposals and selection of locations for selecting conference venues. She served on the Constitution and Bylaws Committee and other committees. After 9/11, she founded and became Chair of the IEEE-OES Maritime Security Technology Workshop 2002-2005. A December 2010 workshop is in planning stages with the latest technologies to be held in the Washington, D.C. area. Pam is also the Co-Chair- Oceanic Engineering Society (OES) Submarine Cable Technologies Committee for the Americas. Pam has been a frequent session chair at the OCEANS conferences in the US and Internationally. She has participated in IEEE corporate training for Conference Planning and Finance classes. She reviews abstracts and papers for OCEANS and other OES sponsored workshops and has judged student poster contests.
     Pam represented the IEEE OES at the National Ocean Science Bowl 2007 April/May and made presentation of awards to high schools with RADM West at New York University Long Island. She was the IEEE OES representative to the International Sensor Council from 2001–2008. Then Pam was Vice President Finance of the IEEE International Sensor Council (2008) with fiduciary responsibility for $1.78 M. Pam participates in IEEE Women In Engineering Council as a committee member representing IEEE OES and the Sensor Council 2007–2010.
     Other memberships that support the ocean activities include: Navy Submarine League, NDIA, MTS Life Member, MOTN member, and AUVSI Member. She has published recent (2009–2010) papers on Maritime Security for NDIA, IEEE and MAST conferences papers and two patent applications for specialized underwater subsystems. This year at the MAST (Maritime Systems and Technology) America 2010 she is a session co-chair June 2010. For participation in Rhode Island local events she submitted and was selected for the University of Rhode Island for a Battelle Charitable donation to the Autonomous Vehicle Team and presented a check in February 2010. She will be mentoring the team over the next year. Pam is establishing an IEEE OES chapter in Newport RI in 2010 and then a student chapter will follow. She has led a successful effort for Congressional Plus Ups for Port Security Protection 2009 and 2010 for Battelle and NUWC Newport RI.
     Statement: My association with the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society has been an extremely rewarding experience in terms of developing strong relationships with commercial, academic and military leaders in the ocean community; therefore, I am honored to run again for the OES AdCom for this coming term of office. The OES needs to be more focused and re-vitalized with the current global crisis. I volunteered to organize and lead the OES Strategic Planning efforts. I will also continue to encourage women to seek careers relating to ocean engineering and sciences, serving as the OES representative to IEEE Women in Engineering. I will continue to add vitality to the OES Technical Committees as the Chair – Maritime Security and supporting the 16 other technical chairs.