MICHELLE MCCLURE: Next up to provide an overview of NOAA Research overall is Dr. Gary Matlock, who is the Deputy Administrator for Science-- Assistant Administrator for Science in Oceans and Atmospheric Research. 

GARY MATLOCK: Thanks, Michelle. On behalf of OAR, let me express our appreciation to each of you for taking the time out of your very busy schedules to come here. And for Love, Oscar, and Ren. Thank you for joining us by phone. Hopefully, the process of getting information to you via that mechanism will work pretty well. And we'll be able to get your comments throughout the review. And afterwards as well. Incorporate it into what the reviewers have to say to us. So thank you very much for taking the time to join us, and to participate. 

We consider the reviews that we do in OAR to be extremely valuable. We pay a lot of attention to them. And we pay a lot of attention to trying to deal with recommendations that you provide. To make sure that all of the benefits of your having taken the time out of your schedules to be with us are realized. Between now and the next five years, when we do the next review of PMEL. So again, let me express our extreme appreciation to each of you. I'm glad you're here, and hopefully we'll be able to provide you a lot of information. 

I'm not going to try to follow that video. I couldn't, even if I wanted to. And I'm not sure what the follow up would be anyway. So for now, my goal this morning is within a few minutes to try to set the context for you relative to where PMEL fits within NOAA and within OAR in trying to help NOAA meet its mission using science as a tool in the decision-making processes that go on. And then also the process of just increasing the information that is available to the public, to other researchers, to other department folks of other agencies. And whomever might want to know something about the topics on which we do research. 

Again, my name is Gary Matlock. I'm the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Science within OAR. I'm one of two DAAs, and I'll give you a little bit more about it in just a moment. So next slide. Within NOAA, OAR sits as one of five line offices. Down here at the bottom of [INAUDIBLE] in red. We support each of the other four line offices, as well as ourselves. Excuse me. OMAO, the Office of Marine Aircraft Operations has been an office throughout the years. And recently became a line office. And so it's added to the list of the five that are designed to accomplish NOAA's mission using science as a tool to do that. 

The other four line offices besides OMAO and ourselves include the National Weather Service, the National Marine and Fisheries Service, the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, and National Ocean Service. Each of those services have an Assistant Administrator, and Deputy Assistant Administrators similar to what OAR has. All of the line offices exist within NOAA, and are overseen by political appointees that are Assistant Secretaries. Currently Dr. Neil Jacobs is also performing the duties of the Undersecretary. Since we do not have a permanent Undersecretary for the past few years. Dr. Jacobs has just been recently nominated to be the Undersecretary. And I believe there's a committee hearing on March the 11th concerning his confirmation. 

In addition to Dr. Jacobs, Admiral Gallaudet, Tim Gallaudet is also an Assistant Secretary. And they divide the portfolio among them. One deals with oceans. Primarily Dr. Gallaudet. The other deals with atmosphere, and weather, and climate-type, or other type of issues. And that's Dr. Jacobs. So in addition to those NOAA oversight, our Assistant Administrator in OAR is Craig McLean. Craig is on travel and is not able to be here. He usually is at these lab reviews, but his schedule very often gets in the way of trying to be here for the entire time. But does try to make it part of the time. So he's not able to do that this week. So if you have questions, or things that you think are appropriate for Craig to hear, or try to answer-- You're welcome to provide those to us, and we'll get them to him as well. Next one. 

As I said, we have three of us that are dealing with the leadership within OAR. They include Ko Barrett is the Director, or the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Programs and Administration. And I have primarily the laboratories. Next one. Structure, you can see here. It gives you more detail about exactly what our program offices are under Ko, and what the labs and the other functions are under me as the other DAA. Next one. So we recently have created a new strategic-- We called it a plan at one time. I think it's now just called a strategy in its final implementation. But it tries to address the changing environment within which we have worked over the past five years as [INAUDIBLE] this slide. Our vision and mission, though have not really changed all that much. 

Because we are providing science to help NOAA carry out its mission, our vision is that we would deliver NOAA's future. Again, using science as a foundation for making decisions. Our mission is basically to do research, development, and transition our R&D activities into operations, applications, commercialization, and other uses. So RD&T, research, development, and transition. And these are elements within a new strategic plan. The old strategic plan, which is the plan that guided what's going on over the past five years, is very similarly structured at the vision and mission level. In however below that in the goals is different from the new one. 

In the past we divided our goals into climate, weather, and oceans. And we structure our activities and our objectives under those three goals to be consistent with what NOAA's goals, every Department of Commerce, goals were. So we've changed those goals. Next one. To accomplish NOAA's mission of science, service, and stewardship, we are very much in OAR in the business of doing science. We are not the decision makers. We don't do weather forecasts. We don't read stock assessments. We don't set quarters, or fisheries. We don't manage communities under the Coastal Zone Management Act, and so on. We do the science that hopefully informs people that are making decisions in those arenas so that they are well-formed. And hopefully, are the wisest decisions that can be made. The next one. 

In order to take advantage of the philosophy that we have within OAR held generally by the scientific community-- We are very, very much relying on peer reviews. Whether it's peer reviews in publications, and the scientific literature. Or it's peer reviews in the conduct of our science at each of the laboratories and programs. Peer reviews are the core of trying to make sure our science is the best the world, that is relevant to NOAA's mission, and that we perform it as best we can. So we have over the past, about 15 years now, created what amount to organic acts in the legislative world for NOAA, and for OAR. And they are contained within what are called NOAA Administrative Orders, and OAR Circulars. 

They lay out policies in these NAOs and Circulars, and then below that we do handbooks that are related to them. That lay out processes and procedures for implementing those policies. So these reviews of which you are a part, where we review every laboratory, and every program now, every five years-- are constructed around the NAO's policies it contain and the handbooks then lay out the procedures. So these are very structured. They're very detailed. They're very labor-intensive. Not only for you as reviewers, but for the people that are putting material together. 

But they are done consistent with these NAOs, and the handbooks that go along with them. Again, so that we can take advantage of peer reviews as the core that guides us in what we do, and how we do it. Next one. We also rely upon strategic documents that are then followed by implementation plans. All the way from the Department of Commerce, [INAUDIBLE] including each of the labs. In this case particularly, the Pacific Marine Environmental Lab, or PMEL. These documents lay out a strategy, the areas within which we're trying to accomplish things, the objectives that we're trying to achieve, and then below that there are implementation plans, or annual operating plans that get done that lay out what we are going to do with the appropriations that we get. 

Sometimes not until the end of the fiscal year. But nonetheless, they are designed to provide that structure that we would ask you to look at, to see whether or not over the past five years-- what we have done as earlier our desire to accomplish our strategy, our goals, and objectives. We have strategic plans that was sent all the way from DOC, Department of Commerce, down to, and including PMEL. Next one. Here's a little bit more detail on how we use the reviews that you provide to us. We are attempting to evaluate in a review sense, not a full evaluation, or program evaluation, or performance evaluation context. 

We're trying to review what we've done relative to the strategy that we implemented five years ago, or sometime after the last review. Did we actually make headway in accomplishing the strategy that we intended to accomplish over a five year period? We also want to know whether or not we did that. If we did accomplish things, did we do it in an effective and efficient manner? So was our performance done in such a way that we were getting to that strategy through the implementation-- in a way that was the best that we could do it. And if not, what can we have done differently during that five year period that can then inform us about what we should be doing in the next five years? 

So as I indicated this morning at breakfast to the reviewers, we're looking at your comments and why your comments, both in what we did-- whether or not we accomplished what we set out to do, and the way in which we did it. And also looking ahead in what should we be paying attention to in the next five years. So the review is not just about the past, but it is very important for us to know what you think about what we did in order to guide, and inform us in what we should do over the next five years here. We will not limit however your comments to any of the formalities or procedures that we have here. If you have something to tell us, as a result of what you hear, or see about any aspect of how we operate-- whether it be at the PMEL, OAR, or the NOAA level, we would appreciate those comments as well. 

I'm not sure that we can deal with all of them, or address them, or fix them. One of the conversations we had this morning dealt with hiring young scientists. And there are some things that we can do, but we cannot fix, or control the NOAA hiring process, or processes. We use them to the best advantage that we can, but we don't drive them. Selections are actually, in all the people that we hire, are not done by us on the program side. They are all done by our human capital-- Human Capital Services office. So we cannot offer within the laboratory a job to anyone. That has to be done by OHCS, Human Capital Services, and they end up giving the approval on it. 

So there are some things that we can do. There are some things that we cannot, but please do not limit your comments to only those things that you think we might be able to effectuate. If there is something that we see, or that you inform us about-- We can try our best to do something about those things. Whether we control them, or not. We also are interested in what you have to say about the conditions, the environments, the way in which we work within our facilities, at sea, in the air, and anywhere else where our people are asked to conduct the research that we do. 

We will obviously recognize that having world-class facilities is important for people to accomplish their mission, their activities safely, and efficiently. I've been in NOAA about 27 years. I'll be the first one to admit that we rarely actually achieve that. And when I came on board, I was in Fisheries in the NOAA lab in Northern California that was, in fact, about to fall into the bay. And yet, the people who work there both NOAA federal employees, and the ones that supported us still got incredible world-class science done. We at NOAA should not be allowing that to occur. We should be working to make sure that people are safe, that they have facilities, and capabilities within which they are able to do the work we perform-- we want them to perform. 

So if you have comments about that arena, we'd like to receive them as well. Next one. As I said, we've got four new goals. They have no longer climate, weather, and ocean has goals. But each of these goals apply to each of those topical areas. So our goals now include-- Exploring the marine environment. Trying to find out what is in places that we, or anybody else has ever been. The ocean in particular. Making forecasts better. And we provide the information, and models, and tools to folks like the Weather Service. So that they can then forecast. We don't make them in OAR. And improve that capability. Both in terms of the accuracy of the models, the precision, and the efficiency with which they operate. 

We also are-- we conduct an incredible amount of long term data collections. More affectionately known by a lot of people as observing systems, or monitoring systems. We don't conduct those operations for the sake of observing, just to be observing. There is a fundamental null hypothesis that goes along with those long-term data collections that says-- The things we're measuring are not changing. Don't know if they're changing, or not until we go out and observe. Once you've done those observations, understanding why they're changing, if they are, is imperative in order to be able to develop the next generation of models. Like stock assessment, the next assessment of things like ocean acidification. Or whatever we might be trying to use the observations to incorporate into science that can drive improvements in the understanding of what we do. 

And then finally, we had a lot of comments over the last 10 years, and [INAUDIBLE] in particular about we are not very risk-averse. We do things that we're pretty sure will work. And I would argue that that really does not capture reality very well. If it did, we would not have things like the next generation of satellites, next generation radar, that is being used to inform the Weather Service on a regular basis. We would not have things like-- Oh, I don't know, TAO Array. Buoys that inform both the Weather Service and research. We would not have a lot of activities that succeed or are implemented, if we were not risk-averse. However, we can be more risk-averse. We can make sure that people know, and feel like their ability to try to investigate areas of interest are not tied to success. 

Not every research project does succeed. So our goal here is to make it very clear that we believe in, and we support innovative science. And we want to drive, and facilitate innovative science to an even greater extent than has been done in the past. Next one. Here at PMEL, you will actually get a lot more detail when Michelle takes the stage here a little bit later, and throughout the next three days. Michelle is actually the fourth permanent lab director that PMEL has had since 1973. We did have an Acting Director for about four years. And then of course, John Apel, and Eddie Bernard, and Chris Sabine preceded Michelle. Michelle has been here about a year-- About a year. 

MICHELLE MCCLURE: If you count the snow, it's less.

[LAUGHTER]

GARY MATLOCK: So she's not fully responsible though, for everything that you hear. Primarily the bad, I would say. It's because-- before she got here, I was actually the Acting Director for about eight months, I think, as a result of the de facto process within which we have to operate after Chris Sabine left us. So some of the work that's gone on here was done again, with my oversight. Mainly trying to let people do what they do. And not get in their way. So we with that profile [INAUDIBLE] Next one. I'll stop there, and leave a little bit of time, I think, to answer questions that you might have. Clarify anything that may not have been clear, or talk about anything that you'd like to hear more about. 

Anybody on the phone have anything for me? 

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] One of the things that I saw that NOAA came out with a few weeks ago for strategizing for something called the NOAA Research Council. Can you tell us how those relate to OAR and to PMEL? 

GARY MATLOCK: Sure. In 2004 there was a science review done of all of NOAA by the Science Advisory Board. That review resulted in the creation of the NOAA Research Council. Which is made up of the top science advisors within NOAA from all the line offices. It is chaired by the Chief Scientist when we have one and by the AA, Assistant Administrator, set up for OAR. But we don't have one. At the moment, Tim Gallaudet is performing some of those duties and Craig McLean performs some others, as the chair of the Research Council. 

Under that venue Tim Gallaudet identified four areas that are really tied to innovative research that we know. That he wanted to convey to the world that there was a strategy of how NOAA intends to take advantage of those capabilities. The four areas are artificial intelligence, cloud computing, 'omics, genomics, eDNA, and so on. And the last one is unmanned systems. Of unmanned aerial systems, of unmanned maritime systems. So Admiral Gallaudet wanted to convey how those strategies relate to NOAA as a science endeavor-- a focused science endeavor. And we spent a lot of time drafting documents. There are two page-- I think they are two pages now. 

Documents that try to convey that these are areas of research that are-- Even though we're doing a lot within those areas, that they are relatively new. He wanted to bring attention to, and he wanted to foster an accelerated approach to taking advantage of those technologies and capabilities. So those strategies are now being used in the budget formulation process. We and the government are now going through the development of the FY22 budget. With those in hand, it can convey to The Hill, and to the people in DOC, the Department of Commerce and the Office of Management and Budget-- that these are focus areas for us and NOAA. 

Again, we've been doing things in each of those. This is trying to get more of a corporate perspective, and speed things up. 

AUDIENCE: So how much of that development of those four was bottom-up, which you all-- Just how much top down-- how do you see those documents affect your research strategy going forward? 

GARY MATLOCK: Sure. They were-- They began bottom-up. But there was an individual, his name is Charlie Alexander, that was from detail to Tim Gallaudet. And he convened lots and lots of people to bring thoughts to bear on what should be in those strategies. It was across NOAA very, very broadly. Once the drafts were put together, they ultimately got reviewed, commented on, modified. They got to Tim. We then put them out in the Federal Register so that others could comment on them, and through those reviews, and those comments-- Went back to the people within NOAA under the Research Council purview and finalized them. With Gallaudet being the last approver in the process. 

How we see them-- How I see them at least, being used in OAR is to help guide what we are doing to meet the NOAA corporate requirements and needs to implement those technologies and do science in different ways, or better ways. Again, to provide the service that we provide to other parts of NOAA in their mission. So we have, for example with the unmanned systems-- We created some years ago, a thing called the UXS unmanned systems executive oversight board. And it's made up of people from across NOAA. 

One of the results of that was to guide the allocation, the selection of projects that involved unmanned aerial systems in particular. In order to speed up the transition of that technology into operations. Things like using hexacopters to assess the health of whales. So we've got those kinds of-- We have those kinds of things going on sort of in pockets in NOAA. The EOB is a corporate body that has allowed us to bring a corporate-ness to that. Things like, if you're going to fly an aircraft unmanned, you have to have a flight plan. Well, who in NOAA makes sure that gets done? The answer is OMAO, Office of Marine and Aviation Operations. So having those strategies allows us to identify what needs to be done from the NOAA perspective as well as within the line perspective. And then trying to effectuate that. Any others? I'm sure you do. 

AUDIENCE: We were talking at breakfast you mentioned something about-- words about the age distribution in NOAA, maybe in the lab in particular. I've heard the same thing from just talking to younger people. NOAA's contractors, and such-- The difficulty of-- Is that true in your opinion? And if so, what's the root cause? 

GARY MATLOCK: It is true. It is a strange thing, I would say, though. So many [INAUDIBLE] is changing. Every year we have to report to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Our demographics is done by lab, by program, and by-- each of our line offices in NOAA. And those data clearly demonstrate that the demographics are heavily weighted toward older white males, just like me. It is changing. We have dramatically changed in the last 7 to 10 years, I think, the number of females that are NOAA federal employees. 

In fact, we had three-- We have five laboratory directors to become vacant over the past two years. We have now filled three of them, and of those three, minorities were selected for each of those three positions. They were not all white males like me, which is a good thing. So we are effectuating change, but it is very, very slow to do. We are also increasing what my boss, Craig McLean, likes to call the generation-- generation gap, in terms of the demographics of NOAA employees. We are changing that. We are actually hiring at least some younger folks, then what we have had over the-- up to the past about seven years. 

MICHELLE MCCLURE: So there will be a-- quarter past-- There will be additional time for discussion.