President's Goals Include Committee Growth and Member Development

I am honored to be your COPRI President for the coming year and look forward in continuing the success of our Institute. During the past year under Dave Kriebel’s leadership several exciting events were initiated and are going forward in their planning for 2010, including the Student and Young Professional activities for the Ports 2010 Conference in Jacksonville during the month of April, and the organization of our first COPRI Congress in mid November 2010 to be held in Memphis.

In addition to seeing that these events continue with their successful planning, my main goals for the coming year consist of:

1) Promoting the COPRI name across the U.S. and internationally in order that we become better recognized both by name and as the organization to promote the coastal, ocean, ports and rivers technical disciplines.

2) Increasing our individual memberships and organizational memberships in order that we attract as many of the individuals and firms that are actively practicing, teaching and performing research in our disciplines in becoming members of COPRI so that we will mutually benefit and that COPRI will become a more viable Institute in providing products to our members.

3) Strengthening the activities and benefits that COPRI can provide to both our young members and student members in order to increase their participation and involvement, as they are the future leaders to carry on with COPRI and our profession.

4) Overseeing that our COPRI website continues to improve in becoming a social networking site to both encourage the active use and exchange of information with our members, and to insure it is more user friendly and provides the necessary services requested by our members.

5) Strengthening our Coastal Engineering Practice Committee with an active committee that plans and organizes a conference series to be held within the U.S. that allows for the active participation of young engineers working either for private firms, government agencies, or educational/research organizations.

6) Strengthening our responsiveness to post-disaster investigations such as Hurricanes Katrina & Ike and the Sumatra and Samoan Tsunamis by establishing lists of suitable volunteers and guidelines.

7) Building on our first webinar scheduled for January 20, 2010, by selecting desired topics and presenters for additional webinars.

In order to move forward on the above activities Tony Risko is the new Chair of our Membership Committee (which has been without a Chair for the past year). He will actively be overseeing items 1 and 2 above with the help of other committee members and the assistance of myself and others willing to participate. Our COPRI Director, Tom Chase, has been very active on item 4, and will continue to improve the social networking of our website and the content provided. Orville Magoon has taken over as Chair of our Coastal Engineering Practice Committee and has already initiated planning efforts for holding a Coastal Engineering Practice Conference which could be offered as soon as August 2011. Lesley Ewing and Dave Kriebel are heading up a new committee to oversee future post-disaster investigations. The organization of activities for our young members and student members for Ports 2010 is being organized by Martin Eskijian (Chair of our Education Committee) which we will continue to build on for the future.

My goal along with your other board members and committee chairs of COPRI is to focus on the perceived value received and quality of experience by our members for COPRI provided products. Therefore, we need to hear back from our members on what you desire. For instance, are more webinars desirable; and if so, on what topics and on the suggested presenters for these topics. Our existing committees, conferences and other products are listed within the COPRI website.

This newsletter provides recent information on the Samoa Tsunami post-disaster investigation; the establishment of The Academy of Coastal, Ocean, Port & Navigation Engineers (ACOPNE) for becoming a Diplomate of Coastal Engineering, Ocean Engineering, Port Engineering and/or Navigation Engineering; ASCE’s and COPRI’s new logos and newsletter format; and, and several committee and member updates. It is important to hear from the membership on the products that are most useful to our members in order that you receive value and quality from your membership, so please email me with your thoughts and input. We will also make it possible for your feedback and responses through our website.

We need your active involvement and participation to make COPRI your technical organization that you turn to for added value and support.

Regards,
Ron Noble