IAN moved to a new office space in Annapolis, Maryland

The first meeting was held in the new Annapolis office's conference room.Our new office is located at 429 Fourth St, Annapolis, MD. It is in the Eastport area of Annapolis, conveniently located near our partners at the Chesapeake Bay Program. The new office features a large conference room with whiteboard walls and a digital display for presentations as well as a small conference room with projector capabilities. We've equipped the space with high speed internet connectivity and interactive video network. Our new locale has ample free on-street parking and is a short walk to a diversity of restaurants and pubs.

IAN facilitates Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Report Card workshop

Participants working on a map displaying features of the Hawaiian Archipelago.IAN kicked off the workshop for the Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Report Card January 23-24th in Honolulu, Hawaii. This is the third report card for the NOAA Coral Reef Report Card project, following the pilots in American Samoa and Florida. Heath, Caroline, and Alex facilitated the workshop with about 30 participants including people from NOAA, Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources, University of Hawaii, The Nature Conservancy, and Conservation International. The workshop included great information and discussions about values, threats, indicators, and key stories for Hawaii's coral reefs, including the main Hawaiian Islands and the protected, un-inhabited northwestern Hawaiian islands.

Upper Mississippi Action Agenda delivered to Congress

Heath Kelsey on Capitol Hill to present the Action Agenda from the Upper Mississippi River Raise the Grade to Cheri Bustos and Dave Loebsack On January 3 and 4, Heath Kelsey visited Capitol Hill with Mike Smith (Greensmith PR) to deliver the Action Agenda for the Upper Mississippi River Watershed to Representatives Cherie Bustos (D, Illinois) and Dave Loebsack (D, Iowa). The Action Agenda was an outcome of the October 2016 Raise the Grade Conference in Moline, IL, and detailed seven concrete actions that can be taken in a 1-3 year time frame to improve conditions in the Upper Mississippi River Watershed. Both representatives attended the conference in Moline, and were genuinely interested in the agenda and the process for generating it.

IAN welcomes Garrett Pegg

Garrett Pegg is IAN's newest Web Development Intern at the Chesapeake Bay ProgramGarrett Pegg graduated from Stevenson University with a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Information Systems (CIS). Garrett joins IAN as the Web Development Intern and will help with the Chesapeake Bay Program Web team updating the BayBackpack site with its newest section. Garrett was born and raised near Baltimore, Maryland, alongside Chesapeake Bay. Living along the shores of Chesapeake Bay led him down the path to this internship. He has been interested in video games his entire life, which inspired him to major in CIS and eventually to web development. Garrett's favorite part of web development is mobile responsive webpages.

On the Horizon

  • IAN staff will be attending State of the Gulf of Mexico- One Gulf Summit 2017. The conference takes place March 26-30, 2017 in Houston, Texas.
  • IAN staff will be presenting a talk titled "Development of a resource stewardship strategy tool for the National Capital Region" at the George Wright Conference. The conference will take place April 2-7, 2017 in Norfolk, Virginia.