ABOUT SPECIAL PROJECTS
Description
Mission and Goals
Office Structure
Accomplishments, Projects and Milestones
Description
Special Projects, a unit within the National Ocean Service's Management and Budget Office, provides technical and discipline-based support services to help the NOS Assistant Administrator and NOS Program and Staff Offices meet new and existing requirements. It does this by offering assistance in six areas of areas of expertise or business lines (read more about SP Areas of Expertise). In providing this assistance, Special Projects' staff is committed to seeking solutions that build capacity in the partner's program, creates more innovative, effective and efficient operational processes, and, where possible, integrates activities across programs.
Mission and Goals
Mission of Special Projects: to enhance performance and capacity of NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS) and its partners through strategic problem-solving, integration and innovation.
The primary goal of SP is to promote integration of program capabilities within and across NOS and NOAA to ensure more effective and efficient delivery of products and services to the coastal stewardship community. As SP's main responsibility is to support the mission of NOS, the strategic goals of NOS have been adopted as SP's strategic goals.
The strategic goals of NOS are to:
- Protect, Restore and Manage Resources
- Understand Climate Change and Variability
- Fulfill Weather and Water Information Needs
- Support Commerce and Safe Transportation (read more about NOS)
Office Structure
Tom Culliton , Chief (acting)
Tim Goodspeed, Deputy
Special Projects is a focal point for providing NOS and NOAA Program and Staff Offices with planning, data synthesis and assessment, and advanced technical services (e.g., GIS and Web mapping, database development, and information visualization tools).
Special Projects works to build capacity within NOAA and NOS by collaborating with internal partners to define problems and issues, identify information needs, assemble and synthesize relevant data, develop strategies, evaluate options, and develop products and results that contribute and support better coastal resource management decision-making.Special Projects also provides NOS with a quick response capability to anticipate and respond to emerging opportunities to further the coastal stewardship mission.
Currently, there are approximately 40 staff (read more about staff) across three branches in SP: the Coastal Resources Assessment Branch, the Integrated Planning and Technical Services Branch, and the Technical Information Services Branch.
Coastal Resources Assessment Branch
Brent Ache, Branch Chief (acting)
The Coastal Resources Assessment Branch (CRAB) provides a range of planning, facilitation and advanced technology services to NOS Program and Staff Offices and partners. The Branch conducts a wide variety of consensus-based, process design and planning activities in support of NOS and NOAA priorities to address research, management, and planning issues. It develops and provides tools and processes to help ensure simple, consistent, and effective planning and decision-making within NOS, and provides expertise in organizational integration to NOS programs and its coastal stewardship partners. The Branch also has a special focus on managing and coordinating marine science investigations, integrating at-sea marine research efforts at a regional ecosystem level. The Branch houses NOS's Coastal and Ocean Resource Economics (CORE) Program for conducting resource valuation assessments necessary to address priority management needs.
Integrated Planning and Technical Services Branch
Robby Wilson, Branch Chief
The Integrated Planning and Technical Services Branch provides NOS Program and Staff Offices and other partners with targeted information synthesis, analysis, and application development services to help coastal stewards find better solutions to the major coastal resource use issues facing the nation. These services include collecting, synthesizing, and analyzing data and other information to produce assessments of critical coastal resource use issues; and designing and building data collection and management tools and spatial analysis applications to support coastal management solutions. It provides technical services to NOS offices, such as the development and implementation of Internet mapping systems that create and deliver data sets from across NOS programs. Additional support services include oversight of operational and developmental servers on behalf of NOS, as well as database systems support for planning, assessment and Web mapping activities in Special Projects. The Branch also provides a national and regional perspective and seeks solutions that have significant technical transfer potential throughout the coastal stewardship community.
Technical Information Services Branch
Carol Kavanagh, Branch Chief
The Technical Information Services Branch (TISB) develops Web sites and other technical projects. It manages and develops programs, projects, and products that support NOAA and NOS program and staff offices. Branch projects are directed to audiences such as the general public with an interest in ocean and coastal topics, marine scientists, ocean policymakers, NOAA and NOS staff, and many others.
The branch collaborates with staff throughout NOAA and NOS in nearly all of its work. TISB has three core competencies. First is developing original written content for its products. Second is developing electronic products with emphasis on Web sites. TISB designs, constructs, and maintains Web sites; builds Web-enabled databases; creates and offers Web video; and writes computer script to implement advanced Web features.The branch supports over 20 Web sites from very large sites such as the NOS Web site and NOAA’s Ocean Explorer to small intranet sites, such NOAA’s Rotational Assignment Program Web site. The third core competency is a team approach to projects whereby branch staff supports branch project managers, allowing TISB to deploy the best mix of expertise for specific projects. The branch also seizes major opportunities for NOS as they arise in order to communicate NOS program information to the American public. A recent example is coordinating NOS’s role in NOAA’s Ocean Hall initiative with the Smithsonian Institution.
Annual Accomplishments, Projects and Milestones
The milestone table below shows SP's major milestones for the FY 2007 fiscal year. Fiscal year 2006 was a busy and productive year for the NOAA’s Ocean Service (NOS) Special Projects team. Special Projects staff worked with a number of major NOAA-wide efforts, the NOS Office of the Assistant Administrator, NOS Program and Staff Offices, and the Ecosystem Mission Goal Team and three of its programs. Staff worked on over 50 projects, resulting in nearly 100 products or services rendered.
Special Projects' FY06 Milestones
- Mission Support: Leadership -- Line Office Headquarters Program
- Performance Measure: In FY 2007, achieve a B+ (3.25 out of 4.0) average score on the Special Projects customer satisfaction report card for the four milestone projects listed below.
- Baseline Measure: B or 3.0 average on the Special Projects customer satisfaction report card for FY '06.
- Target Measure: B+ or 3.25 average on the Special Projects customer satisfaction report card for the four milestone projects in FY '07.
Milestone |
Target Qtr |
Contact |
Launch the NOAA 200th Celebration Web site. |
1 |
Davida Remer |
Complete planning support for NOAA 200th Celebration. |
3 |
Lani Watson |
Complete the database redesign and rewrite of the application code for the NOAA Coral Reef Project Proposal System for the Coral Reef Conservation Program. |
3 |
Chris Clement |
Develop a Year 1 Implementation Report Card for the Governors' Action Plan for Healthy and Resilient Coasts in NOAA's overall support to the Gulf of Mexico Alliance. |
4 |
Brent Ache |
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