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Fifteen months ago, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth teamed 

 with senior scientists from other universities, including Harvard; Woods Hole; and 

 the University of Rhode Island, teamed with key defense industries interested in 

 conversion such as Raytheon; Sippican; and Physical Sciences Inc., teamed with 

 the Navy Undersea Warfare Center, which is located next door to us here in 

 Newport. We developed a natural laboratory concept entitled "MASSRICON" for 

 Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. 



The essence of this proposal was designed to take advantage of the 

 complex waters off the coast of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts 

 extended out to the great fishing grounds of Georges Bank, develop new data 

 collection system, develop new instrumentation concepts, and adapt open ocean 

 and coastal computer simulation models of ocean flows in a manner which would 

 create new opportunities for industry and which would provide a whole new 

 approach to managing the environment in a cost-effective, environmentally safe 

 commercially advantageous way. The area from Boston to Rhode Island to 

 Eastern Connecticut has arguably the richest collection of marine science 

 academic institutions in the nation. It is no accident that it is equally rich in high- 

 tech defense and marine industry. As the associated chart shows, it is also an 

 extremely interesting and dynamic marine region which includes: 



• the dynamic interaction of coastal and oceanographic currents. 



• some of the world's richest fishing areas. 



• extensive commercial and recreational usage of the sea lanes. 



• important military applications. 



We believe that we have developed the foundation of a unique 

 public/private partnership that can support the environment while supporting 

 commercial and military applications. We believe that: 



• we can substantially enhance the marine instrumentation industry by 

 developing cost effective sensors. 



• we can develop new concepts for integrating complex data from multiple 

 coastal and ocean sites. 



