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coast of Oman for beach erosion and oil spill planning purposes. 



We view ourselves as a high technology firm specializing in a niche market. To be 

 successful we have found that we continually need to stay at the leading edge of 

 science and technology in this field. The direction of oceanographic research at the 

 federal level, particularly coastal oceanography, is thus of critical interest to us. 



Our experience with federal oceanographic research extends to the first years of our 

 firm, in the early 1980s, when we worked with the Ocean Engineering Department of 

 the University of Rhode Island for the Minerals Management Service of the Department 

 of Interior to develop a computer model system to predict the transport and fate of oil in 

 the marine environment. This early effort helped to form part of the core of the software 

 products and services we provide today. 



ASA prides itself in providing software and services that are specifically focused on 

 client needs. With the explosion of personal computer use in the last 15 years this has 

 meant the development of easy-to-understand and use yet powerful software that runs 

 on a PC and not workstation, mainframe or supercomputer hardware. We have found 

 that until recently the federal government research programs were oriented toward 

 more powerful platforms. Even data archived by various agencies were provided in 

 electronic media not well suited to the PC user environment. With the arrival of the 

 Internet, however, this situation is changing. Easier and more extensive access is 

 being provided to the valuable data held by NOAA, EPA and USGS. 



A lack of communication from the federal agencies to industry about ongoing and future 

 technologies still exists, however. For instance a news article in Science magazine last 

 fall reported about a database of all federal research projects. We have been unable 

 to track down additional information about this database, even enlisting the assistance 

 of the NASA Technology Transfer Center, which has been helpful in other interactions. 



On the more positive side, ASA is planning to start shortly a joint project with Brown 

 University, the state of Rhode Island and NASA in the commercialization of remote 

 sensing data for coastal management. This effort, entitled Narragansett Bay from 

 Space: A Perspective for the 21st Century, is a partnership using new sensor 

 technologies from NASA, the expertise of Brown University in remote sensing data 

 processing and the end user oriented software capabilities of ASA to provide a pilot 

 system for the state, both for coastal zone management and education. This 

 technology transfer project has the potential for application to other sites in the United 

 States and will be important to emerging nations struggling to manage economic 

 development yet preserve their coastal environments. 



Another example of successful academic/industry partnering is the Ocean Technology 

 Center (OTC) at the University of Rhode Island (URI). This NSF-sponsored center 

 brings researchers, federal agencies and the private sector together to develop new 



