252 SEA GRA^'T COLLEGES 



We are runniiio; into a severe shortage of qualified scientifically 

 oriented personnel to pilot our submarines. Contracts which we had 

 obtained for work from each of the four armed services required a 

 higli degree of scientific skill. It became clear to us that in order to 

 obtain the skill to pilot these craft and to do useful work with them, 

 we must call on the resources of a university with an ocean engineering 

 degree. Having a prior interest in the establishment of this facility, 

 it was natural that I should turn to them to help solve this gap in 

 the needs of this new industry. 



The Florida Atlantic University next month will have its under- 

 water laboratory and classroom and the industry will thereby have the 

 beginnings of a pool of scientifically experienced personnel to operate 

 undersea craft, to get there and do useful work from a permanent 

 undersea base. It is our hope that this university will be given con- 

 tracts from Government as well as industry to help further the cause 

 of penetrating this last most important frontier of man. 



As you have read recently, Russian scientists are making plans to 

 send multicrewed underwater laboratories into the deep waters along 

 the Soviet Union's Pacific coast for marine studies. They have de- 

 signed the Tinro-1 for seven-man crews for depths to more than 900 

 feet and to travel at speeds of 5i/^ knots for 36 miles. 



There is little question of the value to be found in this program. 

 We must have it to survive. The question is how to accomplish it most 

 effectively and efficiently. One point vrhich I would like to make in 

 this connection is the matter of focusing the men and money into the 

 right locations and into the universities already oriented in this direc- 

 tion. As both Paul Fye, of Woods' Hole, and William Harges, of the 

 University of Virginia, and now Dr. Idyll just before me now have 

 ably pointed out in last October's conference on the concept of a sea 

 grant university at Rhode Island, the program should be limited to 

 institutions with ready access to the sea. 



I would like to point out the exceptional advantages that the State 

 of Florida has in this respect- — not only its 1,200 miles of shorelines, 

 the already existing facilities which it has in the Florida Atlantic 

 University, the Nova University, Brevard Engineering College at Mel- 

 bourne, and the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of 

 INIiami. but also the enormous technological brain bank at Cape 

 Kennedy. 



In addition to the hundreds of thousands of vsquare miles of clean, 

 clear salt water bordering its shores, it has in its interior the largest 

 bodies of canals of fresh water. This makes it the finest natural 

 laboratory in the free world for basic and applied research. 



The rising interest in environmental engineering of our Nation as 

 it relates to weather control, beach erosion, air and water pollution, 

 biological engineering, and ocean engineering, makes it an ideal spot 

 to focus the attention of the sea grant universit:y concept. 



Furthermore, our Federal Government, in conjunction with the 

 Bahamas Government has jointly begun, in close proximity to the 

 Florida coastline, a several hundred million dollar joint effort which 

 to all intents and purposes will be an underwater engineering mecca. 

 This facility is known as AUTEC^~the Atlantic Underwater Test and 

 Evaluation Center. 



