PROCEEDINGS 
Welcome: Dr. lames P. Thomas 
Dr. Thomas: Good morning. My name is Jim Thomas, I'm 
Senior Scientist of the NOAA Estuarine Programs Office. 
On behalf of the NOAA Estuarine Programs Office and the U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency, welcome to the fifth in a 
series of Estuary-of-the-Month Seminars. Previous seminars have 
covered Narragansett Bay, Delaware Bay, Long Island Sound, 
Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay, and today Chesapeake Bay. 
These seminars are to provide a forum in which we, who are 
concerned, can devise means in which to better manage our 
Nation's estuaries in the future. 
Now I have the distinct pleasure to introduce to you today 
Bill Gordon, the Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, NOAA. 
Bill has been the Assistant Administrator since 1981 and has a 
long and distinguished history in all aspects of environmental 
concern, fishery science, and management. He came up through 
the field as a fishery biologist in the Great Lakes Region where 
he learned firsthand that cumulative degradation of the 
environment can take place. 
He has witnessed the decline and now the rebirth of Lake 
Erie. Prior to coming to Washington, he was the Regional 
Director for the Northeast Region of the National Marine 
Fisheries Service where he became well-versed in complicated and 
often controversial natural resource issues. 
Bill is an administrator who can see the big picture. He 
understands the relation of a healthy ecosystem to healthy, 
productive, natural resources. Because of this understanding, 
he has supported habitat initiatives and was instrumental in 
developing the National Habitat Conservation Policy. 
Recognizing the importance of estuaries as fishery habitats 
and as actual resources in themselves, he has supported the 
establishment of the Estuarine Programs Office which coordinates 
estuarine research and policies within NOAA. It is my pleasure 
to introduce Bill Gordon, the Assistant Administrator for 
Fisheries. 
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