FROM THE TOS PRESIDENT
Paula Bontempi

Dear TOS Members,

Greetings everyone. I remember when I joined TOS as a student in the mid-1990s. I was so impressed with the values of the Society and how much the members supported students and early career professionals. I found endless engagement in career-facing opportunities, with much advice I will always remember. I had a voice among the membership, and those connections were critical to a pathway to employment. Paying that advice forward is crucial to creating our next generation of explorers, educators, and entrepreneurs.

TOS must strive to find innovative ways to keep our mid-career and senior members engaged. Longtime members provide sage wisdom to the Society, advise its future, help to navigate challenging waters, and evolve the ocean science and technology fields. Through member communications, we learn to tell the story of the value of science to the world. We build upon programs and infrastructure that members envisioned and created, and we transfer that knowledge to TOS’s future leaders.

With the advent of TOS’s new Strategic Plan, we embark on a new opportunity to expand on our past successes and build toward a shared future in ocean science and technology. The Oceanography Society’s Strategic Plan objectives are to develop science for policy and policy for science, serve a broader ocean sciences community, and support undergraduate and graduate students. This is a critical evolution of TOS’s mission to build the capacity of TOS’s diverse global membership; catalyze interdisciplinary ocean research, technology, policy, and education; and promote equitable access to opportunities for all.

If you haven’t already done so for this year, please join TOS in pursuit of these goals by renewing your membership. We also encourage you to reach out to colleagues who may be interested in joining at the individual to corporate level. I am excited to work with all of you to build a pathway to support a 21st-century global blue economy and link our respective abilities from ocean exploration to ocean economics and all fields in between.

Thank you to all of the members, including the TOS Council and volunteers, for making the Society what it is today.

Sincerely,
Paula