Minutes: Sept. 1, 2004

Attendees: Nancy Fisher, Jeremy Russin, Brian Cluer, Rosemary Troian, Carlos Garza, Jessica Kondel, and Rick Wantuck Absent: Tim Price, Eleanor Domalaog, Laura Tezer, Rick Rogers. Advisors Maria Harris from the Region and Stephanie Hall for the SWC were also present.

Jeremy Russin opened the meeting at 1:05 p.m. with the news that Tim Price was quite ill and in the hospital. Tim is doing better.

Jeremy went on to announce that a quorum was not met in August.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:

The minutes of the July meeting were approved.

No report.

Program: Rosemary Troian said the subcommittee did not meet, but the Partnerships in Education work plan was revised to make it a general workplan which could be used at any NMFS location. Troian sent this new version out to the whole committee for review. A meeting of this subcommittee needs to be set up.

Administration: Jessica Kondel made some updates to the EEOAC Website, including a link to the NOAA Diversity page and posting a picture of Marty Golden receiving an award for leading the development of the IDP Workplan and presenting training on the use of the IDP.

Personnel: Maria Harris and Nancy Fisher met and discussed the List server workplan. Nancy will compare the various data bases which she have been sent to her. The next meeting will be on Sept. 21.

Nancy has also been reviewing the Interview Questions workplan.

Old Business: NOAA Diversity Conference: Nancy Fisher reported that part of the conference involved a self-improvement program. Through this program Nancy became a A change agent@ , which is a person who is willing to implement change and to influence other people to make changes.

Jeremy also attended the conference and said that it was a great experience. The philosophy was to focus on the individual level with the hope that the agency will become more diverse. Much information was packed into the conference.

Efforts have been made to get Barbara Marshall-Bailey to come our area and speak to people about diversity, in order to increase awareness.

Jeremy read some of the evaluations which people gave us after attending the IDP training. Many were positive. People appreciated receiving the information. A few comments were negative.

We have a vacancy on the committee with the departure of Stephanie Johnson. Carlos Garza will see about getting another person from the Santa Cruz Lab. Maria Harris suggested the Director, Churchill Grimes, send an e-mail to all employees under him, asking for volunteers.

A suggestion was made to add diversity to the EEOAC. The NER has already done this. Tim did a draft revision of the bylaws to show that diversity had been included. We discussed getting more members so that we would have more people to work on diversity. No final decisions have been made.

The committee discussed the draft Partnerships in Education work plan. A vote was taken and the committee approved the draft as it is. Rosemary Troian will put the work plan in a format which will allow for Rod McInnis= and Bill Fox= s signatures.

NOAA Diversity Council membership nominations have to be in by Sept. 13, 2004 COB.

In December, both Tim Price and Rosemary Troian will be timed out of the EEOAC so we will definitely need some new members at that time. Brian Cluer expressed his desire to leave the committee because of his work schedule. We are sorry to see him leave. Jeremy will check the records and see if there are others on the committee whose appointments are expiring in December.

Our next meeting will be October 6 at 1:00 p.m.