Friends of NOAA

The Friends of NOAA (FoNOAA) are supporters, stakeholders, employees, and partners of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who join together to encourage Congress and the Administration to adequately support the agency’s budget.

FoNOAA believes that NOAA is essential to America’s economy, security, environment, and quality of life, and that only a balanced approach to funding the agency will allow NOAA to realize the greatest economic and job creation benefits for the American people. From the 2010 Deepwater Horizon tragedy, where it took more than four months to accurately gauge the amount of oil spilled, to 2011’s record-breaking string of 14, $10 billion disasters, ongoing events provide ample evidence that Americans desperately need NOAA’s fully integrated range of oceanic and atmospheric data, products, and services – and perhaps now more than ever before. With over half of Americans living along our coasts, insured coastal property worth some $9 trillion, and weather- and climate- sensitive industries accounting for an overwhelming majority of US GDP, it is clear that investments in NOAA provide superior value to the nation by enabling businesses and government to better manage risk and optimize decision making.

The Mariners’ Museum

MarinersMuseum

www.MarinersMuseum.org

For more than 80 years, the history of the ocean and its relationship with mankind has been told and displayed in one of the world’s largest maritime history museums, The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia. The Museum is designated as America’s National Maritime Museum by the United States Congress.

The Mariners’ Museum was founded in 1930 by Archer M. Huntington, and today includes 130,000 square feet of exhibition space. The Museum is an educational, non-profit institution that preserves and interprets maritime history through an international collection of more than 35,000 artifacts, and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. It is home to the USS Monitor Center, a major expansion that opened in 2007, and which is the official repository for artifacts recovered from the Civil War ironclad ship that sank in 1862.

The Mariners’ Museum Library at Christopher Newport University houses the largest maritime collection in the western hemisphere, with 78,000 volumes, one million manuscript items, 600,000 photographs and several thousand maps, charts and ships’ plans. Its collection dates to the 1500s.

The Museum is situated in the midst of 550-acre Mariners’ Museum Park, the largest privately owned and maintained park free and open to the public in the United States. The park includes the 5-mile Noland Trail and 167-acre Lake Maury.

Quantum Spatial

Logo s_Quantum cm_RGB sz_600x264 d_20130909

www.quantumspatial.com

Quantum Spatial delivers professional geospatial services and solutions for federal agencies, state and local governments, and commercial clients. Since 2001, we have supported NOAA’s core mission and geospatial initiatives through Quantum Spatial’s family of companies – AeroMetric, Photo Science, and Watershed Sciences. Our comprehensive equipment resources, and diversified contracts portfolio bring an integrated perspective to coastal community decision makers as they look for best practice solutions to their geospatial and technology needs. We have a robust team of qualified professionals – over 500 total, which include domain/content experts, GIS mapping and remote sensing specialists, scientists and professional engineers, certified photogrammetrists, and licensed surveyors, all committed to providing data, tools, technical assistance, and training. Quantum Spatial is headquartered in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, with production and regional offices throughout the United States, providing an unprecedented capacity and capability to deliver customized solutions to clients anywhere in the country.

American Weather and Climate Industry Association

www.AWCIA.org

The American Weather and Climate Industry Association (AWCIA, formerly The Commercial Weather Services Association, CWSA) is a non-profit organization whose members include leading commercial entities and prominent individuals from America’s Weather Industry.  Established in the late 1980’s, AWCIA was organized to promote cooperation and mutual support in achieving proactive solutions between all sectors within the American Weather Enterprise, highlighting the unique position of the American Weather Industry as the only private sector producer of information, services and systems related to weather.