The OMAE 2005 International Conference, our main event, is to be held this June in Greece. This conference is in Halkidiki, and it is expected to be highly successful with the great efforts of Michael Bernitsas, Technical Chair, and Spyros A. Mavrakos, Local Chair. Applications of the tools of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), the basic principles of Mechanical Engineering, Naval Architecture, Offshore Mechanics and Ocean Engineering in solving engineering problems are featured. Included are technical problems associated with floating structures, robotic systems like autonomous underwater vehicles, renewable energy devices (wind turbines & wave energy conversion), aquaculture facilities (fish farm cages), ocean monitoring devices, among others, that include the application of hydrodynamics (cavitation, propulsion, maneuvering & floating bodies), flow-structure interaction methodology (including VIV), nonlinear wave theories (describing wind-wave climate, as well as extreme, freak and solitary waves), materials technology, reliability and safety technology.

The OMAE 2004 in Vancouver was a resounding success; thanks to Subrata K. Chakrabarti, Technical Chair, Sander M. Calisal, Chair, and Jon Mikkelson Co-chair. The OMAE 2006 is to be held in Hamburg Germany. Walter Kuehnlein, Chair, and Daniel T. Valentine, Technical Chair, plan to make the 25^th anniversary of the OMAE series of international conferences a major event of 2006 in Europe. For the OMAE 2007 we will be in San Diego, USA. John Halkyard, Chair of OMAE 2007, is initiating and leading the effort to organize this event.

The Chair takes this opportunity to thank all of the members of the Extended Executive Committee for all of their help this year. Without their help, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to handle all of the business of this division. The Division Roster is provided in the Table below. It is presented to acknowledge the membership of the Executive Committee, the Technical Committees, and the International Conference Committee among others. For those of you who are reading this newsletter, the Chair thanks the active members of the OOAE Division and welcomes others interested in volunteering to participate in the activities of the OOAE Division. The Chair also thanks the ASME staff for their help. The participation of the EC at the annual meeting in Houston of Terry Jones, Bernt Leira, Xiaozhi (Christina) Wang, and Segen Estefen is greatly appreciated. The symposium coordinators, viz., Subrata Chakrabarti, Carlos Guedes Soares, Mamdouh Salama, Segen Estefen, Takeshi Kinoshita, Cengiz Ertekin, and Walter Kuehnlein, organized very successful and interesting sessions for OMAE 2005. We look forward to realizing the fruits of their efforts when we meet in Greece. Special thanks must go to the ASME staff members John Bendo, Angela Buonvicino, Cynthia Clark and Christina Perakis. The Chair also recognizes Sarah Lowis who played an important role in Vancouver. Lastly, the Chair recognizes the newly established involvement of the ASME staff for IPTI, viz., Manny Mones and his group in Houston.

Finally, the Chair thanks John Halkyard, our very active Vice-Chair, Mike Bernitsas and Subrata Chakrabarti (both of whom have played key roles in organizing the OMAE in Greece). I must offer special thanks to Cengiz Ertekin, our web master, for all of his help and encouragement during my tenure as EC member and as co-founder and co-coordinator of the Ocean Engineering Symposium. With his help we also co-established the OOAE Division Lifetime Achievement Award (the first three recipients of this award are John V. Wehausen, J. Nicholas Newman and Theodore Y.-T. Wu). I would like to announce the recipient for this year’s award; he is our own Subrata Chakrabarti. Subrata earned his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and his Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Colorado. He has extensive theoretical and experimental experience in the design and development of offshore structures, and in the development of hydrodynamic design tools. He has published three books and more than 100 technical papers. In recognition of his major contributions to the fields of hydrodynamics and fluid-structure interaction in the design of harbor, coastal and offshore structures, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineers in 2002. This is one of the highest professional distinctions in the U.S. We all owe him a heartfelt congratulations and a hearty thank you for his major contributions in organizing and continued participation in the annual OMAE conference series.