This has been a very productive year for the OOAE Division despite the very difficult times we have been experiencing in the latter part.  I have had the pleasure of working with a dedicated group of volunteers who have gone well beyond the call of duty; you will see the amount of time many of them have put into the OOAED matters as you read through the Winter 2001 issue of our newsletter.  Our goal is a simple one to state: to serve the members of our academic and professional community better.  Nothing can make us more satisfied in this endeavor than to accomplish this goal. 

Many articles in the Winter 2001 issue of our newsletter, written by the members of the Extended Executive Committee of the OOAED, attempts to inform you of, and to receive feedback on, some of the projects we have been working on, inline with our vision for the long term prosperity of our division. (To read the articles referred to below, please see the Winter 2001 issue of OOAED newsletter).

Let me review some of these projects, certainly in no order of importance:

1. After the completion of a very successful OMAE 2001 Conference held in Rio de Janeiro last June, the preparations for the International OMAE 2002 Conference in Oslo are going very well; we have received more than 450 abstracts in 7 symposia.  To learn more about OMAE 2002, promises to be an outstanding conference, visit the OMAE 2002 web site. I am sure you have already noticed that we are almost completely `electronic’ this year in any and all OMAE conference communications, from submission of abstracts to final registration.  The creation of the OMAE 2002 web site (www.asmeconferences.org/omae02/) by ASME staff is of no small task by any means, and we owe our gratitude to all at ASME who have contributed to this project, of which we are quite proud.  Thanks are especially due to Ramon Johnson, who is the administrator of our division at ASME, for accommodating our special needs in this regard, and to my mentor, in charge of this project on the OOAED side, Subrata Chakrabarti, who has been so patient with all of us in seeing that the site works perfectly.  OMAE 2002 web site is one of the first of its kind in the business; visit it,
2. We have established a new Ocean Engineering Technical Committee, and the first Ocean Engineering Symposium with almost one hundred papers will be held as part of OMAE 2002.  With this new symposium, we will be filling the void in technical areas of interest to most of our members.  However, being so young, the activities of the Ocean Engineering Symposium will certainly need to be reviewed and revised after OMAE 2002; suggestions by the members of the ocean engineering community on this issue will greatly be appreciated; feel free to contact Dan Valentine or me on this issue,
3. As part of the Ocean Engineering Symposium, a ``mini symposium” on water waves, ship waves, and marine hydrodynamics will be held during OMAE 2002 to honor the scholarly contributions and teachings of Prof. John V. Wehausen of U.C. Berkeley.  The EC member Dan Valentine has graciously initiated this meeting. Thank you, Dan!
4. The EC member John Robinson has analyzed membership statistics of OOAED.  This analysis reveals a number of interesting facts about us; see his article, ``What is Ocean Engineering?”
5. We have been actively developing projects that should be of interest to our student members, the most important group of members as they represent our future.  Bob Randall leads the student activities committee with his great enthusiasm and initiatives; we are very lucky to have Bob among us.  He reports in the Winter 2001 issue of our newsletter on the first OOAED Graduate Student Paper Contest and the first International Student Offshore Design Competition that OOAED co-sponsors with SNAME,
6. The Houston Chapter of OOAED has been very active.  Thanks to the diligent works of James Maher, Rick Weiss, Sam Nasr, Charles Dalton, Phil Grossweiler, and Steve Barras, under the leadership of John Halkyard, a number of projects, some of which are of continuing education in nature, are undertaken; see John’s article,
7. An exciting project on a Joint Pipeline Committee, involving four technical divisions of ASME, including OOAED, has recently been initiated by the Pipelines Systems subdivision Chair, Mike Yoon.  Terry Jones and Mamdouh Salama represent OOAED on this committee, and we look forward to strengthening our relations with other divisions in the area of pipelines; see Terry’s article,
8. The Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering, Transactions of ASME, a prestigious journal of OOAED, will have theme, or special, issues from time to time.  This is done in response to your suggestions.  One such issue is scheduled for publication in May, and another theme issue will follow this.  See Stephen Liu’s article on JOMAE.   

These are some of the projects on which we have been working.  I will report to you more in the next issue of our newsletter on some other continuing and new projects.  It should be ready for mailing sometime in April.  And please do not hesitate to contact one of the officers of the division or myself (see the OOAED Roster) if you have any suggestions or comments on how we can improve serving you better.  Also, please consider serving in one of the committees of OOAED; we need your help.   Thank you for your support and encouragement. We always look forward to your visit of OOAED web site.

R. Cengiz Ertekin