TO:            UNAVCO Community Members

FROM:       Jim Davis, President, UNAVCO, Inc.
                 Will Prescott, (Future) President, UNAVCO, Inc.

SUBJECT:  Update on current activities

Contents:
UNAVCO, Inc. status
PBO Proposal status
Earthscope status
Continuing network proposal status
GSAC Status
Glossary

UNAVCO, Inc. status
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There is slow, but steady, progress on staffing and housing the new UNAVCO, Inc. After a careful search with nearly a dozen applicants, Will Prescott of the U.S. Geological Survey was selected as the leading candidate for President. He has been offered, and has agreed to accept, the position. His move from the USGS to UNAVCO, Inc. is at present on hold pending UNAVCO, Inc. funding approval.

Following recommendations of the Facilities Committee, plans are proceeding for an October 2003 move of the Facility from UCAR management to UNAVCO, Inc. management. The move is timed to coincide with the renewal of the UNAVCO Facility proposal. For many reasons, including impact on the jobs of the current Facility employees, this is a major undertaking. UNAVCO, Inc. and UCAR have begun discussions on the many issues that will need to be worked out for this move to take place.

There has been extensive discussion about where to locate the UNAVCO, Inc. offices. Although initial thinking favored locating in Washington, D.C., the final decision by the Board of Directors was to locate UNAVCO, Inc. in Boulder, CO. The primary factors in the decision were proximity to the existing UNAVCO Facility and a central location within the PBO region. Proximity to the UNAVCO Facility will be helpful in the start-up of headquarters activities. Several options for office space in Boulder are under consideration.

UNAVCO, Inc. has also begun discussion with IRIS about possible areas and mechanisms for future collaboration. Earthscope is the obvious first area of cooperation (see below), but we anticipate the cooperation will be larger than that. A draft Declaration-of-Intent that lays out the goals and basis for this cooperation is currently under review by the UNAVCO, Inc. Board of Directors and the IRIS Executive Committee.

UNAVCO, Inc. recently received notification of non-profit [501(c)(3)] status from the IRS.

UNAVCO, Inc. currently has 26 members. (Incidentally, not all members have paid their dues yet).

PBO Proposal status
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UNAVCO, Inc. has appointed a PBO Standing Committee consisting of Frank Webb, Chair, Duncan Agnew, Bill Holt, Sue Owen, Paul Segall, Paul Silver, and Mark Simons. The Standing Committee is charged with representing the scientific community in the implementation and operation of PBO.

Mike Jackson has been appointed as interim PBO Director and has completed a first draft of the PBO Proposal. He has been assisted by others in the UNAVCO community. The PBO Standing Committee is reviewing this first draft. Their report is expected shortly. The next draft will be made available to the entire UNAVCO community and the other interested parties. Soon Mike will meet with Shane Ingate from IRIS to begin the process of integrating the PBO, USArray and SAFOD proposals to create the Earthscope proposal. The entire Earthscope proposal has a deadline of 1 December 2002.

Earthscope status
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The Senate subcommittee responsible for NSF appropriations is in the middle of marking up the VA-HUD bill. First year funding for EarthScope is less than requested ($20M, rather than the $35M). However, since we anticipated significant problems with Senate support for EarthScope, the fact that EarthScope is included in their initial markup is a positive sign. This is only one of the steps along the way to a final NSF budget - the House subcommittee still has to produce their markup, then the full committees, and a possible conference committee between House and Senate - all before it goes to the President for final signature. Changes in the budget or structure of the MRE account could happen in any one of these steps.

The InSAR portion of Earthscope, ECHO, has not fared so well. Last month NASA made a decision to not fund this effort. The InSAR community is considering other mechanisms to provide much needed InSAR data.

The principal parties involved in writing an Earthscope facility proposal --UNAVCO, Inc., IRIS, and Stanford University/USGS-- have drafted a proposed facility management plan. This plan was drafted with input from the Earthscope Steering Committee and other interested parties. It lays out a strategy for managing the facility part of Earthscope that melds the three components into a single facility and will meet NSF's requirement for a single PI/PD. This document is currently being reviewed by the UNAVCO, Inc. Board of Directors, the IRIS Executive Committee and the SAFOD management team and the document will become part of the combined Earthscope proposal.

In addition to the Facility Management Committee mentioned above, Earthscope will also need a mechanism to coordinate science, education and outreach as well as other aspects of the Earthscope project. Discussion is continuing on the organization of this side of Earthscope management.

Continuing network proposal status
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Building on the start made by Tom Herring and other members of the ALASKA/BARD/BARGEN/EBRY/PANGA/SCIGN networks community, Wayne Shiver, Mike Jackson and Will Prescott are making progress on assembling a proposal to provide support for existing continuous networks. Pieces of this proposal have been written and the six networks are working on providing input for the proposal (thank you to those of you who have already contributed your part).

GSAC Status
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The GSAC working group met in Boulder last week. In attendance were representatives from Central Washington Univ, UC Berkeley, Goddard, JPL, MIT, NGS, UC San Diego, UNAVCO, and USGS. They are making good progress toward a functioning system. There are a number of working wholesalers with others close to ready. The retail client software is working and undergoing fine tuning. The system should be ready for public testing soon. For more information about GSAC (e.g., for a definition of retailer or wholesaler) see http://www.unavco.org/facility/data/gsac/gsac.html or http://gsac.ucsd.edu

Last modified Monday, 07-Nov-05 19:34:37

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