V1, 7/18/05 7 from a research program to an operational entity and incorporates timelines to aid in the transition from one funding source (i.e., Federal research funding agencies to applied agencies, to state and local applied agencies to private sector and even VC – venture capital). This needs to be accompanied by a plan to “market” the outyear funding sources NOW. Agree. · Revisit Project management plans and conform to project management software – possibly with the help of a “translator” – create action items and issues list weekly. With regard to project management, the written evaluation suggests the need for use of program-wide management software that identifies short-term tasks and tracks progress on a weekly basis.  We acknowledge that we have yet to identify a suitable project management approach.  We have learned that performance management software designed for large complex programs that are largely contained within themselves is not suitable for SEACOOS, which has a number of additional complexities that cannot be accommodated by off-the-shelf software.  Many of the participants within SEACOOS require multiple, diverse grants and constant fund raising to maintain viable programs, therefore they already have many reporting duties and simply can’t afford a large time investment in this type of system.  An obvious conclusion is that for a program such as SEACOOS the reporting system must be simple to use and require minimum maintenance.  Most SEACOOS scientists have significant academic duties, which also have a large impact on time management.   We acknowledge that we have not yet identified the optimal mechanism for program coordination but we have made progress.    The alternative suggested by the evaluators, that the program support an individual (or individuals) who constantly communicates with investigators and updates a task list, assumes clear targets and tasks.  We have not reached this level of planning and suspect this is more achievable in a more mature state of the RCOOS.  In the interim we have adopted a regular set of teleconferences among the SEACOOS Executive Committee to ensure that project tasks are conducted, and we have added personnel to help document these activities.  This approach is offering improvements on our project management and helping us to be more efficient with our workloads. Observations and Modeling · The present SEACOOS is operating several types of HF radar for measuring surface currents. While new and incompletely understood technically, it is well matched to the geographic scope and mission of IOOS. To better define the scientific utility of this new technology, the SEACOOS group has established (or will establish) three HR radar evaluation sites.  Given the general recommendation to spend some effort on repositioning the system for IOOS