This has been a landmark year for OBFS Historical Resources as, on 2/8/2024, the OBFS Board voted to form an official Historic Resource Committee to survey historical resources and centralize, digitize and make available to the public the background papers and photos of the Organization of Biological Field Stations. The Historic Resource Committee was formed which includes: Beth Norman, Philippe Cohen, Skip Van Bloem, Rhonda Struminger and Mary Hufty. The OBFS historian was given an official voting position on the Board of Directors.
Skip Van Bloem at Clemson’s Baruch Institute secured a research intern for OBFS to consolidate records and digitize them for the future of the organization. We began shipping the hard copies from Archbold Biological Station and from Philippe to Georgetown SC in May 2024, to be received by the amazing intern Louie Prete who has good computer and data storage skills as well as access to a scanner. The vast majority of these materials have been scanned and archived, including some old slides and photographs. If you have any items to share, please email OBFS_history_internship@obfs.org! There is also a large OBFS Dropbox available to store historical documents. We look forward to a presentation from Louie at our annual meeting.
A few jewels have been revealed, such as the first electronic copy of the OBFS directory on IBM punchcard and an insightful interview of a panel of OBFS presidents at Douglas Lake in 2010. Here are the list of attendants and some highlights:
- Brian Koppel was president in 2008 while at Coweetta Hydrologic Laboratory.
- Hilary Swain hosted a meeting at Archbold Biological Station in 1998, prior to becoming president in 2000-2001, and organized a Congressional Round Table with NAML. She was first introduced to OBFS by Dr Jim Layne, the departing Executive Director of Archbold Biological field Station as well as a founding member of OBFS. In 1996, he gave Dr Swain the Kellogg report to clarify what she needed to know to do her new job.
- Art McKee became president of OBFS in 1998, after becoming committed to a national network of field stations by Susan Lors and Jack Stanford in 1985. George Lauff at the Kellogg Biological Station recruited Art to write the White Paper arguing for the restoration of NSF funding for field stations and marine labs (FSMLs) in 1983. He was convinced by the dedication of field station personnel he met at OBFS meetings. In 1986 a joint competition was established through Field Station Marine Laboratory Competition Grants through NSF. Jim Edwards, of NSF, administered the grants and worked well with both field stations and marine labs. The model of alternate years was not accepted. John Brooks was Division Director of the Biological Sciences Division in 1980. Peter McCartney, followed Tom Callaghan, at NSF in 1986. Peter was a graduate student with Art. We need the attendance of NSF staff at our meetings. This is where NSF provides guidelines and insights into what makes for successful FSML proposals. NSF needs to see the Field Stations at work to believe what power houses they are.
- Eric Nagy was president from 2002-2003. He was instated on 9/12/2001 with a bang. His major accomplishment was taking advantage of a Strategic Plan NSF-FSML planning grant, and reviewing and updating the by-laws from 2005-2010.
- Jan Hodder, was president of OBFS from 2006-2008 and was the first to file the paper work to be a not for profit. Dr Sedra Shapiro was president 2003-2005 and began the implementation of the Strategic Plan. Dr Hodder’s first annual meeting was at Flathead Lake in 1994 and she hosted a joint Marine Station and Field Station meeting in 1997 at the University of Oregon’s Oregon Institute of Marine Biology at Cos Bay.
- Ian Billick was president from 2010-2012. The major crisis of that year was that our website was hacked and very temporarily shut down the US military web site. Mark Stromberg also attended this panel discussion as the first web site coordinator. He did 12 years of duty as website coordinator and was involved in establishing open data sets, as previous Metadata was stored at individual sites. He set up workshops (along with Bill Michener) on technology, shared Metadata, and Metadata standards.
- A pivotal meeting in 1996 was spot lighted at the White Mountains Research Station when the stars aligned, Hilary turned 40, Tom Callaghan made his first appearance at an OBFS meeting as FSML Program Director, and 5 of the participants in this panel attended their first OBFS annual meeting. It was indeed memorable.
- Connection between field station management, development of relationships with colleagues, and the importance of place-based research and education were the dominant themes of the panel discussion. Enhancing cross-site research collaboration, access to increased funding, and cultivating field station networks were highlighted as major challenges. Long term Ecological Research (LTER) sites were not adequately funded for outreach, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)and the Global Lake Environmental Observatory Network (GLEON) were important initial efforts. But even in 2010 it was obvious that the field station community needs better tools to make a more vibrant network. Small stations face funding challenges to engage and participate in OBFS research networks. A pattern was noted that first time enthusiastic members quickly rise as stars in OBFS leadership with an early willingness to host the Annual Meeting! Their leadership and the sharing of new research sites has provided a good deal of our energy to move forward as a network.
- A special plea was made by Eric Nagy that Field Stations retain some of their IRREVERENCE. Share the Joy!
So no longer are the OBFS file cabinets and brown boxes at Archbold. They are now at Clemson and are entering the new millennium full speed. Thank you, Skip and Louie, for getting us organized and thank YOU for reading and looking back to look forward!
Mary Hufty MD, OBFS historian since the previous millennium. July 14,2024