4 MARCH 2015 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG CHAPTER REPORTS U.S. Aquaculture Society Well, this is my last column as USAS President. Thank you for the opportunity to serve USAS in this capacity. I have really enjoyed it and the time has flown by. I haven’t accomplishment as much as I had hoped but look forward to continuing to work for USAS on the Board as Past-President. As always, thank you to the current USAS Board and ex officio members. I know each of you has given more than precious time. I hope it has been a meaningful and rewarding year for all of you; it certainly has been for me. The Board says good-bye to Reg Blaylock (Secretary/Treasurer), Steven Rawles (Director) and Chris Bentley (Director). Each has served USAS and its membership with dedication and their impact has been felt by all. Thanks Reg for serving as a most diligent Secretary and watchful steward of the budget. I really appreciate you helping me stay between the lines – a hard job I know. Thanks, Steven, for your ever sage and balanced wisdom and for your organization and contributions to the biennial Statistics Course with the AFS-FCS. We want to expand these types of continuing education opportunities to members largely because you have set such a great example with this successful course. Thanks for your continued interest to help with this. And, Chris, as chair of the Promotion and Membership Committee, your ideas and strategies have been invigorating. I wish you could stay with the Board longer. I’d like to welcome the incoming USAS Board members – Gef Flimlin (President-Elect), Gulnihal Ozbay (Secretary/Treasurer), David Straus and Kwamena Quagrainie (Directors). I know you will serve well with the incoming President, Mike Denson. Mike, thanks for being the best President-Elect and having my back. It has been great experience working with you and I look forward to continued collaboration. Recently I have been preparing an accomplishment report to close out the 2010-2014 USAS Strategic Plan. There are five strategic goals in the plan and I am pleased to report that every goal had some progress and activity during the period. In my opinion, the greatest impact was in Goals 1 and 2. USAS continues to sponsor and develop science-based programs particularly in the Aquaculture America conferences (thank you David Cline for your leadership with this for AA15) and we are actively working on ways to increase the number of educational programs offered by USAS and sponsorship of more regional meetings. 2010-2014 USAS STRATEGIC PLAN GOALS • Goal 1: Provide science-based educational programs for the U.S. Aquaculture Industry. • Goal 2: Enhance member benefits and services. • Goal 3: Provide national leadership in workforce development for USAS student members. • Goal 4: Develop partnerships, collaborations and coalitions with and among other aquaculture-related organizations in the United States. • Goal 5: Provide leadership development opportunities for USAS members. There have been significant changes and development with the student awards in 2014. Again, many thanks to all our new and old sponsors for these awards. We continue to struggle with the right direction and effective medium for a USAS social network presence. I have a feeling that we will see significant improvement in those areas in the next few years. At our pre-conference board meeting we will review the strategic plan for 2015-2019. Once finalized, this plan will be posted to our webpage. Stay tuned. (CONTINUED ON PAGE 72) The Korean Chapter of WAS and the organizing committee of World Aquaculture 2015 is looking forward to welcome all conference participants to Jeju Island, also known as the Island of Peace or the Hawaii of the Far East. This year, the World Aquaculture Society annual meeting will take place there from 26 to 31 May. Jeju is one of nine provinces in South Korea, situated on and coterminous with the nation’s largest island of Jeju. The island is volcanic, dominated by Halla-san (Halla Mountain), about 1,950 m (6,400 ft) high and the highest mountain in South Korea. The island measures approximately 73 km (45 mi) across, east to west, and 41 km (25 mi) from north to south. Jeju has a mild subtropical climate, warmer than that of the rest of Korea, winters are cool and dry and spring is warm and fine to attract tourists. Due to the exotic and beauty of the nature, Jeju Island has been a destination of tourists from all over the world, enjoying variety of outdoor activities including hiking, SCUBA diving and fishing. Jeju Island is also famous for aquaculture and fisheries, with more than half of the total aquaculture production of flounder (20,000-25,000 t) originating from Jeju Island. We hope that World Aquaculture 2015 in Jeju will provide a forum for scientists, educators, managers, environmentalists and relevant local stakeholders from key organizations around the world to share their knowledge and experiences on all aspects of aquaculture, management, and conservation. — Albert Kwang-Sik Choi, President Korean Chapter
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