taking on the big BY LOIE HAYES ’79
FLYING POLICY AROUND THE GLOBE Nicole Cabana at NOAA
FROM ALL-COLLEGE MEETING TO NEW ENGLAND FISHERMEN Scott Kraus Seeks Solutions
In her first year at COA, Nicole Cabana ’99 wrote a paper condemning the killing of harp seals. While the seals stayed on her mind, Cabana worked at Allied Whale, dedicating many hours to cataloging humpback whale tails for its Years of the North Atlantic Humpbacks, or YoNAH, project. The more she learned about whales and seals, the more she realized that policy should be based on hard data, rather than, as she says, “an emotional attachment to a charismatic species.” Eventually Cabana traveled to Newfoundland to meet sealers and see the harvest in person. This research trip became the basis for her senior project. Her conclusion ran contrary to her earlier beliefs, supporting the way the harvest was being managed by the Canadian government. Thinking about that time now, she reflects, “What surprised me most was my change in world view. Before coming to COA, I had been very closed-minded and set in my viewpoints. I had a hardnosed, definite position one way and totally changed by the time I finished at COA in 1999.” After graduation, Cabana wanted to find work that allowed her to travel and continue learning. A chance encounter introduced her to the Commissioned Corps Officers of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. This uniformed group of roughly three hundred individuals serves NOAA as ship and aircraft operators on environmental and scientific missions. Though she feared that a “military mentality” might dominate the corps, she was pleased to find her fellow officers to be scientists and engineers like herself, committed to impartiality in their research. The corps has fulfilled its promise of travel and education. Of her six years in a NOAA uniform, Cabana has spent four in the Pacific, both on ship and shore assignments, and has conducted research in the Atlantic from the Bay of Fundy to the Dominican Republic. As her experience has grown, Cabana has also been introduced to the political side of NOAA through a short stint in Washington, D.C., where she expects to be assigned in the future. She looks forward to bringing to her policy work the open-mindedness that she has won through hard questioning of her own biases.
Loie Hayes ’79 is a freelance editor and writer, still grateful for the reading and writing skills she learned at COA.
26 | COA
Scott Kraus ’77 was one of the first two COA students to spend a twoweek stint on Mount Desert Rock, recording whale sightings as part of the fledgling Allied Whale and getting to know the Coast Guard men stationed there. “They were young like us but their attitudes were very different from the New England politics of environmentalism and human rights that I’d been steeped in,” said Kraus. Sharing the close quarters, even staying secure during a hurricane on the Rock, taught Kraus a great deal about the importance of toleration and accepting people for their actions as much as for their ideas. Kraus found that COA’s All-College Meeting was another great exercise in listening and working to find a solution. “Town meetings had such a diversity of viewpoints. It was like combining a debating society with a course in logic and another in politics.” In many ways, the research training Kraus received through Allied Whale, along with his participation in COA’s self-governance, served as the perfect training for his work at New England Aquarium, where he is currently vice-president for research. “There are many more players in the marine environment than there were twenty years ago,” he noted. “Often a government agency talks to all the interest groups and then takes years to impose something no one likes. Sometimes you get to feel that it’s not worth doing anymore.” To counter the slow pace and lowest-common-denominator quality of bureaucratic policy writing, Kraus finds inspiration in working directly with stakeholders such as fishermen and shipping companies. “They want to have control over their own lives. If you show them proof of a problem, they will test and adopt new tactics, often quicker than if you had to wait for regulations to force compliance.” One example of this approach is Kraus’ current work with chemists and engineers to test rope that glows in the dark, reflects sound, becomes stiff when submerged, or dissolves upon contact with blubber. “The forces of modern chemistry haven’t been brought to bear on fishing gear. It could open a door that will allow us to make progress.” Scott recalls the contentious discussion during COA’s first year about the name of the workshop that eventually was called Allied Whale. While it might seem trivial now, even the process of choosing a name can be a step foward, even when reconciliation and mutual recognition seem impossible.