| President’s Message |
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Dear Friends,
As Hurricane Ike bore down on Galveston on September 13, 2008, we all held our breath. Would Ike and Galveston be a repeat
of Katrina and New Orleans? In the end, it was a close call. Ike hit Galveston as a category 2 hurricane, causing hundreds of
millions of dollars in damage and environmental devastation.
Just days before I had received a contract from the Galveston Island Convention Center that would commit Restore America’s
Estuaries to holding its 5th National Conference on Coastal and Estuarine Habitat Restoration in Galveston in November 2010.
After the storm, we were relieved to learn the convention center and the adjacent hotels had not suffered severe damage, as did
the rest of the island. Although we could have walked away, we made the decision to commit our resources to Galveston and to
be part of the rebuilding process.
I am proud that Restore America’s Estuaries will be part of that rebuilding. RAE’s National Conference will bring business and
national attention to a region that can use both. Our conference and exposition is the largest of its kind, dedicated entirely to
coastal habitat restoration. For the Galveston conference, we expect more than 1,000 attendees, 150 exhibitors, 160 poster
presentations, and 400 presenters in 80-plus, high-level sessions that will deal with every aspect of coastal restoration. (I like to
joke that RAE’s national conferences literally “cover the waterfront.”)
On a more serious note, I think no other coastal city in the United States better exemplifies the theme of this year’s conference—
“Preparing for Climate Change: Science, Practice, and Policy.” In many ways, Galveston may represent the future of America’s
coasts, a future where climate change has altered our coasts and estuaries to a degree barely imaginable today. Because Galveston is
a barrier island in the most hurricane-prone area in the world, it faces many of the challenges and problems that our coastal areas
as a whole will likely confront in the next few decades, as oceans rise, storms increase, and national, state, and local governments
wrestle with hard questions about our coasts: how best to adapt, how best to mitigate, and, in the final analysis, what can we save
and what might we have to give up.
We are excited to have Galveston hosting our National Conference. The facilities at the Galveston Island Convention Center
are state-of-the-art. Exhibitors will enjoy the 40,000-square-foot exhibition and poster hall and the opportunity to present their
products and services to decision-makers in the corporate, governmental, academic, non-profit, tribal, and community sectors.
And, of course, Galveston is justly famed for its restaurants, outstanding seafood, nightlife, sightseeing, birdlife, and historical
architecture. Temperatures in November are expected to be in the 60s and 70s.
I look forward to seeing you at our 5th National Conference on Coastal and Estuarine Habitat Restoration, November 13-17!
Jeff Benoit
President and CEO
Restore America’s Estuaries
2 President’s Message
Restore America’s Estuaries is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that leads a national alliance of 11 community-based conservations from the East,
West, and Gulf Coasts. Together, our members boast a combined membership of more than 250,000 volunteer-members. Our mission is
to preserve the nation’s estuaries by protecting and restoring the lands and waters
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