Over 2,200 attendees visited the conferences and exhibition, welcomed by the governor of the State of Mississippi, US Senator Thad Cochran.

Conference
In addition to Mr Cochran, plenary session speakers included Dr Philip Dur, Corporate Vice President and President of Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, Vice Adm. Conrad Lautenbacher, USN (Ret.), NOAA Administrator and Dr Richard Spinrad, Technical Director for the office of the Oceanographer of the Navy.
The conference highlighted Mississippi’s growing oceanography community and high technology business cluster in ocean technology and research, remote sensing, rocket propulsion and shipbuilding. The honorary co-chairs, Rear Adm. Thomas Q. Donaldson, V, USN, and Herbert W. Anderson, represented this emphasis. Session topics included advances in remote sensing, autonomous underwater vehicles, data mining and management, and ocean education.

Exhibition
The organisers did a good job in attracting a variety of oceanographic and hydrographic companies from all over the world. The general opinion amongst exhibitors about the number of visitors was very positive. Although the traffic was slow, exhibitors received interesting requests and quality contacts were made.
The Northrop Grumman booth incorporated a ‘Cyber Cafe’ in New Orleans’ French Quarter style, complete with coffee and French doughnuts. The Cyber Cafe provided a number of conventioneers with welcome access to e-mail accounts. Odom Hydrographic Systems, in co-operation with Atlas Hydrography, brought a fully equipped survey vessel to Biloxi and offered those interested a demonstration of a real time survey using their products. Also interesting, and rather new to the business, was the submarine presented by Kokes Marine Technologies. This diesel/electric powered sub-marine may be equipped with all kinds of survey equipment and can dive to 1,000 feet and travel at speeds of over 8 knots. NavOceano showed the enormous AUV Seahorse. This AUV has a range of 300 miles and collects side scan images, water-column temperature and salinity, ocean currents using Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers and bathymetry. The State of Mississippi sponsored a cluster of booths to demonstrate its advanced technology leadership in the marine industry and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) exhibit boasted a NOAA data buoy, which reached almost to the exhibition hall ceiling.

Next year’s conference will be held in San Diego, California, to coincide with the100th Birthday of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, founded there.

Source: Jerry Boatman, Executive Co Chairman of MTS/IEEE Oceans 2002 and Johannes van der Schaar, Account Manager Hydro international