 Let me start off here. We've been chatting, but welcome everyone to today's lecture of opportunity. This is part of our Blue Economy series. So focusing on this idea, this concept of the Blue Economy. I am Professor Kate Walsh. I teach in the National Security Affairs Department within that the policy analysis of course. And I also research on China and I'm a China American Studies Institute affiliate at the college. It's through my research on China's own strategies and plans and policies on the Blue Economy through which I've done some outreach here in the United States. And one of my early calls was to Jen McGahn, our speaker today, to try and understand the Blue Economy as it's evolving and emerging in the United States. So Jen is going to talk about that for us. Jennifer McCann is Director of the US Coastal Programs at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography Coastal Resources Center in Rhode Island Sea Grant. The center published a report this spring that is online and freely available. Which is going to talk to us about it today that is detailed on Rhode Island's own Blue Economy and how it's developed and why it's important and connect that to maritime-enabled interests for us. Why we should care about it. Just a few administrative announcements before I get going and I should say there's more on Genfio in the announcement. So take a look if you haven't had a chance but to save time for the presentation. We are going to be recording the presentation today of this lecture up until the Q&A section. So we'll have a break after Jen's formal presentation. That video will be shared with the War College community and beyond. So Jen has graciously agreed to do that and also to share slides at the end. So if you're like me, you don't have to keep taking pictures of it. She's going to share them with us. And the report itself of course is available online as I said. We'll turn off the recording at the start of the Q&A section. Which point will revert to or switch to Chatham House Rules at which point, you can talk about what was said but not affiliate anyone who said XYZ. And of course the disclaimer necessary that this lecture anyone who says anything here is not necessarily representing the views of the US Navy, the Naval War College Department of Defense or the US government but our personal views of those speaking. We will mute everyone during the presentation but then because Jen we talked a bit before here and she'd like to have more of an open Q&A. So we'll open up the mic at the Q&A section. So please be ready with your questions and comments then. Let me thank as always and Ms. Laura Cavallaro for her help in making this happen. She's in the background making sure nothing goes wrong happily. And for any students and faculty or others we have an email listserv group that some of our viewers are part of the oceanography and maritime security group. It's open to anyone. It's just sharing information on maritime security, ocean science, blue economy type issues. So if you're interested in more of these issues please sign up on that group through the group app or just send me an email and I'll add you to our group. With that I'm going to turn it over to Jen for her presentation followed by Q&A. Thanks, over to you Jen. Okay, great, thank you. I'm gonna share my screen now. Perfect. Okay, great. Well, and again, thank you Kate and thank you everyone for joining me today on a nice rainy day. To learn about Rhode Island's blue economy and maritime and naval roles and charting the course towards the future here. So again, I am Jen McCann and I represent the University of Rhode Island Coastal Resources Center which is part of the Graduate School of Oceanography and the Rhode Island Sea Grant College program. We're around the Bay Campus. And when people ask me what we do, our job is to work with coastal communities, industry, maritime and coastal industries, other universities around the world to make our coast and oceans a better place to live, work and play. And we do this by bringing the best available science to the table as well as best management practices from other places and provide opportunities and forums to learn so that we can improve how we do things along our coasts and oceans. So I would say, I just wanna, I don't know any of you and obviously we're on the Zoom call. I would say, so most of you have either spent time on a Navy warship or maybe you've gone fishing either commercially or maybe on a Saturday afternoon with your family or maybe you've even eaten at a seafood restaurant in Newport or in Rhode Island, someplace or in your own community. And all of these activities and examples are examples of the blue economy or the maritime academy. I'm sorry, I know I'm talking, the maritime economy. And we have a Senator here in Rhode Island, Senator Whitehouse who talks about how in Rhode Island our blue economy is very strong. The different sectors are extremely strong. And what we need to do is to take these stars, these strong stars and make a constellation of it so that we are encouraging synergies amongst the different sectors that make up the maritime economy or the ocean economy and to move forward strategically. We have a saying here in the United States, a rising tide lifts all boats. And by establishing a more integrated blue economy, there's an opportunity to not only build our economic sector, but also to respond to the societal issues that we are all facing and to do a better job on this. So, and that is one reason why Rhode Island funded us. And I'm gonna go into more detail on that to first define what is Rhode Island's blue economy. And I have Bruce Corliss who's here on this call to thank for that because he's the one that provided us with the funding recognizing there was a need to do that. I also see Molly McGee and John Riondo on the call as well who really helped our team at URI to understand what is Rhode Island's blue economy and how we should be moving forward. Now, when you say blue economy and Google it, say you can find definitions that the United Nations is using. Other countries like Norway is using or regions like San Diego or even Cape Cod. And what we felt was important when we decided to and agreed to define what is Rhode Island's blue economy is to really define it the way the people of Rhode Island are defining it. So what we did is we looked at we are because we're Rhode Island Sea Grant we are part of the NOAA community. And we were able to, I am not an economist. And so we were able to bring in some of the NOAA economists who work daily on defining what is the ocean economy for the country. We were also to bring in to some degree to keep us honest, a resource economist at URI too who, you know, he sort of helped us out on ensuring that our numbers were accurate and defensible. But we looked at federal data, federal information, economic data, but we also looked at the non-federal data. So for example, Sanidia, Molly McGee here did a great report on what is the economic value of the defense industry. And we're sharing some of that information on this call. We also recognize that in Rhode Island it's really important to understand from a leadership perspective, what is the value? What is the connection of the blue economy by blue economy leaders? So we were able to interview over 60 people to ask them what are the connections, how can we can do better? And then we also undertook a network analysis. To do that as well. So the way we're defining in Rhode Island or we're proposing to define it is basically it's to, it's the economic sectors that have a direct or indirect link to Rhode Island's coasts and oceans. And this is a list of the seven major sectors within the blue economy. And I'm gonna go into a little bit more detail later on on this. But we also recognize that I changed this picture specifically for this presentation that higher education and research is really, these institutions are really significant to our blue economy. And in addition, government entities and civic organizations are really critical. The top right image here on this slide is a picture of our state agencies working with the private nonprofit organizations as well as the marine trades industry to promote clean marinas and clean resilient marinas recognizing that our blue economy really depends upon a clean environment. So recognizing there's lots of integration and the need for support on these things. Another aspect of the way we define our blue economy is the need for enhancers. And enhancers we call are basically the foundation, foundational platform upon which the sectors thrive. So we have quality of place, which is the relationship that people have with the natural landscape responding to workforce demands, investing in innovation and looking at resiliency. So this was one of the hardest slides and basically sums up what we found to be a very, very conservative but defensible number for the value of Rhode Island's blue economy. And this isn't as you know, I showed you seven sectors. I also talked about research and academic institutions. There's really, there's no real document that has done a similar methodology for defining the entire blue economy. But our feeling is, is we can say that conservatively the value of blue economy in Rhode Island is about $5.2 billion and the number of jobs is over 36,000. And again, this is, I'm just gonna leave it at that for the moment. So I'm gonna go over just quickly a little bit of some of the information that we found and I'm gonna start with tourism and recreation. As many of you know, so in this slide, if you look at this, we're sort of showcasing Jessica Willie and there's a picture of Jessica Willie with her family and she's the CEO of the Block Island Tourism Council. And what I wanna point out for tourism is if you look at in the parentheses, the total for tourism and recreation in the state of Rhode Island according to a state report is $4.3 billion and there's over 83,000 jobs there. Now, the thing about this report is it includes all of tourism and recreation in Rhode Island. So both the non-marine and non-coastal, it was not divided in there. So we wanna recognize that tourism and recreation is a big industry in Rhode Island. And that tourism and recreation also includes fisheries and includes marine trades in this report. So what we needed to do, the reason why we're putting hotel and lodging is because there was not redundancy in the other sector. So we're pointing out right now that these numbers here. But one thing that I think is important that Jessica brings out in her profile in the report is that people come to do tourism and recreation Rhode Islanders do for the beauty and the quality of the place. So how much is too much tourism? How many tourists do we really want? Generally speaking, these jobs are not the highest paying. So how much tourism and recreation do we wanna encourage? Do we wanna encourage research tourism or educational tourism? So those are the points I wanna bring out for tourism and recreation. We have Jason Kelly who represents ports and shipping here and Jason is the CEO for Moran Shipping which is a huge international shipping company. And what is on Jason's mind is how can we make our ports more smart and green? In other words, can we implement technologies and innovations to eliminate carbon and sulfur emissions for example or reduce ship strikes to right whales? And what about the ballast water management for invasive species? So this is on the mind of ports and shipping and again, these are all opportunities that we can strive to respond to. Another sector is obviously fisheries and we highlight Jason McNamee who thinking in the future, what Jason's concerned about and again, he's the chief, let's see, he is the chief of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management's division of marine fisheries. And what Jason wants to consider is can we be innovative in our management? Can we provide fishermen with more flexibility on what they fish? And is the traditional commercial fishing activities that we are seeing today, is that what the future of fishing is going to look like? Can we have smaller vessels? Can we use different technologies to fish? Because the ocean is getting more crowded, climate change is changing, the fish species that are off of our coast. So we need to be aware of those things and again, other opportunities. Aquaculture in Rhode Island is one of the fastest growing industries in the state and this is Catherine Puckett who is actually Gross Kelp off of Block Island. And again, it's one of the fastest growing industries that again, people want to promote aquaculture but also there's conflict between, is aquaculture conflicting too much with tourism or recreational activities? Renewable energy, as many of you may know, Rhode Island. This is off the coast of Block Island and you can see the mainland in the far part of the picture. Many feel that offshore renewable energy in the United States is going to be one of the biggest infrastructure investments that this country has seen in decades. So currently we have these five turbines in state waters and then Virginia has two wind turbines as well but the expectation is that by 2030 we will likely see 2000 additional wind turbines off the Atlantic coastline and that will create over 80,000 jobs and I'm not even talking about the cabling and the land-based infrastructure that's being required. So we actually don't really know what the value of offshore wind is in Rhode Island per se but we know that it is a booming industry and a real opportunity to grow our economy. I'm gonna, so I'm gonna slow down a little bit with marine trades and defense here. This is Wendy Mackey who's the CEO of the Rhode Island Marine Trades Association. And I've talked a bit about clean and resilient marinas, the composites industry is also an amazing industry that's really thrived. It started with creating boats like the America's boat, America's boats that were used in America's Cup and now composites is involved in at least five or six other sectors, whether they're creating musical instruments or parts for amusement park rides and for Disney World. So it's really a booming industry that's bringing the, that's bolstering the economy and engaging in the defense industry and offshore wind as well. Defense obviously is huge. It's one of the highest paying jobs here in Rhode Island. And here we have Stephanie Murphy and Amanda Costa who work for Navatech who went to URI, I will say. And, you know, they're quoted as saying, you know, Rhode Island is the Silicon Valley for, within the defense industry for undersea ocean technology. And that's expanding as well. 66% of Rhode Island companies doing business with defense expansion opportunities. And again, that's from Senedia. So just to go a little bit further into what the defense cluster is. Again, it's, this is a, it includes the private sector and the, and the military defense industry. And it's really an opportunity to establish global military solutions and strategies. This is a list of some of the maritime entities within the defense industry. And as you can see includes the Naval War College. It includes the private sector, the electric boat and Raytheon. And then the last three bullets are, you know, I've mentioned Senedia already, but you have other consortia and efforts that are really looking to promote innovation, to respond to the needs of the defense industry and to bolster it so that it is very successful. Another major contributor to the blue economy is the University of Rhode Island. And again, Bruce Corlis contributed to that where we have, we have a $125 million research vessel that's coming our way. And it's one of three amazing research vessels in the country that has that capacity. We had a bond that was secured to promote URI's expertise. And of course we do a lot of proactive planning to design our coasts and education and outreach. So URI in particular, the Bay Campus contributes significantly to our blue economy. This is a, we were able to do a very network analysis to determine what are the connections to the different sectors within the blue economy? In addition, you know, who are the people and who are the organizations that really are connecting the blue economy? We could potentially use this information to strengthen our blue economy as we move forward. And where are the places where we can encourage more connections? Now, this was the limited social network analysis. We could do more or we could ask similar questions. So this is a tool that we crafted. What we found with this network analysis is clearly the Rhode Island trade associations are the glue that hold this network together. And some sectors have stronger trade associations than others. In addition, you know, that offshore renewable energy is and can bring the different sectors together and to the table. So that's an opportunity to, again, create a greater constellation of our blue economy and that tourism and outdoor recreation if played correctly could play a stronger connector role as well. I'm just gonna talk a little bit about some of the collaborations already between the Navy and URI. The top left, we have Dr. Austin Becker from URI who's having a sabbatical and actually he's going to be at the Navy War College, I believe in January. And he is working with our colleagues, my colleagues here at the Coaster Resources Center and GSO on working with the Navy to identify resilient risks and also how does the Navy and the city and the municipalities on Aquinas Island, how do they respond to that? So a nice collaboration. The other thing we have in the middle, we have Dr. Ahikari who is working with the Navy to conduct research that will help the Navy maximize its sonar capabilities. And then we have a whole host of opportunities to promote innovative training facilities and also workforce development. So again, the considerations are, the blue economy is growing, it's booming. And there are significant pressures within going on on our earth and we need to respond to them and business as usual is not an option. So just quickly, some of the strategies that I'd like to highlight. And again, I think just in overall, the point is that the maritime industries, the Navy in particular, the defense industries are really leading us now and in cooperation and coordination with the universities. And I believe that, and I think we believe from the results of the report that it's a responsibility from the universities and also from you all, the Navy, the defense industry and whatnot to really play a leadership role. And I'm saying this, it can also sort of be selfishly too and I might be getting this wrong. So please correct me, but many of your, the naval infrastructure, the defense industry is along the coast. And so we need to consider coast to resiliency. We need to find new technologies innovation to respond to this threat, this increase of sea level rise and apply it so that we can be, this industry can be more resilient. In addition, around the world, because of drought, increased drought or increased flooding due to coastal climate change, there's more strife. And that requires a military response at times in some ways. And so it's important to find technologies and solutions to respond to this new world that we're living in. So some of this, and that's overall. So some of the strategies obviously is to intensify and expand leadership among scientific, political and educational leaders. As I said, we have strong leaders and there's really a need to bring everyone together and to coordinate and to prioritize the blue economy for the state. The second is to design policies, implement initiatives that meet economic and social needs and do no harm to the natural environment. One quick story is there is the only reason or one reason why Rhode Island is the only state in the country that has a wind farm is because our state recognize the need to proactively design and determine where do we put the wind farm in a place that has the least impact on the environment as well as on the community. And this was supported by, and the universities played a significant role in determining where that location is. And the state did as well. So it was a wonderful example of a collaboration that we need to see more of. Number three is utilize pressing issues and leverage technical assistance and innovative approaches. So up top right, this is a home, a floating home to some degree where to respond to sea level rise. Looking at innovation and finding solutions so we can understand our oceans and coast better. To the bottom right is an image of an offshore wind farm with aquaculture growing or being harvested and whatnot within the wind farm. We need to find solutions, multi-use strategies so that we can use the ocean more sustainably and find synergies amongst different uses. Number four is to prepare cross-sector workforce. As I mentioned, just the defense industry is there's great demand for a more competent and capable workforce. And we need to share our workforce. And again, that requires a partnership between state university and the private sector. And then last, engage a broad constituency for stewarding ocean resources. For us, it's really important for our citizens and our communities to understand the value of the blue economy and what it's doing and how it connects with our daily life. And so it's important to, again, invest in outreach and education and to welcome citizens into these, you know, the different blue economy sectors and businesses and whatnot. So I think it's important. Our point here is, you know, by investing in Rhode Island's blue economy, we're promoting the sustainable growth of our state. And this is not something just one of us can do. We need to work together. And what's really exciting and what I found in this report is that we're not starting from ground zero. We really have some success stories. We have opportunities where we've collaborated. We have such smart people here in Rhode Island and a desire to build our economy, to take care of our natural environment and our culture. And so we're not starting from ground zero. And that's very exciting. And again, I would say the maritime, the naval industry, we need you at the table. We need you to be a leader. And so that's my point. And thank you for listening. This is my information. I'd be happy to feel free to reach out to me. And also at the bottom is where you can find our blue economy report. We have an executive summary and then we have the larger report. So I'm going to stop sharing my screen. Did I do that? Yes. Okay, good. Okay, thank you, Jen. That was excellent. A nice overview of the report and why it's important for us here, particularly at the Naval War College to know what's been going on. So I'm going to ask you if we could stop the recording here and we'll move over to the Q and A.