GOMA Roundtable

October 4, 2020

A free-flowing discussion about GOMA now and into the future

In this episode of the American Shoreline Podcast, Peter A. Ravella and Tyler Buckingham record a lively roundtable discussion following the second day of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance Coastal Resiliency Team Meeting in Austin, Texas. At the table are: Rhonda Price, GOMA Coastal Resiliency Team Chair; Niki Pace, Research Attorney, Louisiana Sea Grant Law and Policy Program at LSU; Tracie Sempier, GOMA Regional Program Manager & Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Coastal Storms Outreach Coordinator; and, Christine Shepard, the Nature Conservancy Director of Science for the Gulf of Mexico.

Show Transcription
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Peter Ravella & Tyler Buckingham

Peter and Tyler joined forces in 2015 and from the first meeting began discussing a project that would become Coastal News Today and the American Shoreline Podcast Network. At the time, Peter and Tyler were coastal consultants for Pete’s firm, PAR Consulting, LLC. In that role, they worked with coastal communities in Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, engaged in grant writing, coastal project development, shoreline erosion and land use planning, permitting, and financial planning for communities undertaking big beach restoration projects. Between and among their consulting tasks, they kept talking and kept building the idea of CNT & ASPN. In almost every arena they worked, public engagement played a central role. They spent thousands of hours talking with coastal stakeholders, like business owners, hotel operators, condo managers, watermen, property owners, enviros, surfers, and fishermen. They dived deep into the value, meaning, and responsibility for the American shoreline, segment-by-segment. Common threads emerged, themes were revealed, differences uncovered. There was a big conversation going on along the American shoreline! But, no place to have it. That's where CNT and ASPN were born.