Introduction to the Gulf of Mexico Alliance Coastal Resilience Team

October 4, 2020

Rhonda Price gives an overview of her GOMA team

On this episode of the American Shoreline Podcast, Peter A. Ravella and Tyler Buckingham sit down with Rhonda Price, Coastal Resiliency Team Chair for the Gulf of Mexico Alliance. The Gulf of Mexico Alliance was established in 2004 by the Gulf State Governors in response to the President’s Ocean Action Plan. It was a State-led network of partners working together on projects related to the priority issues identified by the Governors in early discussions. Strongly supported by the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, 13 Federal agencies led by EPA and NOAA, were identified to work with and support the young effort. In 2006, on the heels of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the five Gulf State Governors signed the Governors’ Action Plan for Healthy and Resilient Coasts. Realizing that the mission could only be achieved by including as many Alliance Partners as possible, other organizations were recruited to join the effort, including academic organizations, non-profits, and business partners. The episode was recorded at the Coastal Resiliency Team's Fall Meeting, where these partners gather to share their work and ideas.

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.