Up Close to the NC Coast with the NCBIWA Spring Meeting & Mapping the CNMI with Megan Blaskovich of Woolpert

April 21, 2021

From North Carolina to the Northern Mariana Islands

This week, Peter Ravella and Tyler Buckingham are back with another great two-part show. Leading off are Kathleen Riely and Ken Willson to talk about the North Carolina Beach, Inlet & Waterway Association (NCBIWA) upcoming Spring “Local Governments” Meeting. Kathleen is the Executive Director of NCBIWA and Ken serves on the organization’s board. Come along and learn all about the Spring Meeting, which will be held on Monday and Tuesday April 26-27 at The Islander Hotel in Emerald Isle, N.C. as well as virtually though NCBIWA.org.

In Part 2, Peter and Tyler welcome Megan Blaskovich of Woolpert to learn about her work with NOAA, USGS, and FEMA to map significant parts of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and surrounding seafloor. Specifically, Megan is the project manager for this work and in the second half of the show she takes us through the dirty details associated with running a sophisticated GIS mapping project half way across the world in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Join us as we nerd out on all things Lidar (which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, in case you didn’t know).  Only on ASPN!

Show Transcription
This transcription was generated by a computer. Please excuse any errors.
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.