[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 91 (Thursday, May 25, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E726]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     HONORING DR. DONALD F. BOESCH

                                  _____
                                 

                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 25, 2017

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to an outstanding 
environmental conservationist and researcher in my home state of 
Maryland. Dr. Donald F. Boesch has served as the President of the 
University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) since 
1990, and he will be retiring from that position later this year. 
Throughout his tenure, UMCES has led the charge to study and conserve 
our state's natural environments, particularly the Chesapeake Bay and 
its watershed.
  UMCES has its roots in a small research laboratory opened at the 
mouth of the Patuxent River in the Chesapeake Bay in 1925, and was 
relaunched under its current name and mission in 1997 to provide 
undergraduate and graduate students with hands-on learning and 
internships in marine biology, ecology, and environmental subjects. 
With five locations across the State of Maryland, from its original 
site in Solomons Island in Calvert County to laboratories in the 
Appalachians, Baltimore, College Park, and Cambridge on the Eastern 
Shore, UMCES forms a critical part of the University System of 
Maryland's commitment to research and to training the next generation 
of environmental scientists. Its hundred faculty members are conducting 
ground-breaking research and teaching UMCES's eighty-five graduate 
students.
  Alongside UMCES's academic mission, it also fulfills a public policy 
role with its faculty advising policymakers in Maryland and in the 
federal government. UMCES scientists have been instrumental in calling 
attention to the challenges facing the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed 
and in proposing ways to clean up this regional and national treasure. 
Under Dr. Boesch's leadership, UMCES has been especially active in 
raising awareness about the Chesapeake and its importance to regional 
ecosystems and supporting our regional economy.
  Dr. Boesch began his career by earning his undergraduate degree in 
biology from Tulane University in his native New Orleans. Later, he 
received his doctorate in oceanography from the College of William and 
Mary in Virginia. He spent time in Australia on a Fulbright scholarship 
before conducting research at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. 
In 1980, Dr. Boesch returned to New Orleans to become the inaugural 
Executive Director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and 
to teach marine science at Louisiana State University. He came to 
Maryland in 1990 to lead UMCES and now caps a very successful tenure of 
twenty-seven years at the helm. During that time, Dr. Boesch advised 
Maryland governors from both parties, has been as a member of the 
Governor's Chesapeake Bay Cabinet, and has served on the Maryland 
Commission on Climate Change. In 2010, President Obama appointed him to 
the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and 
Offshore Drilling. He has served as Chair of the Ocean Studies Board 
for the National Academy of Sciences and is the author of two books and 
dozens of scholarly papers.
  The people of Maryland have been so fortunate to have Dr. Boesch 
leading UMCES these past twenty-seven years. We have been blessed to 
have his intellect, his dedication, and his wise leadership benefiting 
our students and our researchers. All those who treasure the Chesapeake 
owe Dr. Boesch much gratitude for his contributions to preserving the 
Bay and its watershed. I join in congratulating him on a very 
successful tenure and in wishing him well as he prepares to step down 
later this year.

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