The IOOS Office was very proud to learn that three of our own leaders, retired Director Carl Gouldman, retired Operations Division Chief Derrick Snowden, and retired Regions, Budget, and Policy Chief Dave Easter were selected as 2026’s Caraid Award Winners. The Caraid Award, an initiative by the IOOS Association, recognizes outstanding contributions to ocean, coastal and Great Lakes observing through vision, leadership, collaboration, and friendship. Carl, Derrick, and Dave collectively gave more than half a century of expertise, guidance, and friendship to U.S. IOOS. This award is a well-deserved honor for all three, and we’re so glad to see them recognized for their contributions to ocean observing. You can see the full award announcement and send a congratulatory message on the IOOS Association website, and see our farewells to Carl, Derrick, and Dave on our own.

This month, we are also sharing the accomplishments of the Hurricane Glider Project, led from our office, in the 2025 season. Begun in 2014, IOOS has been coordinating the effort since 2018, and it has built new connections every year, expanding the utility and impact of subsurface observations on hurricane intensity forecasting. In 2025, three gliders captured data near the eye of one of the season’s most notable storms, Hurricane Erin, part of a coordinated data gathering effort that captured concurrent air, surface, and subsurface information during storm passage. Read about all the season’s highlights in the full story!

Looking ahead, we’re all preparing for the IOOS Spring Meeting, coming up in mid-March. Twice a year, in spring and fall, the IOOS Association hosts a meeting with representatives from multiple parts of our system, federal and nonfederal, to come together and discuss our current state of affairs and plan for the future. It’s a wonderful opportunity for system-wide coordination and collaboration, and we’re looking forward to sharing outcomes from that meeting with everyone next month.