ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE: GoMAMN is comprised of three bodies:
(1) Community of Practice;
(2) Coordination Committee;
(3) Working Groups.
Community of Practice – The Community of Practice includes an array of stakeholders that advance bird conservation by providing a forum to unify and share knowledge to design, integrate, and implement coordinated bird monitoring at appropriate temporal and spatial scales. The Community of Practice is an opportunity for partners to identify priorities, standards, issues, concerns and needs underpinning bird monitoring. The Community of Practice also promotes and enables support for bird monitoring via a distributed outreach and education network.
A meeting open to the entire Community of Practice shall be held at least once annually (either virtually or in-person) with meetings organized and conducted by the Coordination Committee. As practical, in-person meeting locations will rotate amongst the 5 states in the Gulf of Mexico region to facilitate increased attendance and ensure local travel.
Coordination Committee – Beyond the operational oversight responsibilities, the Coordination Committee serves as the forum to enable formal decision making. All decisions made by the Coordination Committee will be via consensus, and when that is not possible, decisions will be determined by vote, with a simple majority needed. In cases of a vote-based decision, a short minority report will be included in the notes. No decisions will be made without participation of at least 75 percent of the Coordination Committee members being represented in person or electronically. Members may assign their vote by written or electronic proxy to another member. The Coordination Committee will have a meeting (either virtual or in person) at a minimum once annually, and, this may be concurrent with the Community of Practice annual meeting. Agendas will be proposed by the Chair to the Coordination Committee at least 28 days prior to the meeting and approved 4 days prior and any member may add to the agenda.
Past Chair: Auriel Fournier, Illinois Natural History Survey auriel@illinois.edu
Chair: Evan Adams, Biodiversity Research Institute evan.adams@briloon.org
Vice Chair: Terri Mannes Louisiana Tech University tmaness@latech.edu
Community Manager: Lianne Koczur, Alabama Audubon lianne@alaudubon.org
Communications Manager: Bill Vermillion Gulf Coast Joint Venture William_Vermillion@fws.gov
Mentoring Manager: Mary Ann Ottinger University of Houston maotting@central.uh.edu
State Reps:
Alabama – Eric Soehren Alabama DCNR eric.soehren@dcnr.alabama.gov
Florida – <vacant>
Louisiana – Robb Dobbs Louisiana DWF rdobbs@wlf.la.gov
Mississippi – Houston Havens Mississippi DWFP houstonh@mdwfp.state.ms.us
Texas – Trey Barron Texas PWD trey.barron@tpwd.texas.gov
Working Groups will be established by the Coordination Committee as needed. Membership of the working groups will be ad-hoc, voluntary, not limited in number, and include representatives from any participating entity (e.g., federal, state, non-governmental organizations, academic community, etc.) as warranted. Working Groups will elect a chair and vice-chair by simple majority to oversee work activities and produce solution-based products (e.g., proposals, technical reports, recommendations, etc.). Issue-based Working Groups are considered ad-hoc in nature, and may be abolished by the Coordination Committee at any time if the purpose of the group is no longer warranted.