Gulf of Mexico Regional Team Lead and Coordinator

Frederick (Buck) Sutter
Gulf of Mexico Regional Team Lead
Deputy Regional Administrator, Southeast Region
National Marine Fisheries Service

Buck Sutter supervises the operation of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service's (NMFS) Southeast Regional Office, which employs about 120 FTE and contractors located throughout the southeastern United States, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In addition to overseeing all personnel, budget, and administrative responsibilities at the Southeast Regional Office, Buck serves as one of four NMFS leads on a NOAA Regional Collaboration Team. Buck utilizes his leadership position as the Gulf of Mexico Regional Collaboration Team Lead to foster and develop a cohesive team representing all NOAA Line Offices toward optimizing efforts in the Gulf of Mexico to develop integrated ecosystem assessments, build hazard resilient communities, integrate water resource services, and expand outreach and education. The Regional Collaboration Team has engaged key partners, perhaps most notable of which is the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, formed by the five Gulf Coast State Governors to foster collaboration on key environmental and economic issues in the Gulf of Mexico. In addition to assuming a strong leadership position in the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, the Regional Collaboration Team is working closely with the city of Mobile, Alabama, on a pilot project aimed at addressing the critical hazard resiliency issues that were so clearly delineated by the horrific impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Partnerships with the Northern Gulf Institute, NASA, EPA, and other federal agencies with resource responsibilities in the Gulf are enhancing the effectiveness of the NOAA Regional Collaboration effort.

Buck began his professional career in 1980 as a fishery scientist at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Mississippi, and also worked at the Florida Department of Natural Resources (now Florida Wildlife Research Institute), before being employed by NMFS in 1993. Buck served NMFS in various capacities prior to assuming his current position of Deputy Regional Administrator, Southeast Regional Office. As the state-federal liaison of NMFS' Southeast Regional Office, he developed several programs to enhance cooperative research efforts and was the NMFS representative responsible for executing a $15 million dollar Gulf of Mexico fisheries disaster program. Buck also served four years as the team leader for NMFS' Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Division and two years as the Chief of the Southeast Regional Office Permit Division. He is a graduate of the NOAA Leadership Competency Development Program (2004) and has received several NMFS and DOC awards for his contributions.

Buck graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Rhode Island with an undergraduate degree in Zoology. He received a Master of Science degree in Fisheries Science at the University of Massachusetts. He has published numerous papers and journal articles on fishery science.

Kristen Laursen
Gulf of Mexico Regional Coordinator
National Marine Fisheries Service

Kristen Laursen has a B.S. in Biology from the College of William and Mary and a M.S. in Oceanography and Coastal Sciences from Louisiana State University, where she studied wetland ecology.  She was selected as a 2005 Knauss Marine Policy Fellow and was placed in NOAA's Office of Program Planning and Integration.  As a Fellow, Kristen was the analyst for half of NOAA's Ecosystem Goal and the Leadership Sub-Goal within Mission Support, and served on the Executive Secretariat for the interagency Subcommittee on Integrated Management of Ocean Resources (SIMOR).  Following her Fellowship year, Kristen staffed the NOAA Research Council and the NOAA Science Advisory Board, a Federal Advisory Committee, and their working groups.  Most recently as a member of NOAA Research's Office of Policy, Planning, and Evaluation, she was the Executive Secretariat for OAR leadership's Senior Research Council, worked with the Gulf of Mexico and Central Regional Teams, liaised with the interagency Committee on the Marine Transportation System Working Group and NOAA's Commerce and Transportation Goal, and provided executive decision support to OAR Assistant Administrator Richard Spinrad and his Deputy Assistant Administrators Craig McLean and Sandy MacDonald.  Kristen is excited by the opportunity to serve as the Gulf of Mexico's Regional Coordinator and work closely with the Team, the Alliance, the Northern Gulf Institute, Sea Grant, and other partners to advance NOAA's integrated efforts in the region.