Jeanne Shaheen: “I rise today to acknowledge the public service of Craig McLean who retired in April after a distinguished 40- year…”

“I rise today to acknowledge the public service of Craig McLean who retired in April after a distinguished 40- year career within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA. Within NOAA, Mr. McLean was as a dedicated leader, advocating for science to advance NOAA's mission to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, ocean, and coasts. Mr. McLean has a deep dedication to our oceans and waterways, garnered from growing up along the Passaic River in Rutherford, NJ. As a child, he took a small boat out on the Passaic. As a teenager, he learned to dive and performed decompression diving in order to explore deep-ocean shipwrecks. These experiences helped inspire his career. Mr. McLean began his NOAA career in 1981 as a uniformed officer in the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps and served for nearly 25 years before retiring at the rank of captain. During that time, he was instrumental to the founding of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, OER. Later, during his 16 years as a Federal executive, he provided continued leadership in driving forward mapping of U.S. waters to advance oceanographic scientific knowledge and discover deep ocean secrets including new species, historical shipwrecks, and undersea mountains. His leadership underlies OER's astounding accomplishments including mapping 2 million square kilometers and collecting ocean data in the waters of 16 countries and the high seas.…”