My early life through my undergraduate degree was in New England (esp. Massachusetts and Maine) on the East Coast of the US. In 1977, I moved west to the Pacific coast and Oregon State University (Newport and Corvallis), where I obtained a Master’s degree in Oceanography working on the population dynamics and structure of intertidal sea anemones. During a hiatus from being a student I did oceanographic sampling and taxonomic analysis of zooplankton samples collected from the Canadian Ocean Weatherships Quadra and Vancouver at Station P in the North Pacific. Later I obtained a Ph.D. at OSU using zooplankton samples from the subarctic Pacific.

After postdoctoral and marine scientist positions on the US East coast (with research programs and cruises in the Sargasso Sea and subarctic North Atlantic), I returned to the Pacific coast, specifically California, to become the first scientific director of the National U.S. GLOBEC Steering Committee Office. In my spare time I hiked the Sierra’s and sailed San Francisco Bay. I became administrator of the US GLOBEC Northeast Pacific Regional Coordinating Office in Berkeley, and later at Oregon State University. It was during my time with GLOBEC that PICES was founded; I attended PICES-1993 (Seattle, USA) and PICES-1998 (Fairbanks, USA), but was not involved in expert groups of PICES prior to 2001. Since 2001 (the 10th Anniversary Meeting of PICES), I have served on many PICES groups, including as the Co-Chairman of the Climate Change and Carrying Capacity program and member of the Science Board (2001–2009), and more recently as U.S. delegate to the Governing Council (2012–2013). I have contributed to many other PICES expert groups, most importantly on the first North Pacific Ecosystem Status Report Working Group, the Fisheries and Ecosystem Responses to Recent Regime Shifts (FERRRS) Working Group, the Study Group on Future Integrative Scientific Programs (SG-FISP), and as a member of the FUTURE Advisory Panel on Status, Outlooks, Forecasting and Engagement (SOFE).

I am very pleased to now work in the PICES Secretariat, where I fill multiple functions. I do editing, meeting planning, coordination of expert groups, and as needed fill in for the Executive Secretary. I was impressed with the beauty of the Saanich Peninsula region of Vancouver Island, the home of the PICES office, when I first visited this region in 1980 to go on my first Quadra cruise. I don’t get to go on many research cruises anymore, so have to satisfy my “seagoing” needs by kayaking the beautiful seas of Vancouver Island. During winter I’m addicted to NFL U.S. football. My family consists of my wife and our cats (which came with us from Oregon).

Hal Batchelder
PICES Secretariat
c/o Institute of Ocean Sciences
P.O. Box 6000 (mailing address)
9860 West Saanich Road (courier/institute address)
Sidney, British Columbia
Canada V8L 4B2
Phone: +1-250-363-6826
Fax: +1-250-363-6827
Email: hbatch@pices.int