He is responsible for NOAA’s research enterprise including a network of research laboratories and the execution of NOAA programs including the Climate Program, Weather Research, National Sea Grant, and Ocean Exploration, to name a few. Among a number of formal international engagements in science and technology, Mr. McLean serves as the U.S. Representative to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), and as the U.S. Representative for the U.S.-European Union-Canada Galway Statement on Atlantic Ocean Cooperation.

Mr. McLean has previously served throughout NOAA, as acting NOAA Chief Scientist (Dec 2016-Sep 2020, Jan 2021), in the National Marine Fisheries Service, National Ocean Service, NOAA’s General Counsel, and was the founding Director of NOAA’s Ocean Exploration program. He served in uniform for nearly 25 years in NOAA's Commissioned Corps, retiring at the rank of Captain. Mr. McLean is a Fellow of the Explorers Club and of the Marine Technology Society, and a past-president and former chairman of the Sea-Space Symposium.

For the past 4 years Mr. Holst has served as OAR’s Chief Financial and Chief Administrative Officer, where he is responsible for executing OAR’s $614M budget, and the planning and integration of financial, budget, and human capital management across OAR. Prior to coming to OAR, Mr. Holst spent sixteen years in NOAA’s National Ocean Service where he served in as Chief of Staff, responsible for supporting the day to day operations of the National Ocean Service. Mr. Holst also worked on emergency response and preparedness in NOS’s Office of Response and Restoration. He has won multiple awards for his contribution to NOAA and the Department of Commerce, notably the Department of Commerce Gold and Silver Medals in 2008 and 2021. Mr. Holst was a 2001 Presidential Management Fellow.

Mr. Holst has a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from St. Olaf College and a Master’s Degree in environmental policy and planning from Virginia Tech.

He also is the Director of the Office of Policy, Planning, and Evaluation in OAR. He has served in that capacity since January 2011 and is responsible for guiding and evaluation NOAA’s research and development portfolio. Prior to arriving at OAR, he spent 18 years working in three other NOAA Line Offices directing ecological and fisheries related research and overseeing the agency’s national and international fisheries management programs.

Dr. Matlock began his federal career with NMFS in 1992 as the Director of Field Operations in the Southwest Region where he became the Acting Regional Director after 3 months. During his year’s tenure in these positions, he was involved in the management of domestic and international fisheries along the west coast of the United States and throughout the southern Pacific Ocean. In 1994 he became the Program Management Officer for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in Silver Spring, Maryland where he oversaw the day-to-day operations of the agency, expanding his fisheries management experience domestically and internationally to the north Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. In 2000, he became the Director of the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science in the National Ocean Service (NOS) where he was responsible for directing and managing an ecosystem science agenda that provides science to support the Ocean’s Service place-based management mission. He also served as the Acting Director of NOAA’s Program Analysis and Evaluation (PAE) office and as Acting Assistant Administrator of the NOAA’s Policy, Planning, and Integration (PPI) Office.

Prior to joining NMFS, Dr. Matlock spent his fisheries career with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD). His dissertation provided a basis for the management of the red drum fishery in Texas. He began as a fisheries biologist responsible for developing a monitoring program for adult finfish in Texas bays and left TPWD after having been the Director of Fisheries of TPWD. During his tenure with TPWD he earned his Ph.D. in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences at Texas A&M University and conducted and published the results of research in the scientific literature on many fisheries management and aquaculture topics including those involved with biology, sociology, and economics.

Throughout his career, he has successfully led an effort to base fisheries management decisions on scientific information instead of political whim or personal opinions. This goal has taken him to all levels of the judicial system as an expert witness on behalf of science and fisheries management decisions, including the U.S. Supreme Court where a NMFS decision concerning native American tribal treaty rights and salmon on the west coast was upheld. He has and continues to publish in the national and international scientific literature on the biological, ecological, social, and economic aspects of fisheries science and management.

He received a U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medal in 1996, and the Vice President’s Hammer award in 1998 for his efforts to reform the fisheries management regulatory process. He received another Gold Medal in 2000 for having led the development of an e-commerce based program for requiring and issuing a financially self-sustaining Atlantic tunas fishing permit (the first marine recreational fishing permit in the U.S.)

Ms. Barrett is widely recognized globally as an expert on climate policy, particularly on issues related to climate impacts and strategies to help society adapt to a changing world. Ms. Barrett currently serves as the Senior Advisor for Climate for NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (NOAA Research). In this role, Ms. Barrett provides strategic advice and scientific leadership for climate research, applications, and services across NOAA Research. She will also work with other NOAA line offices to coordinate and integrate activities across NOAA's portfolio of climate-related programs to enhance the effectiveness of NOAA in meeting climate mission goals. Ms. Barrett is also currently serving as a Vice Chair for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a role she has held since 2015.

Prior to her current role, Ms. Barrett served as the NOAA Research Deputy Assistant Administrator for Programs and Administration, where she supervised daily operations and administration of several major NOAA research programs, including the Climate Program Office, Ocean Acidification Program, and National Sea Grant College Program. Ms. Barrett has also served as deputy director of NOAA Research’s Climate Program Office. In addition, for over fifteen years, Ms. Barrett served as a member of U.S. delegations charged with reviewing and adopting scientific assessments undertaken by the IPCC, and as the lead U.S. climate adaptation negotiator to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Ms. Barrett was instrumental in negotiating the Global Framework for Climate Services under the World Meteorological Organization and was NOAA’s climate representative to its Executive Committee and Congress for many years. Before joining NOAA, she was the Global Climate Change Program director at the United States Agency for International Development.