NOAA 'Goes Green' for the 11th Annual Montgomery County Parade  

Caren Madsen
NOAA Office of Communications

December 10, 2008 — Staff from the Silver Spring campus of NOAA participated once again in the annual Montgomery County Holiday Parade held in downtown Silver Spring, Md., in late November.  This is the fifth year the agency has been represented in the community event which attracts an average of 15,000 county residents. 

Parade organizers were Kristen R. Laursen from NOAA Research and David "Moe" Nelson from NOAA's Oceans and Coasts.  They were joined by NOAA employees from all line offices.  Along with Tom Cox from NOS, Nelson has assembled a band each year the agency has been represented in the parade.   Other band members braving sub-freezing temperatures to sing and stroll for NOAA were Debbie Heath (NOS Office of National Marine Sanctuaries), Ole Varmer (NOS General Counsel), and Zach Hecht-Leavitt (NOS Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment).  Silver Spring residents Barnaby Bristol, Eric Juzenas, and Drew Holland of Kensington, Md., marched with NOAA to fill out the musical section.

"This year, we decided to go green," said Nelson, who suggested eliminating a large flatbed truck which had been decorated as a float and used to carry the NOAA band in the procession for the past several years.  Nelson's 2008 remake of the NOAA musical section was a strolling street band complete with a small red wagon carrying a battery-powered speaker system with blue and white balloons tethered to the wagon base. "We thought a group of strolling troubadours would be a way to minimize our carbon footprint in a community of people who tend to be conscientious about the environment."  

With almost 4,000 employees at the Silver Spring Metro Center location, NOAA is the largest employer in Silver Spring.  County planners and developers involved in the project have won awards for green building designs in the newly renovated downtown.  The area is known nationally for its transit-oriented smart growth features.

Doug Hill, Chief Meteorologist for ABC TV-affiliate Channel 7 and the parade emcee, heralded NOAA's approach with a litany of kudos as the group approached the reviewing stand.  A colorful pedicycle was driven by Tim Haverland of the NMFS Office of Science and Technology with two children onboard as part of the NOAA entourage. The NOAA Safety Seagull costumed character was none other than Nikola Garber, one of the senior managers in NOAA's National Sea Grant College Program office. Garber hammed it up with children on the sidelines along the one-mile parade route. "It was a good way to make a flap without offending anyone," joked Garber.