Old Wags' Tale

Old Wags' Tale
Story by Jon Gibson

In fall 1970, the Woods Hole Laboratory (WHL) was reassigned from the Interior Department's Bureau of Commercial Fisheries to the Commerce Department's new agency -- the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In an effort to introduce itself to the new and first NOAA Administrator, Dr. Robert M. White, the WHL prepared a program description document ("National Marine Fisheries Service, Woods Hole Biological Laboratory: The Laboratory Mission and Organization"). The document failed from at least one perspective: when Dr. White made his first appearance before Congress in summer 1971, he referred to the WHL as the "Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution" (WHOI). In a good-natured but mocking gesture, the WHL's Director, Dr. Robert L. Edwards (left), along with staff members Herbert Stern, Jr. (center), and Dr. Richard A. Cooper (right), walked up the street, bought three "WHOI"-emblazoned tee shirts, put them on, had their photograph taken along the WHL's pier but with the WHOI labs and dock seen in the background, framed the photograph, and shipped it back to the new NOAA Administrator.

Posted March 31, 2006