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nies trying to carve out a place for itself in the market.

Madrock develops products related to marine safety, and recently graduated from the Young Entrepreneur Program offered at the Ocean Technology Enterprise Centre, which is housed at the NRC-IOT.

At the helm of Madrock are Dean Pelley and Jason

Dawe, graduates of both Memorial University engineering and the Marine Institute.

Madrock's leading edge technology is actually a piece of hardware, a lifeboat release mechanism that Pelley says will save lives. The company is also working on a better lifeboat design for use in hostile ocean environments.

The value of all this activity isn't lost on Elizabeth

Lawrence at the City of St. John's. Two years ago she helped convince city council it should adopt a new way of positioning St. John's from a business development per- spective. "We're trying to put our heads above the crowd," she says. "We're a small center and we needed to focus. From our perspective (the oceans piece) made a whole lot of sense. It's where we came from."

A province with 17,000 km of spectacular coastline, more than 500 years of experience fishing in the North

Atlantic, and a growing offshore petroleum industry should really know a thing or two about oceans. "You wouldn't expect us to be experts in topsoil," jokes

Glen Blackwood, on a whirlwind tour of the Marine

Institute. www.seadiscovery.com Marine Technology Reporter 23

MOTN Signs MOU with Ocean Advance

On January 29, 2006, at a luncheon hosted by the New England - Canadian Business Council and Governor Don Carcieri of

Rhode Island, MOTN President Hugh Murphy signed a

Memorandum of Understanding with Mr. Les O'Reilly,

Executive Director of OceansAdvance of St. Johns,

Newfoundland. The MOU was one of three signed at the lunch- eon and is an outline of various initiatives and cooperative meas- ures that can be taken to foster business collaborations between member companies of MOTN and OceansAdvance. The other

MOU's which were signed were between (1) the Graduate

School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island and

Memorial University's Marine Institute for collaborations on research and education and (2) the State of Rhode Island and the

Province of Labrador-Newfoundland for state level cooperation on energy and business development issues. The luncheon was the focal point of a trade mission lead by Premier Danny

Williams of the Province of Labrador-Newfoundland to New England. The trade mission was intended to build upon discussions held during the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers (NEG-ECP) confer- ence this past August in St. John's. The mission is a follow up to a reverse trade and technology mission of New

England businesses and institutions that was held in conjunction with the conference. "Proximity, historical ties and common interests make Newfoundland and Labrador and New England natural trading partners," said Innovation, Trade and Rural Development Minister Kathy Dunderdale. "Through our New

England Trade and Investment Initiative, we are able to foster those relationships to the benefit of local companies and organizations and, ultimately, to the benefit of the province."

With the establishment of the province's Marine Technology Development Strategy, introduced in 2004,

Newfoundland and Labrador has the ability to establish itself as the Canadian centre of excellence in marine and ocean technology by fostering a strong cluster of technologically-advanced companies, educational institutions and research facilities. Government has allocated $1.5 million to implement the strategy and seize this remarkable opportunity. In the first endeavor under the MOU, MOTN and OceansAdvance will form Action Committees and develop a milestone plan for a series of joint meetings and collaborative efforts over the coming year.

L-R Les O'Reilly of OceansAdvance with Hugh

Murphy of MOTN at New England Canadian

Business Council event in Providence, ,RI. (Photo credit: Joey Libby Photography)

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