[Flex] NSF Fastlane person coming to WHOI!

[Sheila Clifford]

Dear All -

We all seemed to have such a frustrating time with the last NSF 
submission that I called our new "point person" at NSF to talk things 
over, to see if there were things we could do differently.  In the past, 
we pinged on Kandy Binkley for these things, but my sense is that she 
has changed job roles.  Our new contact person is Brian Midson.  As we 
were talking, I mentioned that I thought it would be awesome if he could 
come to WHOI and meet with us.  As it turns out, he can do this and will 
be visiting on Wednesday, Sept. 8.  He would love to meet with any and 
all of us. 

I'm meeting with Mary Ann Lucas and Debbie Shafer today to go over the 
Fastlane factoids that he and I discussed on the phone.  Once Debbie has 
explained to me what he told me ( :-) ), I'll communicate it to the Flex 
group.  Maybe today we could also start thinking about a plan for 
Brian's visit.  I think he should meet the Flexers, the Dept. Admins, 
and he hoped he could meet with Maurice and GCS folk.  Furthermore, he 
is willing to meet with any PIs who would be interested.  However, 
several years ago we had another NSFer visit to tell us about Fastlane, 
during its infancy.  I feel that the PIs who were invited thought that 
this person was going to give them insight into what would get a 
proposal *funded*.  That's not the case.  I think that Brian will be 
here to help us better understand the mechanics of Fastlane.  
Personally, I hope he can give us an idea of how they plan to modify it 
in the future, since they don't seem content to leave it alone when it 
is stable and successfull...but I digress.

I'll be in touch with more info and thoughts soon.  I just wanted to get 
this on your radar screens.

Best Regards,
Sheila