During the meeting, member at-large Lorin Robert was elected chairman while Ricky Carl of Pohnpei was elected vice chairman.
The other members of the board are Johnny Meippen of Chuuk, Thomas Tamangmow of Yap and Robert Taulung of Kosrae.
Robert and Carl replaced Hubert Yamada and Francis Itimai.
Robert thanked the members for the confidence in electing him as their chairman and emphasized that he would like to work closely with other members and management to carry out NORMA’s work.
He called upon his vice chairman and members to assist him as much as possible.
Robert has previously held the chairman’s position.
In other business, the authority approved a proposal by management to streamline responsibilities and reorganize the structure of the management staff in response to the current needs of the authority.
The new organization chart will be made available at www.norma.fm shortly.
The change was prompted by the need to respond to the increasing responsibilities of NORMA under current and ongoing national, regional and international fisheries management issues.
The board members met with Peter Philipson and James Movick on the work to develop an FSM commercial tuna industry development plan.
The work was requested by the Federated States of Micronesia to develop strategies and identify options to develop the FSM tuna industry with emphasis on private-sector participation and government merely providing a supporting role to these developments.
The consultant was engaged by the Forum Fisheries Agency to assist FSM to prepare a national commercial industry development plan for consideration by the national and state leadership.
The terms of reference for the study was approved by FSM President Manny Mori late June.
