Ron Ritschard, the co-chair of the Southeast regional assessment team and a leader in organizing the Southeast workshop, died suddenly on April 13. Since 1996, Ron had been Research Professor in the Biological Sciences Department and director of the Johnson Research Center at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, where he directed and coordinated energy and environmental research, development, and demonstration efforts.
 

As part of his leadership of the Southeast regional assessment, Ron had been the major force in building a multi-institutional scientific team with a broad set of interactions with business and government leaders. In working to expand the stakeholder effort, Ron had become a co-leader and the driving force for the National Environmental Change Information System case study being done for the USGCRP's Data Management Working Group; the first stakeholder meeting of the case study, which Ron was organizing, was scheduled for May.
 

Before moving to UAH, Ron was vice president and senior scientist at the Environmental Research Center of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Ron's involvement with the USGCRP began while he was at TVA, and he frequently represented TVA on interagency planning activities. Ron received his Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Cal Poly, Pomona and then his Master's and Ph.D. degrees from Oregon State University. After teaching for eight years at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, Ron initiated and managed an interdisciplinary team at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that evaluated the potential environmental, health, and socioeconomic impacts of energy development in the southwestern US. Ron then moved to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he devoted sixteen years to participating in and leading a wide range of energy and environmental research and analysis programs.
 

Ron cared deeply about the interface of human activities and the environment and worked tirelessly to help inform the public and to train new scientists, and he was working with a student when struck by a heart attack. The National Assessment community extends its deepest sympathies to Ron's wife and family. We all benefited greatly from his friendship and his contributions, which will be long remembered and valued by us and by the broader public.