V1, 7/18/05 27 In addition, as SEACOOS is seen as both a coastal ocean science research activity and a prototyping project for a regional ocean observing system as part of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System, SEACOOS should begin immediately to identify itself to the Federal Agencies as a prototyping project for an RCOOS. Extension and Education The Executive Summary states that the “Extension and Education Working Group provides leadership within SEACOOS for outreach to users of coastal ocean observing system (COOS) data and data applications.” These functions are extremely critical to SEACOOS fulfilling its mission “ to significantly increase the quantity and quality of environmental information from the coastal ocean of the SE U.S. and make this readily available for a range of societal, scientific, and educational applications.” Extension and Education represent the outreach functions that connect the data producers with the appropriate user communities. While Extension and Education do share the goals of connectivity to users, the scopes of work, the target audiences, and the approaches used for each of these entities make them quite different. Thus, they should be treated separately in SEACOOS strategic planning, implementation, and funding. The combined outreach effort as presented in the first four years of the SEACOOS 5-year proposal indicates minimal investment in outreach and thus limits how and what Extension and Education program elements can do to provide “leadership”. The current system design is configured to address the needs of a single user community—the research/science community, rather than being targeted to diverse prospective user groups.  The findings and recommendations presented for each of these program elements are being made with the view that SEACOOS may morph into the SE RCOOS. Extension- SEACOOS extension is currently building upon existing extension efforts and infrastructure in the Sea Grant network as a way of leveraging and directing federal investment toward ocean observing activities.  While an extension infrastructure does indeed exist within Sea Grant, the Sea Grant program of work is annually defined and controlled by the proposal planning process. The funding paradigm for Sea Grant extension also anticipates the infusion of funding from other partners to accommodate the specific needs of various user communities.  It should be expected that SEACOOS priorities will be addressed commensurate with the additional financial resources provided. The type of extension required for SEACOOS presents opportunities to connect with a variety of new and perhaps more sophisticated audiences—especially in the business and industry sectors.  Additional resources will be required to bring on personnel with the education and skill base necessary to broker the connections between the data producers and prospective users’ decisions in real time. It is necessary to engage extension personnel and an external advisory group made up of representatives of prospective data users in a project to define the roles, responsibilities, and costs for