Dr. James P. Ray

Dr. Ray was formerly Manager of Environmental Ecology and Response for Shell Global Solutions (US) Inc. He retired in Dec. 2004 and is now President of Oceanic Environmental Solutions, LLC, an environmental consulting firm.

He has had a diverse career involving oil and gas industry environmental issues throughout the lower 48 states and Alaska. The primary focal point of his technical interests has been in the fate and effect of discharges and releases from offshore oil and gas operations. Dr. Ray was previously a member of the NRC Committee to Review Fate and Effects of Drilling Fluids in the Marine Environment, the Committee on Arctic Marine Sciences, and Managing Troubled Waters: The Role of Marine Environmental Monitoring. He has chaired numerous American Petroleum Institute committees for over twenty years. These committees were the primary focal point for much of the industry’s offshore environmental research, including all of the work on the fate and effects of drilling muds, cuttings and produced water in the marine environment. He was also Chairman of the Offshore Operators Committee, Environmental Sciences Subcommittee, which oversaw environmental research issues in the Gulf of Mexico. He also was the Research Coordinator for the industry’s Synthetic Based Muds Research Program and served as Program Manager for the Synthetic Based Muds Seafloor Monitoring Program.

He served two years on the federal advisory committee on acoustic impacts on marine mammals for the Marine Mammal Commission. He also served on the Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee for 7 years, which provides advice to the Secretaries of Interior and Commerce.