Abstract
Excerpt: Gene and H.T. Odum and 100 others participated actively at the First Annual Meeting of the American Ecological Engineering Society (AEES) held in Athens, Georgia, April 30–May 2, 2001 (Fig. 1; Table 1). This special issue (Gattie and Mitsch, 2003) comes from that meeting, which helped to introduce our new field of ecology to a large number of people in the USA. It also may have been one of the last times the Odum brothers were together in a scientific forum (Fig. 2). H.T. gave the introductory plenary address (Odum, 2003; published in this special issue) and Gene gave the banquet address (Fig. 3). Gene was a gracious host at his University of Georgia with his wonderful Southern charm. He expressed an enthusiasm for the development of a modern ecology that supported ideas such as ecological engineering.