oa The Finland Connection

I thought it might be appropriate to provide some background on why we are<br>having a contingent of geophysicists from Finland at this meeting. The initial contact<br>was made at the 3rd International Conference on GPR, which was held at Lakewood,<br>Colorado in 1990. Discussions at that meeting indicated a willingness to provide a true<br>international aspect to the meetings by having the next one (scheduled for 1992) outside<br>the United States.<br>We received two European invitations, one fii and one tentative, and another<br>tentative invitation from Australia. Discussions about where to hold the 1992 meeting<br>continued after the sessions, and I found myself in a pub in Lakewood with Mary<br>Collins, from the University of Florida, and Pauli H%nninen, from the Geological Survey<br>of Finland. Pauli had been using GPR in mapping peatlands, and the Finland Geological<br>Survey had a number of GPR units. I was recovering my composure after swallowing<br>the lime wedge from a bottle of Corona, and Mary and I simultaneously said to Pauli<br>“Why not Finland”? Pauli gave it a little thought, pounded the table and said “Yes, why<br>not”?