CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – U.S. Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz and Dr. Wes Tunnell, associate director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, will address more than 400 new graduates during Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi’s 2007 summer commencement on Saturday, Aug. 4, at the American Bank Center, 1901 N. Shoreline Drive.
           
Ortiz has served the 27th Congressional District in the House of Representatives since 1982 and is currently chairman of the of the Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Readiness. A U.S. Army veteran, he was elected Nueces County Constable in 1964 and, four years later, became County Commissioner. Beginning in 1976 he served two terms as Nueces County Sheriff before being elected to Congress.

Ortiz is dean of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Texas House Democrats. While in Congress, he has sponsored numerous bills relating to energy and water, development transportation, veterans and agricultural issues, homeland security, and defense and the military.

Tunnell, a veteran of numerous ocean expeditions, is a broadly trained marine biologist/ecologist with a particular interest in coral reefs and coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico. After earning his doctorate from Texas A&M University, he joined the Island University faculty in 1974 and was instrumental in starting the master’s degree in biology the following year.

Tunnell is a member of the Council of Advisors for “Google Ocean,” a project to create visualization tools for marine data throughout the world. He was selected to join the elite 18-member advisory group because of his experience as a marine scientist and work in collecting data in the Gulf of Mexico. “Google Ocean” is being developed in conjunction with the “Google Earth” search engine which has already received more than 200 million hits from around the world since its introduction two years ago.

In all, 419 students from the Colleges of Business, Education, Liberal Arts, Nursing and Health Sciences, and Science and Technology have applied for summer graduation. The University conducts three commencement ceremonies each year, in December, May and August.

The ceremony will be broadcast live beginning at 10:30 a.m. on KTOV channel 21 and by Time-Warner, Grande and Charter Communications on cable channel 15. The ceremony will be rebroadcast four consecutive Saturdays between May 19 and June 9 at 2 p.m. on educational access channel 19.