It should be guaranteed to float the boat of marine scientists: The USC College began to ship six new houses - at 47 tons or more apiece - from Los Angeles' Terminal Island to Catalina Island on Aug. 2 as part of construction of the new George and MaryLou Boone Center for Science and Environmental Leadership at the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center.

The houses will be ferried across the San Pedro Channel, unloaded on the Catalina waterfront, hauled up a steep roadway by a semi-tractor and welded to steel-and-cement foundations at a site overlooking Big Fisherman's Cove.

The USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies manages the Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island, and it will manage the new Boone Center as well. Anthony Michaels is the institute director.

“The USC Wrigley Institute is a world-renowned center for research, education and for the development of solutions to environmental problems,” Michaels said. “The Boone Center on our island campus will be the centerpiece of our effort to build consensus, mediate disputes and create leadership on ocean and environmental solutions.”

George N. Boone is a USC Life Trustee and member of the College Board of Councilors, and he and his wife, MaryLou, have provided inspiration and dedicated support to the Wrigley Institute and its mission. In 2004, the couple made a lead gift to establish the Boone Center, a gift that was complemented by other USC benefactors.

The new accommodations will provide an upscale setting to host leadership and planning retreats, training programs, high-profile conferences and environmental conflict resolution negotiations at the island campus, officially called the Philip K. Wrigley Marine Science Center.

The idea behind the center is to give scholars and environmental decision-makers a place that encourages creativity and camaraderie.

“We hope visitors to the Boone Center will find an 'island effect' that helps them work together,” Michaels said. “We know from experience that when scientists come together at marine labs, they find ways to work together that are often more creative and productive than they would be in any other setting. We want to create that same sort of environment for scholars from all kinds of disciplines to work together and for those scholars to work with other members of society on the really tough problems that we must collectively solve.”

The Boone Center is comprised of six houses with a total of 11 bedrooms. Each has a small food preparation area, and visitors will have access to a wide range of meals and other services from the existing island facilities. The Boone Center will offer the conveniences of a university campus - including ready access to the Internet and other telecommunications - in an island environment.

The construction of the Boone Center was a logistical challenge since the foundations were built on the island and the houses were built on the mainland. However, conducting the entire project on the island would have been even more complicated, time-consuming and expensive.

For an enlargement of the landscape plan, visit http://biology.usc.edu/BooneCenter