Mike Corbett was born in 1940 in Quincy, Massachusetts, and studied engineering at Northeastern University in Boston. He worked as a draftsman as a Northeastern co-op student for Murray and Tregurtha in Quincy, and after graduation worked in industry at General Electric, before moving to Gloucester and working as an ocean engineer for the U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. He spent 29 years working in Exploratory Fisheries before moving to the private sector again.

Jonathan (Jon) Hare was born and raised in upstate New York. He completed his graduate work at SUNY Stony Brook. His dissertation focused on bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix). He completed his post-doctoral work at the NMFS lab in Beaufort, North Carolina working on recruitment dynamics of several species. After seven years, he moved to the Narragansett Lab in 2005 where he became head of the Oceanography Program, a position he still holds as of this interview.

David McClellan was born on August 18, 1949 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He worked for NOAA at the Southeast Fisheries Science Center as a Fisheries Research Biologist for 37 years, conducting countless dives to gather data on the fisheries.

Interview contains discussion of: Southeast Fisheries Science Center, collecting fisheries data, NOAA divers, evolution and effect of data collection technology, benefits and disadvantages for working for a government agency, Reef Fish Visual Census Program.

Dr. Joseph Powers was born on February 19, 1949 in Gustine, California. He has earned degrees from the University of California, Davis A.B. Zoology 1971; California State University, Humboldt M.S. Fisheries Biology 1973 ; and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University PhD Fisheries Science 1975. He began his career with National Marine Fisheries Service at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in 1975. He then moved to the Southeast Fisheries Science Centers in 1979.

Dr. Nancy Thompson was born in September 1949 in Newark, New Jersey. She earned her PhD from the University of Rhode Island. Dr. Thompson worked for NOAA from 1980-2011, serving as the Director at both the Southeast and Northeast Fisheries Science Centers during her career. At the time of this interview in 2016, she was working at the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science.

James Crossen was born in Boston in 1926 and served in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. This experience helped him during the 1,200+days he was at sea during his long career. He began his career in 1955 with the U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries which later became the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Dr. Mark Holliday has a B.S. in Biology from SUNY Stony Brook, a Master’s in Marine and Environmental Science from Long Island University, and a PhD in Marine Studies from the University of Delaware. Growing up around the water, Holiday always knew he wanted to have a career in marine science. He came to NOAA after finishing his Doctorate through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act before being hired as a fisheries statistician. He later became the Chief Financial Officer for the Office of Science and Technology.

Dr. Richard Merrick is Chief Science Administrator and Director of Scientific Programs at NOAA Fisheries. He has a B.S. and Master’s from Clemson University, two Master’s from Oregon State University in Marine Resource Management and Biological Oceanography, and finally a PhD in Fisheries from the University of Washington in Seattle. Merrick began his career with NOAA as a contractor in 1983, working in Alaska and the Arctic. He then moved to the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and continued working for the conservation of marine mammals.

Jerry Prezioso was born on February 27, 1949 in Brooklyn, New York. He received his undergraduate degree from Northeastern University and his master‟s from the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography. Jerry began working at the NOAA Laboratory in Narragansett, Rhode Island in 1974 and continues to work there as an oceanographer to this day. 

Dr. Steve Turner was born on May 23, 1949 in Providence, Rhode Island. He began working in 1974 at what was then the Mid Atlantic Fisheries Science Center at the Sandy Hook lab which was merged into the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. He received his PhD from Rutgers University in 1986. He moved to the Southeast Fisheries Science Center from 1984, and is currently the Fisheries Statistics Division Chief at the Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami.