Colleen Bouffard has been with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection since 1996. Starting as a seasonal employee — after graduating from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island — Bouffard is now the supervising fisheries biologist in the marine fisheries program of the Fisheries Division of the CT DEEP.  She currently oversees the recreational and commercial fishing statistics programs.

Recreational fisherman, lobsterman, and writer, David Fox shares his thoughts about lobster fishing in the Long Island Sound. While the sport of fishing is a large part of the interest for Fox, he gets the most joy out of educating others — especially children — about the wonders that exist right in their own waters. By bringing families and children out on his boat to catch lobsters, he enjoys sharing with others the significance and natural beauty of the Long Island Sound watershed.

Donald J. (DJ) King is a lobsterman, fisherman, shellfish, and seaweed farmer living in Branford, Connecticut. He grew up in Branford and his father was in the truck transportation business. He got involved in the family business alongside fishing. In 1969, at the age of 10, his father introduced lobster fishing to him. DJ started with a small boat, where he did not have any devices to catch the lobsters in shallow water. At the age of 12, he made $ 300 by selling lobsters for an Italian wedding.

Eric Smith is a retired resource manager. He was born in 1949 and grew up in Hartford, Connecticut. He liked building things in his childhood. He liked model train sets. He also enjoyed running in his early life. He was a cross country and track runner. Originally, he wanted to be a geologist. He enrolled at University of Rhode Island with the thought of getting a pathway to oceanography through geology. But it did not work that way. He then evolved into resource development and got a degree in it.

Gordon Colvin is the former director of marine resources for the Department of Environmental Conservation and is currently retired in Florida. His decades of experience concerning not just Long Island fishing but New England fishing as a whole makes his knowledge exceptionally useful. Mr. Colvin’s background in studying fisheries and regulations is extensive and he continues to contribute to the field today by supporting NOAA’s Marine Recreational Information Program.

John German is a lifelong fisherman based in Long Island. He has decades of experience with fishing, especially with lobster, as he is one of the few people left with a lobster fishing license. He is an invaluable source of information concerning lobsters as well as Long Island fishing as a whole, as he was a firsthand witness to the 1990s lobster die-off and has spent his entire life fishing in the region.

Kim McKown works (now retired)  for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, where she is the leader of the Marine Invertebrates and Protected Resources Unit. She has decades of experience with the NYDEC, and in 2003, shortly after the Long Island Sound lobster die-off, Kim was tasked with overseeing lobster management for the department. For five years she conducted lobster surveys in Western Long Island Sound, as well as worked alongside the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to assess changes in lobster populations.

Based in Waterford, Connecticut, lobster fisherman Michael Theiler initially worked for a pharmaceutical company after college. He left that industry to pursue his passion for being on the water. He was a successful lobster fisherman during the 1980s boom and into the late 1990s when the lobster began to die off.  He has been actively involved in the politics and policies surrounding fishing and lobster industries and has witnessed the difficulties fishermen have faced and adaptations implemented to try to save the lobster fishing industry.

Born into a fishing family in Stonington, Ct., Richie Maderia had his first experiences on a boat at the age of 9 before becoming a professional lobster fisherman after high school. Maderia’s experiences running a lobster fishing boat allowed him to see the industry boom in the 1980s through to the late 1990s when he began to see the lobsters — and the industry — die out.