William Overholtz was born and raised in Lima, Ohio. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in fresh waters fisheries and limnology from Ohio State and his Ph.D. from Oregon State. He began his career with the Fish and Wildlife Service at Rock Island, Illinois. In 1976, Overholtz began working at Woods Hole and completed many survey cruises on various foreign vessels His work focused on groundfish and herring. He spent time in the population dynamics group as well as working on acoustic surveys and assessment modeling. He retired from NMFS after 34 years of service.

Dr. Walton "Walt"Dickhoff was born in Wisconsin in 1947. He received his Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of California Berkeley in 1976 and joined the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in 1986 working in the Coastal Zone and Estuarine Studies Division. Dr. Dickhoff is the Division Director of the Environmental and Fisheries Science division, and his research focuses on salmon growth and development.

Walter Blogoslawski was born in New Britain, Connecticut on February 8, 1943. He received his Bachelor's from Fairfield University, a Master's in Marine Science at Long Island University, and later a PhD. at Fordham University in 1971. He began working at Milford Laboratory in 1971 as a microbiologist and is retiring this year.

Vincent Guida received his Bachelor’s of Science degree in Biology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1970. He earned his PhD in Marine Science and Zoology in 1977 from North Carolina State University. As a post-doc Fellow at Lehigh University's Institute for Pathobiology he studied mollusks. He then was a research scientist at the Center for Marine & Environmental Studies and became Director of the Wetlands Institute at Lehigh University. In the mid-1990's, he joined the staff of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, J.J. Howard Lab.

Vaughn Anthony earned his Bachelor's in Wildlife Conservation from the University of Maine, his Master's in Fisheries from the University of Michigan, and earned his PhD. in Fisheries from the University of Washington. He began his career with the U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries in the early 1960's working on quantitative stock assessments. After earning his PhD, he returned to the Boothbay Lab before its' closure. He then moved to Woods Hole to continue his work. From 1977 to 1980, he worked for the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

Tiffani Marsh was born in Warren, Ohio in 1956. She received her B.A. in Zoology from Miami University. She began her career at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in 1990 studying salmon migration patterns. She is now a Supervisory Research Fishery Biologist in the Fish Ecology Division.

Dr. Thomas Noji grew up on Long Island. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Earlham College, and completed his Master’s degree and Ph.D. at the University of Keele in Germany. Dr. Noji worked in Germany and Norway for 21 years, returning to the United States in 2001 to work at the Sandy Hook Lab of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. As of this recording in 2016, he is the Ecosystems Processes Division Chief.

Thea Johanos has been a research wildlife biologist with the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program at the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (and its precursor, the Honolulu Lab) since 1982. She grew up in both Texas and Pennsylvania, and did her undergraduate and graduate work at Penn State University. After graduate school, she applied for work in Hawaii, as her family had just moved there. Her first job in Hawaii was with the US Forest Service working with Hawaiian honeycreepers and other forest birds.

Dr. Susan Abbott-Jamieson is a retired anthropologist with the Social Sciences Branch of NOAA, where she worked as the Senior Social Scientist in the Office of Science and Technology in the National Marine Fisheries Service. She joined the Air Force after high school, and later received a B.A. from Idaho State University and a Master’s and PhD. in Anthropology from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

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.