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.