Dr. John Boreman started at the NEFSC in 1980, after spending his early career dealing with power plant impacts on fish and wildlife. He was instrumental in establishing the Center's Cooperative Marine Education and Research Program, and was its first coordinator at the University of Massachusetts. He served as deputy center director under Dr. Michael Sissenwine, starting in 1997, and one of his first assignments was to institute the reorganization of NEFSC. Boreman stepped in as acting NEFSC director in late 2002, just days before a problem was discovered in the way the research survey trawl had been deployed between 2000 and 2002. This discovery quickly became a highly publicized part of an ongoing, controversial process to revise the region's groundfish management plan. Boreman resolved important questions raised during this time about the quality of science underlying the fishery management plan, and instituted a formal way to use fishing professionals in the research survey's future design and execution. He was selected for the director's job in February 2003. In his first years as director, Boreman has presided over a fast-changing landscape of research and policy priorities during a time when NOAA is also significantly reworking its own management and budget processes.