Alex Brown, twenty years old at the time of the interview, describes his life as a deckhand in Point Judith, RI. With the encouragement of a fisherman uncle, Alex has been fishing since he was 11 and has worked on various fishing boats, including lobster boats and draggers. He now works on lobster boats and draggers in Point Judith.

Carl Berg, 26 years old at the time of the interview, is a captain and deckhand on gillnet and crab boats in Sakonnet Point, RI and New Bedford, MA, as well as an oyster farmer and skiff owner-operator in the Sakonnet River. Carl did not grow up in a fishing family, but found his way to fishing as a summer job in high school, fishing full-time since finishing college.

Scope and Content Note

James Leonard, 34 years old at the time of the interview, is the owner-operator of the F/V Briana James, an inshore dragger in Point Judith, RI. James comes from a fishing family and spent his twenties working on large offshore freezer vessels to save money. Then, with indispensable moral support from his wife and the boat-building expertise of his extended family, he brought a boat down from Nova Scotia and spent over a year rebuilding it for dragging in Rhode Island.

Scope and Content Note

Ken Murgo, 31 years old at the time of his interview, is a diversified fisherman in Narragansett Bay, RI. With his father, Ken fishes for conchs, lobsters, quahogs, and a variety of different finfish on the F/V Johnny B. In his interview, he talks about his parents' expectations that he would enter medical school after college, his inevitable return to full-time fishing in spite of these expectations, and the interest he feels in fisheries science and cooperative research.

Scope and Content Note

Stephanie Hryzan, 35 years old at the time of the interview, is a deckhand on draggers in Point Judith, RI. Despite having a father in the industry, she did not grow up fishing and instead went to college before working in various sales jobs. However, she has always had a deep love of sea creatures, and after a year as a scallop observer, she decided in her early 30s to take part in the inaugural cohort of the Commercial Fisheries Center of RI's Commercial Fishing Apprenticeship Program. 

Tori Thomas, 29 years old at the time of the interview, is a deckhand in Point Judith, RI. Despite growing up far from the coast with no exposure to fisheries, she got a job as a fisheries observer after college, and then decided to try her luck as a deckhand.

Scope and Content Note

Kenneth Sherman was born on October 6, 1932 and was raised in Boston, Massachusetts.In his early years, he would spend time with his father at the local Boston Fish Pier to observe the fishermen. He graduated from Suffolk University with the idea of attending law school. A mentor guided him towards biological sciences so he applied to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He taught in western Massachusetts for the Audubon Society before he began his career at the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries in 1956.

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.

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. 

Interview with spotter pilot Wayne Davis of Wakefield, RI in which he recounts experiences in the harpoon swordfish fishery as well as his career as a spotter pilot. Interview contains information on fish migration patterns, seasonal events, the process of spotting fish, interactions with other marine creatures and the community of Wakefield, RI.