Rosalie Parco was born in 1926 in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Both sides of her family immigrated from Sicily, and included many fishermen. She graduated from Gloucester High School in 1944, and attended Kathleen Dell Secretarial School in Boston.  Then she met her husband, Anthony Parco, founder of Ocean Crest Seafoods and Neptune's Harvest Fertilizer in Gloucester, a family business that is still in operation today.  

Scope and Content Note

Mark Ring was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1957. He graduated from Manchester High School in 1975. Growing up, Mark's father ran a marina, and he had uncles who were commercial fishermen. He spent his teenage years fishing on a skiff and lobstering with his uncles. After high school, Mark moved to Gloucester and fished - gillnetting and swordfishing - during the 1970s and 1980s. He fished in Mexico, and from the Caribbean to Newfoundland. Since the early 1990s, Mark has been lobstering out of Gloucester. 

Scope and Content Note

Phil Powell was born in 1965 in Woburn, Massachusetts.  His family moved to Swampscott shortly after he was born.  He grew up and still lives in Swampscott. In high school, Phil started to work as a fisherman with some local fishermen.  When he was nineteen years old, Phil bought his first boat.  He has been gillnetting and lobstering off and on since then.

Tom Balf is an environmental professional with diverse experience in regulatory policy, environmental management, and sustainability in the corporate, consulting, and non-profit sectors. His current consulting work, as founder of Oceanvest, LLC, focuses on projects that support sustainable fishing communities, maritime technology applications, and 21st century working waterfronts. He is the former executive director of Maritime Gloucester.

Scope and Content Note

Anthony Gross was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1952, and moved to Gloucester as a child. As a teenager, he worked at the Empire Fish Company, where Anthony's father was General Manager. At 18, Anthony began lobstering on a 16-foot skiff and crewed on a local tub trawler. Then, at 20, he began offshore lobster fishing and worked his way up from cook to engineer and first mate. When Anthony turned 22, he served on a tallow tanker, the "Y/O Olive Oyl," that carried tallow from Miami to Honduras and Guatemala.

Dr. Pamela Heinselman was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1970 and moved to Maryland before her first birthday.  She came back to Missouri to study at St. Louis University, earning an undergraduate and master of science degree in meteorology there.  She went on to the University of Illinois to pursue a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences, but left after a semester to work for the University of Oklahoma Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies.  Her work there focused on the Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler which was being implemented throughout the U.S.

John Ogren was born in 1966 in Blue Island, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He was fascinated by the weather from an early age. He grew up listening to his grandfather's stories about the deadly 1967 oak lawn tornado outbreak. In high school, John became really interested in earth science and was "hooked" after a six-week weather unit in science class. Mr. Ogren attended Western Illinois University, where he graduated in 1988 with a degree in geography and a minor in broadcasting and communications.

Interview with John Farrington. 

Interview with John Farrington. 

Interview with John Kanwisher.

Part 1 - February 11, 2004

Part 2 - August 11, 2004