Jerry Amirault, the Executive Director of the AVC Lobster Science Centre, continues to develop a new management model for the Centre based on industry inputs for research project recruitment and the required response.
A key component to this position is to acquire and maintain financial contributions for all AVC Lobster Science Centre related activities so that fish, lobster, and crab research is available and remains at its strongest caliber., This often involves developing new and innovative ways to connect fish health research with the industry with the means to fund the work.
Jerry believes that science and conservation of the crustaceans is paramount to a long term strength of all sectors in the industry. He remains very interested in the many aspects of the fishing industry, both in the areas of resource management and science that will contribute to science over the long term.
Website: www.lobsterscience.ca
Email: jamirault@upei.ca
Phone: 902-894-2887 (O)
Phone: 902-456-9324 (C)
Dr. Bayer has been involved in lobster research for over 20 years and since 1995 has been Executive Director of the Lobster Institute, located on the campus of the University of Maine. His primary interests are in the areas of lobster nutrition, management and pathology.
He obtained his B.S. in 1966 and his M.S. in 1968 from the University of Vermont, and his Ph.D. in 1972 from Michigan State University.
In addition to his work with the Lobster Institute, Dr. Bayer is currently a Professor of Animal and Veterinary Sciences at the University of Maine. He has also served as an adjunct professor in Food Sciences and in 1979 was a visiting scientist at the Institute of Marine Biochemistry in Aberdeen, Scotland. He has taught courses ranging from Endocrinology, Nutrition, Anatomy and Physiology, to marine Resources and Aquaculture.
Dr. Bayer has provided outreach services to lobster-related businesses - including pound owners, processors, and distributors, received the University of Maine's Presidential Public Service Award in 1988, and became executive director of the Lobster Institute in 1995. In addition he was a primary consultant to the Long Island Sound lobstermen following the catastrophic die-off of lobster stocks there in 1999 and he initiated the Lobster Institute’s annual Canadian/U.S. Lobstermen’s Town Meeting in 2004.
Email: bob.bayer@umit.maine.edu
Phone: 207-581-2785
Cathy Billings has been the Associate Director for Communications and Development at the Lobster Institute since 2000. Based at the University of Maine, the Lobster Institute works for and with lobstermen on conservation, outreach, research and educational programs focused on protecting and enhancing the lobster stock and preserving lobstering as an industry…and as a way of life.
Her responsibilities include, fund raising such as, annual and major gifts, grant writing, and capital campaign. They also include administration and management/strategic planning, advertising and marketing, events management and publications.
Prior to the Lobster Institute, Billings worked for a time as Director of Public Relations at the Eastern Agency on Aging in Bangor. She worked for nearly 10 years in a variety of capacities at the University of Maine Alumni Association. She also worked for 10 years in a variety of capacities in the floral industry. She holds a bachelors degree in Education and a Masters degree in Public Administration, both from the University of Maine.
Email: cathy.billings@umit.maine.edu
Phone: 207-581-2751
Michel is responsible for lobster assessment and research projects in the southwestern Gulf of St. Lawrence. He has been involved with lobster research and stock assessment for the past 27 years. He researched fields such as growth, maturity, movement, and population dynamics. He also was involved with research projects of snow crabs (growth maturity and population dynamics) for 10 years.
Email: Michel.comeau@dfo-mpo.gc.ca
Phone: 506-851-6136 (O)
Michael is President of Gardner Pinfold Consulting, and holds degrees in law and economics. He specializes in the economics of natural resource exploitation and management, with a focus on marine resources. His consultancy career spans almost 30 years during which time he has produced studies covering virtually every aspect of fishing industry policy, structure, operations, markets, and management for most fisheries in Atlantic Canada. Michael has provided high-level fisheries advice on two maritime boundary disputes – Gulf of Maine and St. Pierre-et-Miquelon – and also prepared background reports for fisheries task forces – the Kirby Task Force on Atlantic Fisheries in 1982 and Cashin Task Force on Incomes and Adjustment in 1993. In 2005, Michael served as Chair of a Minister’s Panel to resolve access and allocation issues in the Eastern Scotian Shelf snowcrab fishery.
Among his recent assignments are comprehensive reports on the shrimp, crab and lobster industries in Atlantic Canada, examining resource conditions, regulatory issues, competition and economic performance of both the fishing and processing sectors. Early in 2009, Michael completed a major national study on the economic impact of marine activities in Canada. In addition to his consulting practice, Michael has lectured extensively in resource management issues, offering courses in law, economics, and environmental economics at Dalhousie University and the World Maritime University in Malmo, Sweden.
Email: mgardner@gardnerpinfold.ca
Phone: 902.421.1720, Ext. 14
Martin is responsible for developing and coordinating lobster resource enhancement research projects with the Maritime Fishermen’s Union and other private and public sector partners. He has been working specifically on the development of lobster seeding as a tool to enhance/ stabilize the lobster resource in Atlantic Canada, and has been involved with lobster enhancement research since 2004.
Website: www.mfu-upm.com
Email: martin@mfu-upm.com
Phone: 506-532-2485 (O)
Address: Homarus Inc. / Maritime Fishermen’s Union
408 Main Street. Shediac, NB, Canada E4P 2G1
Steve is a consultant and adviser to Food Industry Professionals on Procurement and Supplier Partnership Strategies. He has 26 years of foodservice experience in operations, Culinary R&D and Purchasing, most recently a 13 year career with OSI and 3 years with Category Management Group. With vast experience, he as purchased lobster products from all global sources including S Africa, Middle East, Caribbean and Australia.
Email: StePat67@gmail.com
Phone: 813 679 4329 (O)
Address: 7028 W Waters Ave Ste 265
John Sackton, President of Seafood.com and Seafood Datasearch, has been active in the seafood industry for over 28 years. He is recognized as one of the top seafood market analysts and researchers in the world. In 1994, he founded Seafood Datasearch, to provide market data, foreign trade information, and price forecasts to the industry. His clients have included hundreds of companies and institutions, from the U.S., and Canada, Europe, South America, Russia, and China.
In 1998, he founded Seafood.com News which is now distributed in partnership with Urner Barry Publications. Seafood.com news is a daily electronic seafood news report that is the most widely read seafood industry news service in North America.
In 2005 John completed a study of lobster processing issues in New Brunswick. For the past three years, John has provided an overview of the U.S. seafood market and a forecast for the coming year to the annual Fisheries Council of Canada meeting. John's web site, Seafood.com, is the most heavily visited seafood industry web site in North America, and John’s daily seafood industry market email has thousands of subscribers.
Email: jsackton@seafood.com
Phone: 781-861-1441 (O)
Address: 8 White Pine Lane, Lexington, MA 02421
Michael oversees aquaculture themed research on American lobsters and ornamental fish. Work to create standards for more sustainable aquaculture, and in past have modeled environmental effects of aquaculture. With 10 years experience as senior team member on Sustainable Seafood Advisory Services group at NEAq, their role is to advise large businesses on how to purchase more environmentally friendly seafood. His research on lobster started when he came to the New England Aquarium a decade ago. Michael’s experience with lobsters is first with individuals as research animals, then as a fishable population.
Because he was raised outside of Chicago, lobster was not a cultural icon. This view has allowed him to conduct ground-breaking research on lobster physiology, as well as the interaction of nutrition, environment, and disease.
Email: mtlusty@neaq.org
Phone: 617-973-6715 (O)
Address: 1 Central Wharf, Boston MA 02110
A native of Main, Collin has reported from more than fifty foreign countries and six continents, and lived for more than four years in Eastern Europe. He has covered a wide-range of issues, including the destruction of coral reefs and the effects of global warming on Antarctica. Woodard is a 2004 recipient of the Jane Bagley Lehman award for Public Advocacy, given by the Tides Foundation for his global reporting on environmental issues. He is a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Chicago, where he was awarded the 1997 Morton Kaplan prize for his thesis on the causes of ethnic conflict in the Balkans.
Woodard is currently a contributing editor at Down East magazine, a member of the Sea Space symposium, and sits on the advisory board of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. In this riveting history of his native state, Colin Woodard reveals Mainers’ increasingly difficult struggle to hold on to their communities and the early American ideals that have sustained them. The Lobster Coast tells the riveting, 400-year old story of coastal Main and its fishing communities, from the formative experiences of the colonial era to the perils of failing to conserve a cultural and environmental heritage in the face of uncontrolled growth and development.
Collin currently lives in Portland, Main with his wife, Sarah Skillin in Woodard, and their two dogs, neither of which can read.
Email: colin@colinwoodard.com
Phone: 207-239-2585 (O)
