April 13, 2022 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:
Lou Goodreau, center, flanked by Council Executive Director Tom Nies, left, and Council Chair Eric Reid, right. (Credit: NEFMC)
The New England Fishery Management Council opened the first day of its April 12-14, 2022 hybrid meeting in Mystic, CT by paying tribute to Lou Goodreau, an economist and information technology specialist who is retiring in May following a dedicated 45-year career on the Council’s staff.
Lou joined the staff on March 28, 1977, the year the Council was formed by the 1976 passage of what’s now called the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA). He is the third longest- serving staff member among the nation’s eight regional fishery management councils.
Lou worked under four executive directors and two acting executive directors. He saw the Council through an era of astonishing technology advancements, progressing from typewriters, punch cards, and Wang computers to the current state-of-the-art equipment and data storage systems that are now the norm in Council operations. He worked on almost every one of the Council’s fishery management plans and contributed to the economic analyses for the Council’s first groundfish, herring, and scallop plans. He was the first chair of the Scallop Plan Development Team during the successful implementation of limited access, effort controls, and vessel monitoring systems in the scallop fishery, which resulted in stock rebuilding and economic stability.
Read the full release from the New England Fishery Management Council