Saving Seafood

NEFMC Bids Farewell to One Member, Welcomes Another

August 11, 2017 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council is bidding farewell to Mary Beth Tooley of Maine and welcoming a new face to the Council table – Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner Patrick Keliher.

On June 28, 2017, the Secretary of Commerce announced that three New England Council members, whose terms were scheduled to expire, had been reappointed to serve for another three years effective August 12, 2017.

  • Peter Kendall of New Hampshire was appointed to his third term on the Council;
  • Elizabeth “Libby” Etrie of Massachusetts was appointed to a second term; and
  • John Pappalardo of Massachusetts was appointed to a second term.

Terry Stockwell of Maine was appointed to fill the seat being vacated by Tooley, who had served three consecutive terms. Stockwell is the Council’s vice chairman and previously served as the state of Maine’s designated fisheries official to the Council. In June, however, Stockwell retired from state service following a 21-year career at DMR, and he now is beginning his first term as a secretarial appointee.

Read the full release at the NEFMC

MASSACHUSETTS: Fish councilor hopes for reappointment

January 25, 2017 — Elizabeth “Libby” Etrie had a pretty well-formed idea of what awaited her when she was appointed in 2014 to her first term on the New England Fishery Management Council.

Etrie had built a solid professional foundation while working with groundfishermen as the program director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Sector Service Network, and through her work with 13 of 17 New England groundfish sectors as the southern sector coordinator for the Gulf of Maine Research Institute sector extension program.

Still, her elevation onto the council as one of Massachusetts’ at-large members provided her with a glimpse of the fishing world beyond groundfish.

“I had spent a lot of time working on groundfish issues, so I was already comfortable there,” Etrie said. “But the council deals with so much more than groundfish and the challenge was getting up to speed on the other fisheries. It’s required more work, but it’s been really rewarding.”

Etrie, who lives in Gloucester, is in the final year of her first three-year term on the council. Gov. Charlie Baker must decide by March 15 if he will submit Etrie’s name to the council and the U.S. Commerce Department — which has final approval on fishery management council member appointments — for re-appointment to another three-year term.

For now, Baker’s office remains non-committal on its plans for filling the two Massachusetts at-large seats on the council whose terms expire this year. The terms of Etrie and John Pappalardo of Chatham both expire on Aug. 10.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times