We are family
By Jessica Hathaway
“The commercial fishing industry begins and ends with families — from those who harvest seafood to those who enjoy it.” Those are the words of an association leader so critical to his people that they brought him back from retirement to take the helm again.
Jerry Schill, director of the North Carolina Fisheries Association, may not have the fishing credentials to be a Highliner, but he’s got all the rest of the qualities. Read his full profile from Maureen Donald on page 36.
All of our NF Highliner award winners must be or have been commercial fishermen. But they also must be recognized by their peers as champions of the industry. How they go about achieving that recognition is as varied and deeply personal as how each of them defines their work as commercial fishermen — few set out in search of accolades.
Like many before and after him, John Gruver was a college student looking to pay his tuition with a summer job in Alaska. A few years later, he had his first season on his own boat, gillnetting in Washington’s Puget Sound. The business was a bust, but he learned then that fishing is not just about catching fish. That’s a lesson he’s carried with him throughout his career and has helped define his work beyond the wheelhouse, which he left behind in 1999. Gruver had worked his way up on the 123-foot Bering Sea trawler Sea Wolf before becoming a full-time manager for United Catcher Boats in Seattle, where he led the charge on significant reduction of king salmon bycatch in the pollock fleet...
