The US Seafood Harvesters commercial fishing group has hired Kevin Wheeler from the Consortium for Ocean Leadership as its new executive director.
“I am truly honoured to have been chosen to lead and provide a unified voice for the Seafood Harvesters at this most critical time, given the political transition occurring in Washington coupled with a rapidly changing ocean environment,” he said.
“Together we will champion accountability, responsibility and innovation throughout our industry to ensure that future generations will have healthy, robust and sustainable fisheries to harvest.”
Mr Wheeler comes to the Seafood Harvesters after serving ten years as Vice President and Director of Public Affairs at the Consortium, where he was responsible for implementing ocean research priorities on behalf of more than 100 of the nation’s leading ocean research and educational institutions.
In that role he served as primary liaison between the ocean science community and Congress, the executive branch, federal agencies and non-governmental organisations and also led advocacy coalitions in support of budgets for federal agencies including NSF, NOAA and DOD.
Formerly, Mr Wheeler was the director of federal relations for Brown University, worked on the Science Committee for the US House of Representatives, served as the special assistant to the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and also worked on Capitol Hill as press secretary and legislative assistant to former Congressman Sherwood Boehlert.
He holds advanced degrees in Environmental Management and Public Administration from Duke and Binghamton Universities respectively.
