FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 22, 2016
Contact: Martha Wilson
[email protected]

Dr. William T. Hogarth of the Florida Institute of Oceanography received the Carl R. Sullivan Fishery Conservation Award at the 2016 American Fisheries Society (AFS) Annual Meeting in Kansas City, Missouri. AFS President Ron Essig presented the award at the meeting’s plenary session. The Carl R. Sullivan Fishery Conservation Award, known as the “Sully,” was first awarded to Carl Sullivan, executive director of AFS from 1975 to 1991, shortly before his death. It is given to an individual or organization for outstanding contributions to the conservation of fishery resources that may be political, legal, educational, scientific, or managerial in scope.

Bill Hogarth has spent his entire professional career in furtherance of the conservation of fishery resources and fisheries both nationally and globally. His early career, post Ph.D., was spent as a biologist and manager of ecological programs in the private sector for Carolina Power and Light. Dr. Hogarth developed and implemented many programs that helped to mitigate effects of generation plants on estuarine organisms and to site power generation facilities in less sensitive locations.

Bill began his government career serving first as director of the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries. During his tenure, he modernized the functions of the agency and upgraded the science component advising management. This period was extremely contentious in fisheries policy as the implementation of requirements under the federal Magnuson–Stevens Act required the states to allocate quotas among themselves for species such as Summer Flounder and Black Sea Bass. This process was jointly managed under the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Federal Regional Councils. Serving as North Carolina’s representative to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and simultaneously on the South Atlantic Council and Mid-Atlantic Council, Dr. Hogarth was able to help broker workable management policies that eventually lowered the level of overexploitation and eliminated overfished conditions on many of the region’s fisheries. Moving from the state of North Carolina to federal government, Bill assumed many different management roles. He was office director in the Highly Migratory Species Division for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), implementing management policy for tunas, billfishes, and sharks, and served as an advisor to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICAAT). He was assigned as a division chief at the Southeast Regional Office of NMFS in St. Petersburg, FL. Later, he served as NMFS regional administrator in the southwest region (Long Beach, CA) and as southeast regional administrator in St. Petersburg. In both regional administrator positions, he was instrumental in effective implementation of national laws and international policies of the U.S. Government, serving as chairman of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission.

In 2001, then-President George H. W. Bush appointed Dr. Hogarth as assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries (director of NMFS). During his tenure as director of NMFS, some of the most significant policies and laws governing U.S. marine fisheries were enacted and implemented. He oversaw the 2007 reauthorization of the Magnuson–Stevens Act, which effectively ended overfishing in U.S. fisheries, required new science-based annual catch limits, and streamlined the use of catch shares and other mechanisms to modernize fisheries, reduce overcapitalization, and increase profitability. While overseeing wholesale changes in domestic fisheries management, Dr. Hogarth was also elected chairman of both the International Whaling Commission and ICAAT. As International Whaling Commission Chair, he brokered compromises that assured sustainable aboriginal takes of bowhead whales taken by Alaskans and helped to reduce high seas whaling. At ICAAT, his chairmanship saw major reductions in quota excesses for Bluefin Tuna on both sides of the Atlantic. By all measures, his tenure as NMFS director was marked by high levels of productivity, leadership, and accomplishment.

Dr. Hogarth again changed career paths in 2008 by assuming the role of interim dean of the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida. As dean, he acquired a modern research vessel (the R/V Weatherbird II) for use by the Florida Institute of Oceanography and hired a number of fisheries-oriented faculty positions to fill a perceived gap in fisheries education and academic research along west Florida. He modernized shoreside facilities through a large National Science Foundation grant for laboratory upgrades and strengthened support programs and scholarships for graduate students. His most notable accomplishment as dean was, however, directing the academic response by Florida scientists to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Working with federal agencies, Dr. Hogarth helped mobilize a significant at-sea response aboard the Weatherbird II, undertaking dozens of cruises to the affected area. The results of this research have been well documented in scores of published papers and data sets. Because of his involvement early on, then-Florida governor Charlie Crist appointed Dr. Hogarth to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative board of directors. This board has overseen the allocation of $500 million in research funding Gulf-wide to address impacts of the spill. Through his efforts, significant funds through these grants have directly benefitted fisheries research and management programs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Following his tenure as interim dean, Dr. Hogarth was appointed director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography (FIO). This 23-institution collaboration includes all public and private universities in the state that have meaningful oceanography programs, as well as relevant state and federal agencies and private institutes. One of the hallmarks of Dr. Hogarth’s tenure as FIO director was the establishment of the Florida Centers of Excellence Program funded by the settlement of the BP Deepwater Horizon lawsuit. This program will eventually spend more than $40 million in grants to Florida academics, with particular emphasis on factors affecting recruitment dynamics of marine fisheries. Also, because of his political acumen, Dr. Hogarth was able to secure funding for a new research vessel to be constructed supporting FIO missions.

Simultaneous with his tenure as FIO director, Dr. Hogarth was appointed by the president of the University of South Florida (USF) as the interim chancellor of the USF campus in St. Petersburg. There he oversaw all operations of the college, including garnering political support and funding to build a new business school, a project that is just now in completion. The fact that he could hold down what was essentially two fulltime jobs at the same time attests to Bill’s organizational abilities and his ability to energize and empower his subordinates. This was also evident in his stint as NMFS director.

As the above brief summary indicates, Bill Hogarth has had a singularly diverse but enormously influential career in fisheries. Although his professional roles have changed over the years, he has found a way to make a significant difference in the management of fisheries and in the lives of people with which he has worked. His accomplishments have been many and diverse but always significant.

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Editor’s notes:

Links: (fisheries.org, 2016.fisheries.org)

About AFS: Founded in 1870, the American Fisheries Society (AFS) is the world’s oldest and largest fisheries science society. The mission of AFS is to improve the conservation and sustainability of fishery resources and aquatic ecosystems by advancing fisheries and aquatic science and promoting the development of fisheries professionals. With five journals and numerous books and conferences, AFS is the leading source of fisheries science and management information in North America and around the world.