Mayor Bruce H. Tobey has shown great constancy, notwithstanding some well-known egregious setbacks, in the belief of the necessity to develop the pelagics if the city of Gloucester has to preserve its heritage and prosper. Together with Senator Bruce Tarr, he succeeded in hammering this agreement (see Tobey, B. and Tarr, B. 1991. Gloucester Fisheries Set the Course: A Symposium of the Fishing Industry in Gloucester. Gloucester, MA: Gloucester City Hall.) quite a few years back. But the goal has proved of very difficult implementation. The situation is beginning to change. There is an ongoing concern on the State Fish Pier, which, led by Dave Ellenton, is landing herring in Gloucester, freezing them, and shipping them overseas. Yet, since this is mostly a pass-through operation, it is still advisable to work for the creation of a surimi plant to add to the mix for greater utilization of our natural resources and the development of value added products in Gloucester.

Mayor Tobey has firmly guided a team of city officials to direct and assist in the implementation of this study: Dean Harrison, the Director of Community Development, and his staff have always been helpful in performing the function of administrative supervision of the study; Everett Brown and Joan F. Ballarin, respectively Purchasing and Assistant Purchasing Agent, have been the public administrative executors of the study; and Joseph T. Pratt, city auditor, has been the fiscal supervisor of study.

Officers of the Economic Development Agency, cognizant of the potential pitfalls and long delays of economic development, allowed for funds to be spent on a project that had not demonstrated unequivocal success over the years.

R. Scott Memhard, Gaspar Lafata, and Joseph Sinagra, respectively the president, vice president, and treasurer of the Gloucester Community Development Corporation, have devoted many hours, through many email communications and many board meetings, to the supervision and the general direction of the study.

Dr. Herbert Hultin and Dr. Stephen D. Kelleher, respectively the Director and a marine food biochemist, at the University of Massachusetts Marine Station at Hodgkins Cove in Gloucester, have made the most intense contribution to the study. They have received people we have brought to their office and they have come to public meetings in which they have made formal presentations of the technology existing today for the transformation of pelagics into surimi.

Through the good offices of Pat Kurkul, the Regional Director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, we have received many forms of assistance in the research and presentation of many pieces of information from many members of her staff, and especially Kurt Wilhelm, Mark Murray-Brown, Joseph Moscato, Leo Erwin, Catherine Sousa, and Ronald M. Linski. We have also been granted the use of their conference room for a public meeting with fishermen.

Michael Costello, the director of the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce, has graciously granted us the use of their conference room for a public meeting with owners and managers of fisheries industries.

Robert L. Sampson has scanned the current literature on fisheries development. He has done exhaustive research in the technology of surimi. And he has written a great part of the section of this report that is concerned with the production of surimi.