A message from founder Dr. John T. Everett

This Foundation was created by me and my wonderful wife, Kristin L. Vehrs to contribute to fisheries and wildlife conservation while recognizing the economic and food requirements of a modern society.  We hope it will serve as a mechanism to bring greater forces to bear on key issues and on research questions, including those resulting from a changing climate. Other members of our management team are on the Leadership page.

As I left the family fishing business (lobster, cod, conch, quahogs, scallops) in Fairhaven, Massachusetts heading for a Federal fisheries job, in 1971, my father said: "Tommy, go down to Washington and straighten out this fishery mess” and "find out why, wherever we dredge, there are thousands of times more quahogs in a few years". The photo shows results of a 15 minute tow: 300 lbs. of littlenecks being washed by Antone R. Everett, with my father, John R., steering. There were 10 littlenecks 4 years before, only old bulls, in the 3,000 lbs. quota, and it took 7-9 hours, Now the quota is reached in 2 hours, 100% littlenecks with all bulls "returned to the ecosystem". Where did they all come from? It took about 30 years, but I believe the answer is in hand. Let's test it and then apply it nationwide. And let's do the same for other projects in our list.

My father and his father taught me love and respect for the ocean and all the animals living within it. We are their shepherds. For 31 years, I felt I had become part of the problem. My influential positions in NMFS, NOAA HQ, and the Senate were not enough to create changes. The competing interests within society and "siloing" of scientists across Government make a solution intractable. Examples are ecosystem scientists and activists who are experts on certain species, and work to increase their fodder but don't appreciate the impact on what their fodder eats and a climate system scientist who looks at greenhouse gases but ignores the Malenkovitch Earth Orbital factors, and the tidal effects on our Sun's heat engine as it makes its orbital journey around the Milky Way galaxy, even though similar gravitational effects create volcanoes on the moons of our Sun's outer planets. Too often our "systems' are too narrow - only parts of the true system. CO2, alone, cannot explain past regular cyclical glaciations and warm periods.

My education and work focused on management of systems, ranging from global assembly, testing, and launch and control of Apollo space vehicles to management of Federal natural resource agencies, focusing on their research, but I saw no way to meet my father's mandate. By sharing my ideas now, and pursuing them with others having similar interests perhaps I can contribute. Many people with powerful constituencies will disagree with my views, which is precisely why decisive resource managers are quickly hamstrung, causing some fisheries and other aspects of society to be managed for minimum production. We will pursue these and related topics, working with anyone interested and in collaboration with research institutions and regulators. I hope these topics will foster discussion, and testing, and I want to participate in those discussions.

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