People of the Coast: Paul Anderson

Paul Anderson took the position of incoming executive director of the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries (the Center), formerly Penobscot East Resource Center, in September 2017. The Stonington-based nonprofit organization was created by former Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner Robin Alden and her husband, Ted Ames, in 2003; Alden served as its director for 14 years and is stepping down at the end of 2017. Anderson was the director of the Maine Sea Grant program at the University of Maine for 16 years as well as head of the University’s Aquaculture Research Institute and research network director of the National Science Foundation-funded Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture Network.

So how does it feel to move from the halls of academia to the nonprofit world, from the inland realm of the university to the rocky shores of Stonington? “I think it’s exciting, important and fun,” said Anderson. “It will push me creatively.”

Anderson brings a full toolbox of skills to his new position. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in microbiology from the University of Maine, degrees which led him to a biomedical job at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor out of college. He then worked at DMR for ten years, becoming the chief of the agency’s public health laboratory and helping create the Lamoine Lab in 1990. In that position he was responsible for the state’s red tide and pollution monitoring efforts.

In 1999, Anderson moved away from the coast to take a position at Maine Sea Grant. The Sea Grant College Program was formed in the 1960s as a counterpart to the much older Land Grant College Program. Maine’s Sea Grant program began in 1971 to support research, education and outreach related to Maine’s coastal and marine resources. Anderson worked as the head of the Sea Grant extension program for several years, then became the interim and finally permanent director in 2002.

“I learned a lot at each place,” Anderson reflected. “I loved Sea Grant because it works at the nexus of science, community and policy. The research informed the education component, which informed the outreach work. If you do it right, if you get them all to work together, the integration among the three pieces is exciting. I think the Center is like that too.”

He is particularly proud of his work establishing a Marine Extension team at Sea Grant. The team is a cooperative eff ort between Sea Grant and the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, which has long provided technical assistance to farmers and others working in the state’s natural resource industries. The seven-member team provides scientific information and assistance to coastal communities and makes sure that University researchers are aware of the specific issues of concern in those communities.

“Prior to creating the team, we just had a couple of individuals in Sea Grant doing their work. Now we have professionals along the coast who live and work in the communities they serve,” Anderson explained.

During his tenure at Sea Grant, Anderson also bolstered the state’s citizen monitoring eff orts. “Citizen science in Maine took off in the 1990’s while I was at DMR with some great partner institutions,” he recalled. “Sea Grant helped build some of those programs as we moved from water quality monitoring to phytoplankton monitoring and even phenology.” Phenology refers to the timing of certain seasonal changes, such as when ice breaks up on lakes in the spring. Maine residents are trained to observe and record the changes in certain common plants and animals as a means of deciphering the effects a warmer global climate is having in Maine.

“These programs show that people can make credible observations that are quality controlled so that valuable data is generated and used,” Anderson said. Now, as incoming executive director of the Center, Anderson looks forward to using his talents to help eastern Maine’s fishing communities. The Center’s motto is “Fish Forever” and that, says Anderson, calls for new ways of doing things. “This part of Maine has particular vulnerabilities.

We need fishing to be as vibrant and successful as it can be because everything happens around it. The Center is an opportunity to engage with fishermen in partnership in science, education and policy and I think that’s really important to the future of these communities.”

Those who follow Maine’s bluegrass music scene recognize Anderson as a talented musician. He plays mandolin in the Blue Northern band and recently returned to an early love, that of being a D.J. at WERU radio in East Orland. “I had a bluegrass show for ten years from 1988 and now I’m back about twice a month, 8 to 10 p.m. on Thursday nights doing the Bronzewound show,” he said.

“I am very happy to be here in Stonington and working for the Center,” Anderson concluded. “All the pieces of who I am can be in one place.