Women in Fisheries: Kristyn Kleman

By Melissa Waterman

When a person is young, they typically don’t know what they want to be when they grow up. That was the case for Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Sea Sampling and Ventless Trap Survey coordinator Kristyn Kleman, 36. But Kleman did recognize that as a youngster she really liked going fishing with her father. She grew up in Pennsylvania and her father was an avid recreational fisherman. “I went out with him when I was just a baby. We would go to the Chesapeake Bay to fish for crab and striped bass,” she recalled.

Sea Sampling.

In her senior year of high school Kleman took stock. “I knew that I liked going on the boat with my father and that I liked animals a lot,” she said. Marine biology seemed like a good field to pursue.

Once in college in Pennsylvania she applied for and received a scholarship to take summer courses at the Chincoteague Bay Field Station, located on a barrier island off the Virginia coast. It was a good fit for Kleman, who spent three summers living and studying at the station. After graduating college she attended Nova Southeastern University Florida for graduate studies.

“My thesis research was in the Mediterranean Sea and that’s where I first got involved with commercial fisheries,” Kleman said. “I studied the sardine industry there and realized my research was applicable to real life, that the work I did could affect people’s lives.”

After completing graduate school, Kleman returned to the Chincoteague Bay Station to coordinate the university and research program that she had taken part in years earlier. She loved being on the island and her work but after two-and-a-half years she realized that she did not like the hot, humid and buggy environment.

By this time Kleman had lived and worked in a multitude of places in the U.S and abroad. “I began to think about where I wanted to end up, what would be a good place to be.”

Hiking is one of Kristyn's favorite pastimes. K. Klemen photos.

“I wanted to be in a co

oler climate so I looked at different states. New Jersey and Maryland were too hot. New York, Rhode Island and Connecticut were too expensive and too crowded. New Hampshire looked nice but it has such a small coastline. And then I looked at pictures of Maine. There were rocky beaches and mountains. I loved it.”

When the opportunity came to apply for a position as a research technician in Rick Wahle’s lab at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center, she jumped at it. “I knew that being from out of state and not working with lobsters before was a disadvantage. I called Rick Wahle and told him that I knew a lot about commercial fishing and that I really wanted the job. He took a chance on me,” she said.

Her parents helped her move late in 2017. “I remember the weekend we were moving in, it was really cold, like -10oF. My parents said, ‘Look, it’s freezing, it’s dark, you don’t know anyone, are you sure you want to do this?’” Kleman remembered. “But I love the winter season.”

Four years after Kleman started at the Darling Center, Rick Wahle announced his plan to retire. Kleman soon applied to the DMR for the Sea Sampling and Ventless Trap Survey coordinator position. Her tasks in Wahle’s lab had included coordinating the lobster settlement collector project, putting mesh cages weighted with cobblestones into areas to collect young-of-the-year lobsters.

Through that work and other research projects she had become familiar with lobster survey work going on at the department. She began her new position at DMR in 2023.

“Now I am working with many more boat captains in many more ports. It’s sort of what I was already doing but a greatly expanded version with more people involved,” she explained. “It’s sort of a natural progression from the Darling Center.”

Managing two ongoing sampling programs and spending long days herself on a boat makes Kleman happy. “Every day on the water is different. I never stop learning on the job and I love learning,” she said. “Fishermen have such a wealth of generational knowledge, which you can never get in a book or a lecture. I love that part of it.”