Scott is a strategic communications and stakeholder relations consultant based in Seattle, WA. His firm, Fieldwork Communications, has served clients in the non-profit, federal government and private sectors. As part of his current portfolio, Scott publishes EM4Fish, an online community and resource base serving innovators at the intersection of technology and fisheries management.

Prior to founding Fieldwork in 2001, Scott spent 27 years as a commercial fisherman in Alaska.

My 20-plus years of experience in supply chains began in Ecuador where I worked as a farm manager, quality assurance manager, auditor, trainer, and with the pelagic longline industry. I understand the complexity of the seafood supply chain, synergies across diverse fields, disciplines, and people. A milestone in my career was the creation of the Chain of Custody onboard (compartmentalization) for the first tuna purse seine MSC certification (partial certification) in the PNA countries, that opened access to global tuna markets for millions of metrics tons of MSC-certified tuna. This involved issues around traceability protocols, catch documentation, Monitoring Control and Surveillance, Vessel Monitoring System, IUU, electronic reporting, and the Integrated Fishery Management System (iFIMs). I have also worked with SPC, WCPFC, MINRA, NORMA, NFA, and FFA.

I have consulted in more than 60 countries with fishing companies, fishers, governments and NGOs, all with a common goal: to take care of the ocean and the people that depend on it.

Fishing for data! Collaborative integration of sensors with fishing can fill some of the most pressing gaps in our sustained ocean monitoring. Fishing vessels operate exactly where autonomous platforms cannot, leading to a surprising lack of data close to shore compared with the open ocean.

We enable cost-effective collection of ocean data, by equipping fishing gears with sensors. Profiles of temperature, salinity, and other essential ocean variables are measured, sent to the vessel, and then onto users in real time. Today a shortage of these data types holds back advances in dynamic ecosystem-based fisheries management, virtually every branch of oceanography, climate change monitoring, and many advances for the blue economy.