Every year the National Fisherman staff is honored to welcome a new class of Highliner award winners with a tradition that started in 1976.

This year, we celebrate inductees from the West Coast and Alaska — John F. Gruver of United Catcher Boats (Puyallup, Wash.), Kathy Hansen of the Southeast Alaska Fishermen’s Alliance (Douglas, Alaska), and Jeremiah O’Brien of the Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen’s Organization (Morro Bay, Calif.).

Gruver worked his way up from the deck to the wheelhouse of the Bering Sea pollock trawler F/V Sea Wolf in the 1980s. He stepped away from the wheelhouse in 1999 and took up networking — both figuratively, as the Catcher-Vessel Intercooperative Manager for United Catcher Boats, and literally, as a designer of the game-changing king salmon excluder net for the Bering Sea pollock fleet.

Hansen runs the drift gillnetter F/V Ocean Gold out of Juneau, Alaska, with her husband, Ed, and is the executive director and a founder of the Southeast Alaska Fishermen’s Alliance. Kathy has worked in many fisheries in Alaska and Washington, and is known for her efforts to see all sides of fisheries issues and find the solution that works best for the most users.

O’Brien is a displaced New Englander who trolls for West Coast albacore on the 48-foot F/V Aguero out of Morro Bay, Calif., which is his version of retirement after having fished everything from shark to sea bass and even diving for abalone and urchins. He served 10 years as the president of the Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen’s Organization and now sits on the board of directors.

These Highliners uphold a standard of excellence in their advocacy of the fishing industry, and we are proud to recognize their dedication.

Welcome aboard!