Clyde L. Mckenzie, Jr.

My passion for working at NOAA comes from growing up in a commercial fishing community in the 1930s and 1940s where the local fishermen were among its economically-poorest citizens. I wanted to improve their condition. My goal has been to bring about actual improvements in fisheries. Through my career, I faced major challenges to increase abundances of oysters in Connecticut, Prince Edward Island (Canada), and Mississippi. I also wrote a fishing history book to preserve a collection of the memories and verbal history of the interesting and productive Raritan Bay for the local people to have in a published form. Each challenge represented a high and steep climb to reach the top, but I attained success in each by hard work, determination, and using the contributions of a great many local people interested in the same goals. I have felt consistently proud about supporting NOAA and its overall goals because they are very noble.  I have tried to unveil what Teddy Roosevelt said, "No words can unveil the mystery of the wilderness" ,by conducting lots of field observations, that have included many underwater via scuba, in estuaries/bays and in the Atlantic Ocean.  My research currently is focused on how changes in environments affect mollusk abundances in the northeast.