An interview with Tommy Moore: Oceanographer at the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
By Suzie O’Neill, WCOA Fellow at NOAA Fisheries
Over the past three months, the WCOA fellows diligently advanced their fellowship projects at their host agencies while also coordinating interviews with West Coast ocean leaders to gather valuable insights from coastal managers in our region. Below is the transcript from Suzie O’Niell’s interview with Tommy Moore – Oceanographer at the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.
Could you share the story of your career journey? How did you come to work at Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission?
I got my bachelor’s degree in geology and my master’s degree in earth sciences in Boston. During undergrad, I became interested in freshwater and low temperature geochemistry, which led me to focus my Master’s dissertation on sediment geochemistry and the formation of dolomite in sediments. For my PhD, I moved from sediment up into the water column and focused on biogeochemical cycling and hydrothermal vents. I did my postdoc in Montana, which rolled into a postdoc in Spain looking at pH variability in seagrass meadows. After my postdoc, I experienced burnout and disillusion with academia and I wanted to try something different. Various people have written about how there’s a lot of guilt and pressure when you move out of academia. You feel like you're failing or giving up. It takes time to overcome that and realize that, hey, there's a world outside of academia.
I decided to go and work for a regional intergovernmental organization in the Pacific Islands region called the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme. It was based in western Samoa, and it was a group that supported the 21 Pacific Island countries and territories on environmental issues. I was in the climate change division supporting them on marine climate change and oceanography. My role was to act as a technical advisor, or an in-house expert shared amongst the countries.
While I was working in Samoa, my parents were living on the Washington Coast. When my contract ended in Samoa, I applied for the oceanographer position at NWIFC and moved to Washington State. My job here at NWIFC is similar to what I was doing out in the islands, but instead of the 21 countries and territories, it's the 20 Tribes up here that the Commission supports.
Can you please provide a high level overview of what your job addresses?
The 2014-2016 marine heat wave, known as “the blob,” had fairly devastating impacts on the marine ecosystem. As a result of the heat wave, the Tribes felt like they needed more support on the ocean sciences side, so they created a new position, which is me, the oceanographer. In my role, I focus on climate change impacts on fisheries broadly and I support Tribes through the PFMC process. I generate a quarterly marine conditions bulletin, which gives me an excuse to keep an eye on marine conditions and the literature around it, and I take on other priorities as they come up, such as offshore wind.
The other aspect of my work involves building and maintaining relationships with the Tribes. We are a Tribal support agency, and in order to effectively support the Tribes, we need to know the people we're working with, develop relationships, and build trust. If they don't know me and don’t trust me, I can't do my job well.
Could you share briefly what your day-to-day work is like?
There’s not really an average day. The last two days I was in a remote workshop. Next week I have more meetings and a presentation. I also have a little bit of lab work to do from a project I foisted on myself. I spend a good deal of time writing reports, keeping up with information, and supporting Tribes at meetings, and then taking on other duties as assigned. Our salmon biologist is leaving, so I need to come up to speed on their work. I also need to get my next marine conditions bulletin out soon. It’s fairly variable, which keeps things interesting for me.
What are the most important skills to develop for a position like yours?
You need to be able to quickly come up to speed on a topic and communicate it with a wide range of stakeholders. This involves parsing through a lot of information to decide which parts are impactful, which is a bit of an art and a science. You also need to be able to figure out the history of a topic. You could be talking about a certain fishery, and if you look at what's being discussed in a certain year, it can seem overly simplistic. But then when you talk to someone who’s been working in that fishery for 20 years, you’ll find out all of the work that led up to that point. A lot of how the management is done is like an ongoing conversation, and it takes awhile to come up to speed on what happened in the past.
It’s also important to keep your technical skills up to speed. It depends on your role, but the Fish Commission has some modelers and biometricians who possess some highly technical skills. Personally, I need to stay up to speed on various bits of the science but I don't need to have an in-depth understanding of all of it. I don't need to be able to rebuild a ROMS model, but I do need to be able to recognize when something isn’t right, or when a model isn't really suitable for what we're trying to do.
I've found that time management is a skill you sometimes learn in grad school, but it's not often formally taught. You just kind of learn it or go crazy. You have to be able to put one thing aside and focus on another for a while before returning to the first thing. It's not always the most efficient way to work, but sometimes it's what you have to do.
Lastly, the skills around building and maintaining relationships are fairly important. My director is quite flexible and works to tailor folks’ work plans to their strengths and interests. Folks who don't like to go out and engage with people can focus more technically, and those who are more outgoing can work more collaboratively.
Can you offer an example of how you’ve collaborated with others outside of NWIFC to achieve a mutually shared goal?
We do this quite a bit because we work closely with the state agencies on marine issues. I work with the Department of Ecology to discuss ocean acidification concerns and monitoring, and to advise and support the state's marine spatial plan. Of course, the Tribes are technically outside of the Commission, and they are who we support and collaborate with constantly. And then through the PFMC process we work closely with NMFS, state agencies, and the Council staff to develop management plans. I'm also the Commission’s representative on the NANOOS Executive Council, which is the regional ocean observing system. NANOOS develops new tools, apps, and data layers that are useful for fishermen. We advise on these tools and make recommendations about which ones would be most useful. NWIFC also advised researchers at the University of Washington on a project to assess ocean acidification regional vulnerability. The researchers worked closely with the four coastal Tribes on ocean acidification, marine climate change impacts on fisheries more broadly, and community vulnerability, and NWIFC provided input on priority fish species and environmental thresholds to consider. Overall, NWIFC partners in a lot of different areas, and we are working with the different agencies toward common goals. A lot of the work we do here is collaborative – we don’t do much that's fully insulated.
Can you share a recent example(s) of how diversity, equity, and inclusion are demonstrated at NWIFC?
The workshop I attended yesterday was focused on Equity and Environmental Justice (EEJ) and fisheries. In a lot of ways, Tribal fisheries are a DEI or EEJ type of issue, in that fisheries are very important to Tribes, and all of the impacts they've felt have been discriminatory and oriented around environmental justice. At NWIFC, DEI is demonstrated through our Tribal hiring policy, or Tribal preference for hiring. The Commision also tries to uplift Tribal voices instead of self-promoting. We try to always be in the background, and when there are interviews, talking points, or speaking opportunities, we encourage Tribal member(s) to be there and be in front of the camera. We promote the Tribes and their treaty rights and we try to stay in the background supporting them because the Tribes are the important piece. We're just helping them protect what's theirs.
We've also submitted comments for NOAA’s EEJ guidance and recommendations. (There is a new version of the guidance coming out this year). The Commission values this guidance because outside of just working with each other, when we are at PFMC meetings and other types of meetings, Tribes and Tribal members still face racism. Additionally, some of our female staff have experienced sexual harassment at Council meetings. As a result, it is important that NWIFC advises on the EEJ guidance and makes sure folks are aware that people are facing these challenges.
Lastly, I still have to argue with the good old boys in Forks. Some people talk about how salmon runs aren't great, and they say Tribes shouldn't have their nets all over the river. I have to explain that fishing is their Treaty right, and that their harvest is already heavily monitored, managed, and accounted for.
What are some successes/challenges you’ve encountered while working in this field?
Some successes are generic, like building relationships and seeing the work progress and evolve. I’ve also seen greater inclusion, thought, and understanding take hold around marine conditions and management. I think my being here has helped with this because I can speak to marine conditions and communicate information effectively. It's challenging as well – something that I think should be a greater priority is looking at early marine survival of salmon. It’s not something that’s widely done, even though there's the salmon recovery industry which involves millions of dollars each year. I would like to see a small part of that money go into the saltwater. It's a challenge and a frustration that I continue to butt my head against, but hopefully I'll make some progress.
For the Tribes, we coordinate and facilitate meetings and discussions, and if the Tribes don't agree on something, we can't get in the middle of that or favor one Tribe over another. Even if I disagree with what a Tribe is doing, I have to figure out how to navigate the situation if they decide to go ahead with it. If two Tribes disagree on something, NWIFC will facilitate a meeting, but we have to stay out of the middle of it which can be challenging. But then you get the successes, for example during halibut negotiations, when things came together and we did finally get an agreement on the halibut season… that's always nice.
What is your favorite aspect of your current work?
My favorite aspects of my work are the variety of topics and the range of things I get to work on, and the ability to support the Tribes. I'd have a hard time working for oil and gas or something like that, because my conscience would have a hard time coming around to it. I appreciate that I get to work on a wide range of topics, with a wide range of folks, and at all levels, and that I’m interacting with small and large Tribes, technical staff, fishermen, and policy representatives.
