World Aquaculture December 2018

40 DECEMBER 2018 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WA S.ORG conferences around the world. These international conferences provided opportunities to visit aquaculture facilities, meet with research and industry partners, and to keep in touch with the latest advances in aquaculture science. For more than 11 years, I had the opportunity to serve on the Board of Directors as a director, Secretary, Vice President, and as President from 2012-2013. It was a great honor for me to work with the WAS leadership to identify new opportunities to provide expanded services and grow our membership around the world. Although WAS has grown into an international organization over the past 50 years, the Board of Directors continues to recognize the need to expand our global membership. During my presidency, the Promotions and Membership Committee examined opportunities and developed a strategy to growWAS membership in under-represented countries with large aquaculture industries, such as India and China. Working closely with our affiliate, India’s Society of Aquaculture Professionals and WAS Fellow Dr. M.C. Nandeesha, we explored opportunities to expand membership and services in India. WAS leadership, together with our Asian Pacific Chapter, worked closely with aquaculture leaders in India to identify steps needed to effectively engage with our aquaculture colleagues. The plans to hold a WAS meeting in Africa were initiated in Stellenbosch, South Africa in 2013. In June 2017, the first WAS meeting on the African continent took place in Cape Town, South Africa, with nearly 2,000 WAS members from 87 countries (33 countries in Africa). The highlight of the 2017 World Aquaculture Conference was the consensus achieved to launch an African Chapter of the World Aquaculture Society, which was formally ratified by the WAS Board of Directors in November 2018. After more than 30 years as an aquaculture scientist and WAS member, I can confidently say that WAS played a major role in the development of my professional career by providing regular opportunities to meet and work with colleagues around the world and by providing a platform for information exchange on advances in aquaculture technologies. Michael Schwarz, 2013-2014 I recall with deep fondness my tenure on the WAS Board and EXCOM. During my term we had three very successful chapter meetings: LACQUA13 in Villavicencio, Colombia; Asian Pacific Aquaculture 2013 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and Aquaculture America 2014 in Seattle, Washington. A lot of effort (and frequent flier miles) during this time went into WAS expansion and representation globally into programs such as the Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture 2014 in Abu Dhabi, UAE; The American Fisheries Society-Mexico Chapter and Western Division Annual Meeting 2014 in Mazatlan, Mexico; the FEEDing Pakistan Aquaculture Conference in Lahore, Pakistan (the first ever aquaculture meeting in Pakistan); and the Oman Aquaculture Development Program in Muscat, Oman. In support of WAS regional expansion, we agreed to invest in the development of two secretariats, one for the Latin American and Caribbean Chapter and one for the Asian Pacific Chapter. These secretariat positions were intended to help manage expansion of chapter member benefits and services. Years of consideration that culminated in significant board and executive discussions and actions during my term led to the eventual foundation of the aggressive restructuring and ongoing JWAS reinvigoration program. With initial organization/leadership under Craig Browdy and maintained and enhanced since by JWAS Executive Editor Dr. Carole Engle, the journal continues to improve its impact factor, has a streamlined review process, and boasts an accelerated decision timeline. During my term as president, it was never more clear just how much is done by so many within WAS to move the Society forward. We have tremendous and steadfast support from the Cookseys and Home Office, the evolving EXCOM and Board Members, the multitude of Committees on which members serve, Fellows, Past-Presidents, and the ever-active volunteers helping serve on Steering and Program Committees. The WAS is a very friendly global exchange platform towards the advancement of sustainable aquaculture worldwide, to the betterment of society and our planet. It was with great pride and appreciation that I was given to honor to serve the WAS as the 44 th president. My life has forever and continues to be enriched by the Society. GrahamMair, 2014-2015 I served on the Board of WAS on two occasions, the second time as President. I also served on the Board of the Asia Pacific Chapter so in all I spent about a decade intimately involved with the Society. During this time I learned about its strengths and its weaknesses. As President, one has a relatively limited amount of time to exert significant influence on the Society, and even then only if you have the support of a good Board. Many wise heads who had gone before me counselled that I should not try to change the world but to pick one or two issues on which I felt I could make a difference. I recognized this as wise counsel that I was happy to follow. As President with a strong Executive Director, it was relatively easy to acknowledge and continue to build on the strengths of the Society, with its biggest strength being the conferences that have long been the industry’s premium networking opportunity, with a successful recipe that continues to attract delegates year after year and is the core of the financial viability of the Society. With John Cooksey and his team at the helm, these meetings appear to almost take care of themselves. However, having served as chair of the steering committee for the WAS conference in Adelaide, we must never forget to acknowledge the selfless dedication of the many volunteers who support the Executive Director in bringing conferences together. Having a strong Executive team to take care of the conferences enables the President and the Board to focus on addressing areas in which the Society is not so strong. The main issue that I want to see the Society move forward on relates to our failure to grow membership and through this to expand the global reach of the Society. Our global reach through conferences is unquestioned but all the Boards on which I sat really struggled with the issue of how we can translate the strong engagement at our meetings into expanding our membership outside of the core members in the US and becoming a truly global society that grows together with our industry. I don’t have the answers to this long-held dilemma and I’m not the first nor the last President to struggle with this conundrum. I often spoke about being able to build the value proposition of membership, to make it much more that simply a way to get