The International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Bruce Leaman to the position of Executive Director. Dr. Leaman is currently the head of the Stock Assessment Recruitment and Biology Program at the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo for the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He, likewise, has been the Canadian Scientific Advisor to the International Pacific Halibut Commission since 1985. Dr. Leaman has been a key advisor on IPHC research and assessment and on the Commission’s evaluation of the effect of bycatches in other North Pacific fisheries on the halibut resource. Dr. Leaman will formally take up the duties of Executive Director in Seattle in September or October of this year and will help guide the Commission through the winter Interim and Annual Meetings that set the stage for the fisheries in 1998.

Don McCaughran, the current Executive Director of the IPHC, is retiring in January of 1998 after 19 years of outstanding service. During that time, through the conduct and application of advanced fisheries science techniques to manage the halibut resource, the Commission has guided the harvest through a period of an all-time low following the initiation of foreign groundfish fisheries in Alaska to the current status of record harvests and biomass.

-END-