Dr. Christopher Winslow is the director of The Ohio Sea Grant College Program coordinating Ohio Sea Grant's Great Lakes research with agencies and universities, as well as assists in research, curriculum development and student recruitment at The Ohio State University's Stone Laboratory. Earned his doctorate at Bowling Green State University, with research focusing on interaction between the native smallmouth bass and invasive round goby.

Dr. Winslow studied the behavioral differences between largemouth and smallmouth bass to earn his master's degree from BGSU, and he received his bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Ohio University. 

As an instructor at BGSU from 2002-2009 and an assistant professor at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Winslow taught general biology courses to more than 700 students. 

For the past seven years, Winslow has been a fixture at Stone Laboratory, teaching Aquatic Ecology classes to high school and college students and mentoring college students and their Lake Erie research projects in the lab's Research Experience for Undergraduates Scholarship Program.

Susan Boggs prioritizes two things in life: her family and her career. In addition to owning and operating a full-service marina and fuel dock in Orange Beach, Alabama, with her husband, she also manages their for-hire fishing business. If that isn't impressive enough, she also finds time to serve on the local tourism board and act as secretary/treasurer for the Charter Fisherman's Association.

On top of all that, Susan, her husband and their daughter are an incredibly cohesive family unit. When they're not watching their daughter play soccer, they spend time together at their hunting camp and enjoy spur of the moment exploration days, where they jump in the car and head nowhere in particular. 

As a small girl growing up in Texas, she certainly didn't imagine her life revolving around saltwater fishing. She always loved the outdoors, spending countless hours bass fishing from a rickety, homemade barge that sat in a 50-acre pond behind her childhood home. Just before her 30^th birthday, Susan moved to coastal Alabama for a business opportunity, and when it didn't pan out, she got a part-time job booking charters for a local marina. 

That's when Susan's fishing career began in earnest. While working in the charter office, Susan met her husband Randy, a deckhand on one of the charter vessels in the marina. She credits him with broadening her horizons by exposing her to offshore saltwater fishing. A self-described "stickler for the rules," Susan struggled to adhere to the marina's strict "no dating" policy. She eventually had to fess up to her indiscretion and turn down a management position at the marina because of their budding relationship. 

Eventually, Susan and Randy bought a 6-pack charter vessel and moved to another marina. From there, their family business model of "sell out or get bigger" took hold. They upgraded from the 6-pack charter to a 65-foot headboat, and eventually bought a second and third vessel to grow the business even further. They were invited to move their business to the SanRoc Cay Marina in 2009 to revitalize its struggling charter business. After growing their own charter business even more, they purchased the entire marina in 2015.

Elizabeth Boggs is a 19-year-old fishing charter captain who is taking the Gulf Coast by storm. The Alabama Gulf Coast native and Coastal Alabama Community College sophomore has always had a penchant for the water.

"There are pictures of me from when I was little walking around in pink Crocs carrying fish," she says. The newly licensed boat captain received her 100-Ton Master Captain's License in June and is following in the wake of her parents, Randy and Susan Boggs, the husband-wife duo behind Reel Surprise Charters in Orange Beach. 

Elizabeth says it's important to educate people that deep-sea fishing isn't just a guys' sport, and it's not just about catching a world-record marlin. She plans to charter her own deep-sea fishing trips someday, but for now, she's charting Islander, a 6-passenger fishing boat, for her parents' company. 

"The fish are a perk, but providing an experience is even better than the catch," she says. "It's especially rewarding to see people of all ages make their first catch."

"I want to simplify charter and deep-sea fishing as much as possible," she said. "When we're out on the water we see all kinds of cool stuff: blue-winged sea robins, unicorn filefish and pods of spotted dolphins. There was a tattler fish we caught earlier this year that my mom had to send a picture of to a marine biologist to identify-we had never seen on before." 

Rosa H Zirlott is a fourth-generation commercial fisherman with a rich family history in fishing and boat building. Since 2013, she has been the owner and partner of Sandy Bay Oyster Company (also known as Murder Point Oysters) and L3 Hatchery, alongside her husband, Brent, and son, Lane.

With over 40 years of experience, she has managed two Gulf shrimp boats and served as a board member of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, advocating for the domestic shrimp industry. 

Additionally, she played a key role in the restoration efforts following the BP Gulf Oil Spill and was hired by the Organized Seafood Association of Alabama after Hurricane Katrina to oversee the identification of the commercial seafood industrial and restoration of the wild oyster reef, as well as the distribution of federal funds to revitalize the commercial seafood industry.