Sam Belknap is the Director of the Island Institute’s Center for the Marine Economy where he oversees the organization’s work on Resilient Working Waterfronts, Sustainable Shellfish and Seaweed Aquaculture, The Future of Fishing, and Marine Decarbonization. Sam, the third of four generations of his family to have held a commercial fishing license, has worked at the intersection of climate, fisheries, and coastal communities for the past two decades. With a background in climate science and anthropology Sam brings his passions for people, place, and the sea to his work at Island Institute as well as to Maine’s Working Waterfront Coalition, SEAMaine - the state’s seafood economic accelerator, and to the National Working Waterfront Network. Sam is deeply engaged in his home community of Damariscotta where he currently serves on both the Great Salt Bay CSD Board and as the chair of the AOS 93 Board. Sam, his wife, and two children live i just a few minutes' drive from his family's working waterfront wharf where his father and oldest child carry on the family’s tradition of lobstering.