New Sea Grant Extension Agent in Bay County

Steve Theberge Sea Grant Extension Agent Bay County stheberge@ufl.edu

Steve Theberge is the new Sea Grant Extension Agent in Bay County, replacing Brian Cameron who left to join the Minerals Management Service in Louisiana. Bay County, which includes St. Andrews Bay, is one of the most diverse estuaries in the U.S. Tourism is very important in Bay County with Panama City Beach being the second most popular tourist destination for visitors driving to Florida. As a result, Bay County has a very large and active recreational charter fleet. It also has commercial fishing for shrimp, snapper, grouper and other groundfish and offshore pelagics. Steve's professional and educational background are a perfect fit for conducting fisheries Extension programs in the County.

Steve has a USCG Captain’s license, has worked on charter boats, and commercially dug clams. Steve previously conducted environmental and marine education programs for a variety of organizations and for ten years conducted estuarine field education programs at Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Naples, Florida. For the last six years, he was a Sea Grant Agent in Clatsop County, Oregon  where his specialty areas were marine fisheries, stock assessment training for stakeholders, reducing by-catch mortality and reducing the mortality of released fish especially fish caught in deep water, collaborative research between fishermen and scientists, and reducing/removing marine debris. Steve has a BS in Fisheries from the University of Massachusetts (1979) and a MS in Biology/Coastal Zone Studies from the University of West Florida (1984).