2016 CANNERY ROW SYMPOSIUM 2016 presenters & titles: (Alpha)

            Prof. Richard Astro: “Breaking Through.” Drexel University, Philadelphia: started the 1970s academic revolution that required knowing Ed Ricketts before understanding John Steinbeck. He was Keynote Speaker at the formation of the Cannery Row Foundation at its first “Great Cannery Row Reunion” in 1983, and the 2005 Cannery Row Reunion, also held at the Monterey Conference Center. He was the opening speaker at the 2015 CANNERY ROW SYMPOSIUM. Sponsored by Old Fisherman's Grotto Restaurant, Fisherman's Wharf. 

            Prof. Kevin Bailey: “The Western Flyer and The Saga of Pacific Fisheries.” This retired Marine Biologist and Pacific Coast Fisheries authority’s recent book—THE WESTERN FLYER, Steinbeck’s Boat, the Sea of Cortez, and the Saga of Pacific Fisheries—traces the depletion and collapse of major Pacific fisheries through the voyages of a single world-famous boat, which upon restoration will home port again in Monterey. His book is a must for Steinbeck and Ricketts readers and marine ecologists everywhere. Sponsored by Fisherman's Wharf Association.

            Dennis Fry: “Tales from an Alaska skipper of the ‘Western Flyer’—as the ‘Gemini’ and What I’ve Got To Show For it.” His father, Clarence Fry, bought the Gemini in 1976 (which had been named the Western Flyer until 1970) and Dennis occasionally skippered the family-owned and operated Gemini and other similar Pacific Northwest fishing boats in the late 1970s in a number of fisheries from Homer, Alaska. He is exhibiting the navigational artifacts of the Western Flyer that have not been seen for 40 years. Sponsored by Fisherman's Wharf Association.

             Prof. Bill Gilly: “To the Sea of Cortez in the Wake of the Western Flyer.” Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station’s authority on squid organized the ambitious 2004 expedition of the “Gus D” to revisit the Sea of Cortez collection locations of the Steinbeck-Ricketts expedition to the Gulf of California in 1940 aboard the Western Flyer. Sponsored by the Fish Hopper Restaurant, Cannery Row.

            John Gregg: “Restoration of the Western Flyer.” Marine geologist and new owner of the Western Flyer and the force behind her future as a sea-going classroom to inspire kids into the marine sciences; he himself was inspired into his field in his youth by Ed Ricketts’ Between Pacific Tides inter-tidal handbook (Stanford University Press best seller) and John Steinbeck’s Log From The Sea of Cortez. John and his brother Andy made the surprise Public Announcement of the rescue and restoration vision for the world-famous Western Flyer at February 2015’s SYMPOSIUM. Sponsored by Monterey Bay Boatworks

            Michael Kenneth Hemp (Master of Ceremonies): “Ed Ricketts’ Pacific Biological Laboratories contact card files from the 1936 Lab fire recovered.” Cannery Row historian and Cannery Row Ricketts and Steinbeck authority; 1983 creator of the Cannery Row Foundation and currently President of the Board of Directors; owner of The History Company; consultant to the Western Flyer; creator and producer of the Cannery Row Symposiums. Recounts the very recent CRF recovery of over 2,250 Ed Ricketts' PBL world-wide scientific contacts and school biological supply contacts cards "lost" after the 1936 fire at Pacific Biological Laboratories—conveyed to Ed Ricketts Jr.. Also first evidence of Ricketts' guerrilla marketing campaign for publication of "Between Pacific Tides." Sponsored by the InterContinental Clement Monterey.

            Donald Kohrs: “Publication of the Revised Second Edition of Between Pacific Tides, 1948.” Don Kohrs—Librarian of the Harold A. Miller Library of Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University—is the hottest groundbreaking Ed Ricketts researcher on the planet. This presentation is part of his substantial new and previously unknown research detail that is re-writing much of what has been previously understood about America’s most famous ecologist, Edward F. Ricketts and his odyssey to re-publication supported by truly stunning evidence. Sponsored by Fisherman's Wharf Association.

            Allen Petrich: “A Brief History of West Coast Boatyards.” Olympia, Washington's Pacific Coast Boatyard Historian and grandson of A. M. Petrich, owner of Western Boatbuilding Company, Tacoma, Washington—builder of the Western Flyer, 1937, with partners Frank and Tony Berry—in a historical presentation the origins & evolution of fishing boats, the purse seiner in particular, and practices on the Pacific Coast. Sponsored by Monterey Bay Boatworks

            Prof. Susan Shillinglaw: "'He Aches Me Like a Missing Arm': Steinbeck's Ricketts and Ricketts' Steinbeck." Professor of English at San Jose State University; former Director of the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University. She teaches English at San Jose State University as the leading Steinbeck and Ricketts scholar in the country and prolific author and lecturer on those topics. She recently became Director of the National Steinbeck Center (Salinas), and has for years been a Cannery Row Foundation Board Member. Sponsored by Fisherman's Wharf Association.

            Prof. Steve Webster: “An Addiction to the Sea of Cortez I’ve shared with Ed Ricketts; (subtitle) And stuff Steinbeck and Ricketts never saw.” One of the original group of Hopkins Marine Station's conceptual developers of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, with the perspective of a career Cannery Row marine biologist and his 101 trips to the sea of Cortez. He explains his personal appreciation of the addiction to the Sea of Cortez he’s shared with Ed Ricketts. Steve was an early Foundation  Board Member. Sponsored by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Presenters Order

Michael Hemp                    Master of Ceremonies

Richard Astro                     Keynote; "Breaking Through"

Steve Webster                   Sharing Ed Ricketts’ addiction to the Sea of Cortez

Bill Gilly                              Voyage of the Gus D in the wake of the Western Flyer

Dennis Fry                         A Skipper of the Western Flyer/Gemini with artifacts

Lunch and Press Conference (with Western Flyer exhibit)

Allen Petrich                       Pacific Coast boatyards history

Kevin Bailey                       Western Flyer and the Pacific Northwest Fisheries

Michael Hemp                    EFR business contact cards recovered (Intro’s to Kohrs)

Don Kohrs                          Between Pacific Tides 2^nd Edition

John Gregg                        Western Flyer owner’s update                   

Susan Shillinglaw              Steinbeck's Ricketts and Ricketts' Steinbeck