A tribute to Nelson "Hammer" Beideman

(from the August, 2006 issue of National Fisherman)

Nelson Beideman, known to just about everyone as Hammer, died on May 25. He died at home while puttering around the house with his wife Terri. I’m pretty sure that’s the way he would have wanted it, and that makes it a little easier, but not much.

It seems that I knew Hammer for as long as I’ve been involved in fishing. He was getting his feet dry after years on the water, and I was getting my feet wet after years as a researcher and bureaucrat.

This was in the late eighties when some influential people had decided to put the East coast pelagic longline fleet out of business. They weren’t successful, and though they’ve continued in their efforts, domestic longline caught swordfish and tuna are still available.

Hammer and his wife and partner Terri were the primary roadblock to the antis back then, and they continued to be for most of the last two decades. Despite the ill wishes of a lot of powerful people with money and political influence, the longliners are still fishing, the swordfish stocks they target are rebuilt, and the pelagic longline fishery on the East coast has become a model for cooperative fisheries research. This was almost entirely due to the efforts of Blue Water Fishermen’s Association and Hammer, who served since its inception as its brain, its heart, its soul and its conscience.

But this column isn’t going to be a memorial to him. That’s being done elsewhere. It’s going to be a lesson to all of us on getting involved in the fisheries management process, and in doing it right, because that’s what Hammer did, and he did it better than just about anyone else.

The best way I can describe his approach to fisheries management is with a couple of examples. Back in the days before email, whenever I’d see a long “tongue” of paper hanging out of the machine and coiled up in a pile on the floor, I’d know it was from Blue Water. If you were on the list, you could look forward to regularly getting a twenty, thirty or forty page fax on highly migratory species management. These missives were put together by Hammer (and Terri) in exhaustive detail. Whether it was dealing with domestic or international aspects of the fishery, about biology or the politics behind the biology, about catching swordfish and tuna or not catching turtles and marlin, he covered it. And he knew it cold. And he expected everyone in Blue Water to know it as well. He was thorough to a fault.

And then, two years ago I went to New Orleans with him for a series of meetings with Blue Water’s Gulf contingent. Everyone knows that New Orleans is home of some of the best restaurants in the world. Everyone also knows that hotel food is usually pretty dismal. It certainly was at the hotel we stayed in, which was where the meetings were held. In those two days, we didn’t leave the hotel once. Not for food, not for jazz, not for anything. We were there to brief Blue Water members, to do Blue Water business, and that’s what we did. We did it from when we arrived to when we left. I can safely say that most of the rest of us aren’t anywhere near that diligent.

He fully appreciated that the Devil was in the details, and I doubt he ever left his members in the lurch because one of those details got past him. If there were a meeting coming up – in the U.S. or abroad – where the HMS fishery was on the agenda, he would be there if he could. If he couldn’t,  he’d make every effort to have someone there in his place. And he’d make sure his replacement was thoroughly briefed beforehand.

When it came to HMS matters, to say he was persistent would be a vast understatement. He went through proposed regulations until he understood them completely. Then he explained them to Blue Water’s board. Then he hammered a consensus out of them, and considering the varying personalities and business interests that he was dealing with, that could seem almost miraculous. But when he took his marching orders, he knew he had a majority of the Board behind him.

He also recognized that, no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t do it all. So he brought together an effective team of consultants and lawyers, who did what he wasn’t able to. They were, and are, among the best in the business, because he knew that’s what it took to get the job done.

And, last but certainly not least, he excelled at building strategic alliances. Whether it was with researchers or environmentalists or recreational fishing representatives, if he saw that cooperation was the way to proceed, that’s what he did. Much of his work at ICCAT (the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas – the guys that manage our Atlantic HMS fisheries) is a testament to that, but his leadership in reducing interactions with sea turtles was his crowning achievement, resulting in an international outreach program which is benefiting commercial hook fishermen – and sea turtles – everywhere. 

Hammer figured out how to build, operate and fund a truly effective commercial fishing trade organization. We can all learn a lot from how he did it, and I hope you all do. I know I did.

Nils E. Stolpe